First, it was a car.

A two hour drive in and out of town. Grocery stores, doctors offices, restaurants and malls. Traffic lights, stop signs and four-way intersections. All the comforts of urbanity unlocked by the hum and whir of the family four-seater. 

A sprawling mountainscape fills the skyline for the first fifteen minutes of the drive. Its valley dips low, peaking in flatheaded caps. Several sharp turns and steep hills later, you get real close to the water. In bad weather, the ocean spray soaks the road. In snowy weather, the road disappears.

You then get into cove territory. Craterous potholes chew the asphalt up into gravel. Houses, great and small, shabby and smart, dot the road’s hilly shoulders. Some stand alone on sprawling land. Others practically rest atop each other, amongst steep hills. Women in slippers stand by their doors, minding their children and dogs between the deep drags of a morning cigarette. Their men snowblow around them. The shore woke up as we drove through it.

“I can’t believe you’ve never really driven to town before,” my mother told me as I prepared for a belated drivers license test. Driving and being driven are certainly two different experiences. When you drive, you fixate on the lines on the road and the headlights of passing cars. The more you focus on driving, the less you focus on the drive. You can’t see the water churn and sparkle, the sleeping tabby in a passing window. You miss the small wonders of the commute. Heavy is the head that drives the car.

I grew up in the car. Forgotten math homework would be blearily completed in the car. Many novels have been finished in the car. My hair has dried in the car. I’ve done my makeup more times in the car than I can count. It’s the final place of reprieve before facing the world: job interviews, school, work, the shit of life. The car is my private world. 

Then, it was buses.

My first encounter with Halifax’s public transit was when I was nine. It was summertime and the city was sunbaked in the midmorning sunshine, green and diffused by the shady treetops. The bus was full of people. None of them seemed unsure. Everyone knew exactly where to get off, where to go and what they were doing. Some read, some listened to music, some stared off into the blur of the street — some people even stood. 

I sat there beside my mother, her friend and my sister. I decided, at that moment, that taking the bus alone was the single coolest act of adult life. Riding the twisting route alone and undaunted was a statement of individuality. A silver knight riding into battle. A shining star hurtling through space at 40 km/h. I wanted to grow up and ride the bus.

Now, I do. Every day, multiple times a day, I ride the bus. It’s lost some of its shine, I will admit. I find myself missing the security of the car, driving at its own pace through the same quiet, coastal scenes. The moment of silence between turning off the engine and stepping into the world. The warmth of a fabric seat, the luxury of my own window. The sight of my older sister in the seat next to mine.

But now and then, I find myself looking at my own reflection in the glow of the bus window. I am older now, and alone. It hurtles through the dark of night, its hollow stomach protecting passengers from the bite of the cold. I hold the metal-backed seat in front of me. I might miss the car, but the bus keeps moving.