Driving to Sleep

I've found that one of the requirements of fatherhood is the ability to deal with a child that just won’t go to sleep. It’s a lot easier to deal with when they’re younger, as they are less mobile. My daughter is almost two, so her nighttime fussyness has made the transition from just screaming to screaming and running and throwing and out-and-out tantrums.

Last night, around nine, when she should be in or getting to bed, my daughter was doing everything she could to disturb her pregnant-with-twins mother and myself, so I resorted to the old standby of packing her in the car, putting on mellow music (classical or, as was the case last night, jazz), and driving around until she fades off into what has to be the best sleep, as it refreshes her and gives her the energy the following day to go about her day like a squirrel, dipping and bouncing and running every which way.

I like our little town in the woods, so I try to not take the same route twice when I get out with her at night (usually once or twice a week). Last night I drove up to the top of the hill that the town is built on, and as I started down the other side I saw the last layer of Pentecost red sky disappear behind the hills and mountains in the distance. In the mirror I could see my daughter in her seat, playing with her ears. That’s a telltale sign that sleep is imminent.

I took a left and drove through a rich neighborhood, one of those small, protected groupings of obese houses on lots that had once been farmland. Every lawn was perfect, two-and-a-half inches in height, and by the light of the streetlamps I could see that they were dark green and weed-free, without variation in the blades. One thing they also didn’t have were fireflies, which I have thousands of where I live just a few miles away, and which I saw many of as I passed through the developed parts of the neighborhood to the still-open hayfields that are untouched in life but divided on maps into zoned lots up for sale.

After passing through the (according to their website) “thoughtfully designed… scenic and private community”, I turned a corner and got back on the main road, a mile or two past where I had turned off earlier. Someone on the radio was doing a slow rendition of Miles Davis’ “So What”, and as I got to the top of the hill again I looked in the mirrors and saw that the sun was all gone for now.

When I got home, I took my daughter out of her seat, and she stirred a bit and patted me on the back as she buried her head in the corner of my neck and shoulder. I had been out driving for no more than fifteen, maybe twenty minutes. Before I left the garage and put her to bed I waited for the security light to click off out front, and I saw a dozens of fireflies moving through the air like the green light at the end of Daisy Buchanan’s dock.