We have a small family of two and I as the Mama make most our decisions even while I strive, really, to lend agency for my son, who is 12 and in 7th grade. Not lend as a loan borrowed that he need repay. Freely given in ways I keep trying and even ask, “How is your independence now? What do you think about this idea I have for our next family activity?” He will pause or wonder or negate or confirm.

Like most humans we are living our family life from moment to moment, best we can. Some grace and usually damn lucky grit. Mostly I have no idea what is going on yet I imbue the universe with love and fear and expectation that everything will be ok. One night, though, even I wondered just how far I might test limits as in good intentions perhaps gone awry? I wanted to return our family back to Monterey, which was hundreds of miles away, yet was the impulse to drive the entire stretch overnight too jubilant?

Limits as in healthy boundaries such as those daily disciplines that parallel park my impulsive sides, and I got them good, the jumpy cues to go several directions at once. After living several decades in an urban street sprawl called San Francisco, I can parallel park quite well (she adds, humbly) but staying curbed in, impulses parked, can be challenging for my temperament.

A few months ago on a summer Sunday evening, 20 July 2023, a New Mexico campground had thickly swirling high temperatures, some breeze, and, then again, starchly dry heat. That beauty though, the sunset sky blistering every shade of red, yellow, orange, and brown as far as visibly mesmerizing goes. Massively chunky and yet elegantly tall canyon walls surrounded one dimension where we sat outside on a desolate picnic bench on a threadbare sandy patch.

The place is a Native American Indian reservation with its own post office a short walk away. A horse arena was nearby and an art museum and community gathering building resided there, too. Guess makes sense one expensive RV and our $24 tent were the only occupants for the space appeared to function as big group eventing. Spooky though all that vacant designed-for-camping acreage. Given the 58 years I inhabit, when eerie arrives, my curiosity follows. But we are two in the family and for the 7th grader, he opts for familiar predictable. And I can respect that zone.

We had paid $15 to camp here this night and I had nestled into that mode—when my long time friend (one of the characters who comprise my soul-energy) RI showed up; RI is Radical Impulse and she lives with me, mostly well, and, alas, we can agree to disagree.

Surely some creative bounce is positive as long as anchoring factors exist. For example, we are driving on this road trip through Cali, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona in a compact Nissan Versa. Darkly gray sturdy color on the outside (purchased brand new a few years before) and new interior on the inside for comfy relaxing. Around 8 p.m. I sat in the passenger seat up front, relaxing, while in the works was my attempt to take a half hour power nap (yes, this Mama takes evening naps). Darien sat in the back chatting amiably as I tried to sleep.

In that liminal place of not sleeping yet listening to him talk, I realized that I had rejuvenated and energy returned. So I asked him. “What if we drove through the night for a return to Monterey?” We had 850 miles before us from Gallup, New Mexico to northern Cali, a driving bonanza. RI was doing somersaults for the yes answer. Rooooooooad trip, she kept hollering. My truest side as in kuleana (responsible) Mama wondered how wise the decision might be.

“Let's do this,” my son chanted, giving up on even trying to keep a middle schooler's cool demeanor. Camping is one of his least favorite activity and yet his Mama's favorite. He really wished to leave the campsite and I wished to stay. We work towards compromises as we go. Hearing his enthusiasm, I decide on the go. We decide on the go as in family agency as a unit.

The older I age, the more frugal daily living dynamics I welcome. Even simplicity material items need organizing before a long-haul road trip. Plenty hydration up front for the quest: lemonade, water, and iced tea—the big bottles. And one quart of cold brew coffee, quite potent for around 7 p.m. I poured filtered water over expensive ground coffee beans then set the bottle on the campground picnic table. At this hour we still had 85 degree temperatures and full sun so steeping was effortless. An hour later, nature's sunshine had made some of the highest ono (delicious) coffee possible. Deeply caffeinated this coffee method achieves, so my plan was to sip a few gulps (yes, a gulp can be a sip) strategically to fuel my energy in measured increments and last me until the sun rose in the morning, meaning when we had driven beyond the Mojave Desert.

For whatever reason I can work in 15 minute time windows throughout a day (multitude of personality tics) and I confirmed reliable 65 miles per hour on a wide well-paved modern New Mexico freeway just as 8:45 p.m. clicked on the clock. Darien had begun to sleep comfortable in the back, a soft blanket and a fluffy pillow made for his leisurely travel. Gas tank was full and that first-sipped caffeine gulp gave me gentle cruise control right on time.

Leaving New Mexico went too fast—one of my cherished places to travel—yet we were already at the western border and driving in the dark swiftly could happen for all those bright lights. Housing, businesses, and random bric-n-brac fluorescent blasts that build a canopy from sidewalk to 40th floor in the office building, somebody working late hours, create artificial light as far as your eye can see in a nocturnal modern city. But after a few hours the change began.

Into rural stretches of land, I had the faintest nick of wonder, some might even label the word fear—what in the hell was I doing? Would I drive safely enough? Another human life is in my charge, I remembered. Am I making the right decision for our family? What if I fall asleep at the wheel? Other drivers can be wild reckless on these rural country roads, right?

Then I placed my thoughts better aligned with the caffeine slug I had just had and accepted that steady as she goes is the ticket—not a Greyhound one, a Nissan Versa reliable car and reliable driver type of transport. We would be fine, I imagined. Darien was sound asleep in the back of the car. I could hear a few air shuffles as he breathed in that slumber state.

Only a few hours after leaving the Gallup campground, I was clipping along in the rural nightime on a swiftly paced freeway. Other drivers routinely kept 70 miles per hour as the go-to while I dropped more into the 65 mph zone or even slower. I stayed far in the slow lane, minding my own business, giving traffic an easy pass.

Around 11 15 p.m. (damn neurotic tic) all car windows are open half way; plenty circulating air we need for temperatures dip into low 80s. Even in northern Arizona mountains, familiar night time chilly air is completely absent on this July evening. Deal is that I have never driven these roads—during the day—so I cannot know what is beyond the 15 feet or so that my headlights shine. I have no idea what is out there. And that human made bioluminescence called being on the paid for electrical grid is long gone in the rear view mirror. Pitch black out in these environs.

Mountain driving means curves, switchbacks, inclines, declines, and once in a grateful occasion, a direct path. Seeing with my fatigued eyes in that much darkness meant I needed assistance. Quickly, I learned to learn from others on the road.

When I write about “other cars” on the road I am describing the random one or two that appear. What we had were trucks. Hundreds of them and I was new to the experience. Very long, very heavy trucks, weighing many tons, will rattle a small compact car like I am driving this long night. Each one would gust wind and the Nissan Versa was a kite on a string yanked this way and that as each truck passed. If they did.

Some would simply stay right behind me. For miles and miles. After another one of the well-timed coffee sips, I began to conjure plot scenarios on how my family would fare if the breaks on one of those trucks were to give. Having recently taken a Hawai'i Department of Motor Vehicle written exam (and passed, thank the driving goddess), I learned that—honest to God's truth—the responsibility is on the driver in front of the truck to get out of the way, if and should and when speeding many-tonnage trouble occurs. I took the test after this adventure, yet my instincts aligned before, for when I would see in the rear view and side mirrors one of these steel mammoths barreling down on me, I moved to the fast lane to get out of the way. Sure enough the truck would race ahead in the “slow” lane.

This driving dynamic was one element that I had to learn intuitively in the moment (thank you meditation teachers for breathe work). Also, given that my eyesight becomes strained and fatigued in night time driving, I knew to be careful. Maybe locate a rest stop and take a break was one naive idea I had, among many on this journey. When the rest stop sign appeared, I inhaled a breathe called hope that maybe I could relax a short while. Yet as I approached, I saw 50 or 60 or 70 or 80 trucks already parked there, so I continued forward.

Three strategies helped. Way out there in the middle of northern Arizona, a place entirely foreign to my life experience, I listened to the road. We took mountains up hill for miles and miles and miles—then the descent. Long windy curves and some more abrupt. Familiar ways of knowing were not at my disposal. Again, I couldn't see a damn thing in the dark rural beyond. In this way I felt like I was sailing on an ocean where one never knows when land will appear. Wondering what I could claim as familiar, I stared for a few seconds out the open window, elbow resting on the car frame.

Now I discovered the well-lit anchors for my emotions—the brilliant stars strewn wide and far in that crystal clear night sky above. On my right side was a dark cliff like ledge that I had no idea what was what. But on my left, the shining stars. And those I stared at often and often. They reassured me that as I sped along, the eternal constants were up there, guiding the way.

My listening to the road and decoding the stars helped me recall the Polynesian double hulled canoe-boat Hokulea. Modeled on two thousands years of expertise sailing in Polynesia waters—without gadgetry, only pure knowledge of stars and ocean—on this sophisticated and complex boat, Native Hawaiians navigated any world waters. To emphasize the point, in 2014, a team sailed Hokulea for 47,000 nautical miles, 85 ports, and 26 countries. Three years later the crew and boat had circumnavigated the world.

This driving night I needed Hokulea as inspiration, ancients and moderns relying on astute human senses to thrive on nature's knowledge. Even though the asphalt road is human built, underneath are earth's soils. As the stars shifted some and moved compass degrees higher and lower in the deeply crystal black night, I kept watching them and I trusted that this road trip was in forward direction that made sense. Native Hawaiians are some of the world's most gifted, talented sailors by adhering to the stars and what they revealed. As strategy one this worked to humbly stay inspired through Hawaiian maritime culture.

Strategy two was the old classic to ask for help. I was a novice to these roads yet the truck drivers were not. I followed their lead. For a two hour stretch I simply stayed right behind a Fed Ex truck, the behemoth type. I stayed far enough behind so that as an incline or decline or turn happened, I had advance warning right before me. The driver stayed at 65 mph the entire time. My bid for assistance was quiet in the night, yet the admission was there as I disciplined myself to follow an other's lead. The process worked well.

Continuing to rely on caffeine in cold brew coffee, I also remained in the curiosity lane including empathy: what might a trucker's existence be like? Long hours with cargo that matters one way or the other. An ancient craft, in a way, to deliver the goods. Thankless yet vital, perhaps. Whatever the conversation on whether we need all those Amazon Prime trucks carrying tschotkes, we still have humans behind the wheel, night after night, pulling the heavy shift. If I indulge the comparison, and I guess I will, truckers are similar to night marchers as the phrase goes in Hawaiian culture.

Night marchers are ancients who walk from mountain top to ocean coastline as reminder that native cultures must remain visible to protest colonialism extremes. They carry torches and some say are ghosts, yet when witnessed one is not to look into their eyes or their direction—out of respect. I never saw a trucker in person, and driving hundreds of miles might be an example of corporate excess, and still these trucker night marchers somehow seem in that honor zone that a job well done is an ancient skill that signifies dignity.

Several of these truckers helped guide me through the arduous task of driving safely through foreign terrain. And for this long night I also gifted my imagination hope that a few drivers were women. (Later research showed familiar prejudices that limit a woman's truck driver career progress. Visit http://www.womenintrucking.org to ally and support female truckers.)

The third strategy was to recognize my energy limits. I was tired. Not sleepy, simply fatigued from so much concentration in the newness of an unexpected sensory jaunt—especially the 2 15 am escapade. Sleeping soundly until now, Darien woke up and asked, “Why did you turn the heater on full blast?” The car air was absolutely stifling. Now we had arrived to Needles, California—all of Arizona well behind us—and 115 degrees was the temperature. So far we had been sailing along well in the low 90s. The brief nap I had been hoping for had to be postponed until this stretch of road traveled.

The temperature felt like when you open the oven and that gust of heated air makes you step back and take a breathe. No stepping back from this surrounding air. We had all the windows fully down and drove this way for an hour, praying for the minimal wind of cooler air, a slight change perhaps, and we got nothing. The way through was the way through. One blessing was the increase in ambient light as cities had begun to appear again and so I could more easily see. Still, the heat.

The grumpy 7th grader complained as if I had some control over radical weather (takes all of me to align just with RI, radical impulse) and I murmured that soon enough our crossing the Mojave Desert meant mountains on the other side and those bring decreased temps. In the middle of the night we kept driving and, mostly, the heat discomfort was behind us. When I spied a rest stop that appeared to have room for cars, I took my chance.

Asking Darien to go with the flow and be patient (even middle schoolers can go there), I took a 30 minute nap. Refreshed and ready to pursue the goal, we returned to the road. Seems strange to be grateful for going several miles up a steeper mountain side, yet ascent meant cooler temps, and even those few degrees lower made a world of difference. We had driven through the challenging zone and were on the other side. As that mountain lead into hundreds of miles of flat lands, I could lean back and take in the night sky with stars and breathe easier. A direct line forward on adequate freeway asphalt makes for smooth progress.

Because I had driven this road when we made the approach to Las Vegas a week ago, even without light, I could sense what was out there. That reassurance made me hum some, a low whistle that had some innocence making me feel even more naive for what I had decided to do and did and now almost had done. When I burst into laughter is when I checked the gas gauge and saw that we were close to empty. All the other precautions and I had forgotten to monitor a strategic basic one.

And on these long desert stretches a gas station might appear—every fifty miles or so. Back to holding my breathe as 5 15 a.m. began to bid the new day. The faintest strip, barely a whisp of the painter's brush lining the sand-filled horizon a luminescent gray, yet discernible still, was sunrise. I almost cried. The pacing to find a gas station kept me too busy, though.

Thirty awkward minutes later, driving especially slow to conserve gas, in the middle of desert no where (with all due respect to the locals), a hub of coffee and doughnuts and petrol appears. No joke to say I paused as in “Is that a mirage?” Alas, standing at the pump now soaking in the rush of stark pinks, grays, oranges, and reds that the sunrise bombards my fatigued retinas with, the day is real. Cooler now at 90 degrees, a slight wind, and a full tank of gas we returned to the predictable path that carried us feebly to the finish line—Monterey, California around 4 15 p.m. that Monday afternoon. A few pit stops, clearly, in between the Bakersfield gas station where I stood to fuel up and Monterey.

In a cozy northern California family home, took me three days to rebalance my energy. What I saw as I pictured myself behind the wheel all those hours was that sweet spot where practiced energy is well-calibrated confidence paired with practical faith—guessing that I could make the voyage. Would I consider going rogue again? Hell, yes.

Then again, these decisions are based on how the entire family chimes in, the actual voice in empowered.