The Ten-Minute Drive That Spoke Volumes

 

                                              After more than 60 years of Driving

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The Ten-Minute Drive That Spoke Volumes

By Shamsul Bahari

I had hoped for a peaceful morning. InshaAllah, I whispered to myself before the first sip of tea. No grand plans, just a slow, productive day—perhaps to pick up the pen or brush again after a long creative silence. The spirit stirred quietly, half-curious, half-cautious.

Then came the call to duty.

A simple chore: drive the children—grown, yet somehow still dependent—to their office. Nothing dramatic. Ten minutes there, ten minutes back. What could go wrong in ten minutes?

As it turned out, quite a bit.

It began with a suggestion, or rather a command, from my 34-year-old son, who was not yet licensed and had not yet learned the patience it takes to navigate both traffic and life. “You should drive better,” he said, from the passenger seat—an irony so rich it would’ve been funny if not so irritating.

I held my tongue. Mostly.

Then came the chorus of honks. Three in ten minutes. Angry horns from drivers in a hurry to get somewhere more important than where I was going. Perhaps I was too slow for their taste, too cautious, too… elderly?

But let me say this: I have been driving for sixty years. I’ve driven in deserts and snowstorms, along fishing ports in Alaska, through the madness of KL traffic, and the quiet winding roads of Terengganu. I have driven with sleeping children in the back and dying elders beside me. I have driven friends to weddings and strangers to funerals. I have pulled over to admire sunsets, to cry, to pray, to vomit from grief, to change flat tyres in the rain.

I know how to drive.

What I do not know is how to please people in a hurry to nowhere, or how to remain untouched when my own child speaks to me as though wisdom has an expiry date.

And yet, I drove on.

Sometimes, a ten-minute drive is not just about getting from one place to another. It’s a trial—a test of patience, dignity, and restraint. A test I nearly failed, but didn’t.

Back home now, the engine silent, I sit with this morning’s discord still buzzing in my chest. The sketchbook remains closed, but perhaps the first lines of the day have already been drawn—etched not in graphite, but in emotion.

Maybe this, too is art

#ReflectionsOnTheRoad #SilentWisdom #FatherhoodChronicles #UrbanZen #DrivingThroughLife #ElderVoices #EverydayArt