I am not exactly anti-car these days. I was REALLY REALLY anti-car for years.  Then, in 2005 I got a dog. In 2006 I got another.  With one dog, it was reasonable to keep her exercised by walking around town and to get her to the vet by foot.  With two, it was not so doable.  Also in 2006, I had the opportunity to move in the mountains for 6 months, which would have been close to impossible to do without a car, which is what made me finally cave.

Our initial months as car owners were completely disasterous.  We were carjacked before we had even transferred the paperwork for our first car.  We had 10 days before we left town to buy another.  We found the perfect car at a great deal. We overpacked and overloaded the car. About 30 miles out of town, I lost control crashed and totalled it on the highway.  We just wanted to go home and never see a car again, but irreversible committments had been made, so we rented a mini-van and made our way up to Washington, where we bought our 3rd car in 3 weeks.

Although it took us a while to recover from the micro-traumas of what had happened, we loved the mountains of Washington and still think fondly of that time.  Gas prices were high, but since we were both driving for the first time of years, the prices didn’t hurt any more than the cost of having a car for the first time, in general.  Much like when I started driving in high school, our car opened up freedom to leave our regular life and explore.

When I returned home, I discovered that driving actually continued to offer me freedom. I became a regular visitor to parks that had been to far or difficult to visit regularly.  I was amazed that I could get to Fruitvale in less than 15 minutes, which I honestly thought was pretty far from my neighborhood. Friends made fun of me, saying that I was the only person that didn’t realize that public transportation took longer than driving.  Well, it wasn’t so much that, but I really didn’t realize HOW MUCH longer it took.

I went through a phase where I felt almost duped by pro-bike people. I had been convinced that I was more free on a bike, that having a car was something oppressive, that by driving, I would spend all of my time with road rage, looking for parking spaces, and sitting in traffic and inhaling exhaust.  This was not the case…I make my driving choices carefully and can get to most places that I want to go in 10-20 minutes and rarely have trouble parking.  Instead of bike touring, where I was still surrounded and threatened by cars, I was able to get into the forest.

Friends that I knew through biking had various assumptions and/or judgement around my use of a car.  One friend asked (when referring to a 3rd person) “How can someone call themselves  an environmentalist when they drive everywhere?”  Another asked if I was adding other things in my life to rationalize my use of the car, ecologically.

I realized at that point, that I no longer chose to identify as an environmentalist.  I had prioritized building my family by rescuing dogs, adopting kids and having a more balanced life.  I wondered if I was becoming a humanitarian.  As a “(many-things-can go-here)ist”, I was making esthetic choices that the world around me could never live up to. I felt that I was sacrificing, while I saw so many others still chose to “have”.  Making choices without an absolutist perspective has led to me being a much happier and healthier person without as much self-judgement, let alone judgement of others.

I still think that cars are “wrong” in a big picture. I still fantasize about being in an eco-city with fewer roads, better public transportation and, better yet, services that are in walking distance.  I also believe that I would put my money, my car, and my house where my mouth is if I saw that option.  On the other hand, I not yet missed the days of NOT having a car.  I am looking forward to the future that J- and I have planned and I see a car as realistically necessary to have that future.  

I absolutely do feel fearful, sometimes angst-ridden about what is happening to our world, socially and ecologically.  I do believe that we are headed for something catastrophic on both fronts and I think that energy consumption in all forms is integral, among other things to that crisis.  I also think that there are no easy answers and actually that the easiest is to start making individual choices to localize our lives and local efforts to de-auto our communities.