The Drive is Home
This essay is part of Driven, a soulful road series where rest, healing and soft Black womanhood ride shotgun. Each route is ritual. Each playlist, a prayer. Each snack stop, sacred. I drive for the joy, the tears, the testimony—and I document it all.
A meditation on driving as self-care, ritual and reclamation.
Route: 95 S
Stops: 301 Convenience on Jeff Davis Highway
Snacks: Lance Sunflower seeds and green apple Jolly Rancher suckers
Playlist: The Quiet Storm - Kiss FM
Vibe: The beginnings of a safe space to go.
The corner store blocks down from my childhood home told us bloodworms were on sale. In neon lights blinked the call for lotto, a haze of smoke lifted from the flat-top grill near the left back side of the store. It's the late 90s and my mom just ran in for cigarettes. Virginia Slims, her brand of choice, lovingly nestled in her work uniform pocket that smelled of tobacco leaves. I've convinced her to drive around after choir rehearsal and she's preparing to take me around her favorite place: Phillip Morris on 95 South, the one with the giant cig in the front. I'm annoyed but at least I got to ride, a detour from late-night homework and sneaking past my grandfather to not wake him up and get an earful in the morning. In this new car, another one plucked from the side of the road and just as quickly put in her name, I yap to no response about the Spice Girls, me wanting a solo, Whitney Houston, math class, which uniform I wear tomorrow and why no one listens to me. It's here I learn the silence of the road. The deep hum of rubber and asphalt meeting and releasing, the ticks between red, yellow and green. Where the static zones are and when my station ends and hers begins. Quiet Storm intro is engraved across my preteen soul. Smokey. Gladys. Anita. Luther. I start to understand why driving in silence is taking back stolen time, stealing moments for yourself before you go back to being everything to everyone. I sink into the passenger seat and squint to make every car's brake lights look blurry. I wish it was raining so I could fully immerse in this moment, but for now, I'll gaze at that one star that seems to find me when I need it most.
The art of a cut street is the time shaved off your original destination and the fun we have along the way. Is it wind-y? Unruly yet conquerable? Does it unlock the memory of its first discovery every time you take it? That's a cut street. My mom taught me cut streets, shortcuts to saved locations. I don't know why she chose those over the clear, paved paths she was used to, but it showed me there is always another way, another option for home.
When I moved to Maryland, I disabled highway routes on Waze, forcing myself to learn this new state like I was born there. The neglected roads of South Richmond and PG County are similar, one unnecessarily more expensive than the other. I worked in Maryland a few weeks before I moved, but I'd driven up and through DC for years. When navigating the backroads of Greenbelt, I try to contend with why I made this massive move with weeks to prepare on a months-long prayer. What was I running from? And from who was I escaping?
My father kept Fiddle Faddle with him at all times. In between the manual gearshift and center console always sat a half-empty box. He never remembered my no when offered a handful. On our outings, we always took the scenic route past neighboring counties and into Petersburg, VA. Me thinking we were stealing moments like I did with my mom, and him getting far enough away from eyes that'll ask questions later. I knew as much about my father as he would allow. During our rides, he'd tell me all the ways he helped this person, built this thing, broke this barrier, but the one he erected between us remained intact. I remember him telling me how “articulate” I was, almost sounding surprised. Like this person he knew in increments could contain the levels of multitude without his consistent input. I was proud but noticed the shock, the wash that fell over him. It wouldn't be long now, so let's just ride.
1993 GMC Sierra
Both my parents have since left this realm, 13 years apart. When my mother passed and I made the trip from Maryland to Richmond the next day, time and scenery collapsed onto themselves. I don't remember anything about that trip, only the mumbling of NPR and the feeling that a drive didn't feel good at that moment. It didn't soothe me; it just hurt. The amount of times I got lost on purpose just to cry out my pain and talk with myself about the cause. The snack rotation that grew from grief. The hands behind the wheel released two paths that led to roads with no outlet. I drove. And cried. And swallowed. And wailed. That drive didn’t fix anything, but it taught me that everything continues to move even when I’m not in control. Even when I’m not behind the wheel. And that healed something in me, that lost directions lead to new routes. And those new routes lead to opportunities of rest and reclamation.
On the course of many highways, backroads and rest stops, I’ve found solace before and after grief. The rest stops that dot along 64 and 95 I know intimately. I’m ritualistic in my driving, routinely stopping by Wawa to grab my usuals: Lance sunflower seeds, grapes, mini Chocolate Peanut Butter Perfect Bar, fill up my Hydraflow with way too much ice, and, depending on the season, an iced vanilla matcha with light cream or a hot chocolate Chai. I keep my podcast queue updated and my playlists in rotation. Whether I’m taking a trip to Ikea or humming down 85 South to Orlando on a whim, the destination isn’t important: the need for motion, to remind myself forward is a gift and that I take up sacred space in this world, is the call to shift gears. The jostling of my things in my passenger seat remind me of such. Traveling, venturing, exploring by my own means: this is my love letter to myself: a Black woman finding home on the road.
Joi Donaldson is a Virginia-based writer exploring Black womanhood, emotional healing, and the sacred softness of everyday life. She writes about what it means to live gently in a world that doesn’t always offer rest—through solo drives down Southern backroads, rest stop singalongs or the quiet revelations found in stillness.
A part of a newer wave of travel voices, Joi centers Black womanhood, emotional rest, healing and non-traditional destinations. Her work embraces movement—mostly through solo drives—as both a metaphor and storytelling tool, tracing the emotional maps that often go unspoken.
Her essays have appeared in xoNecole, Midnight & Indigo, Lack of Better, and beyond. You can find her wherever the road is quiet, the snacks are plentiful, and the podcast queue is just right.
