September 28, 2006

• Turning Left is Turning Right
  I am at the steering wheel, stationed matter-of-factly on the right side of the car, which is positioned to peel out onto the left side of the road (see footnote 1). I am an ex-Girl Scout. I have scrabbled up mountains. I have survived Chicago winters. I am a lentil eater, a long distance runner. I am Gretel. I am Athena. I am Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

  I can do this.

  “Turn on the ignition. Check the hand break. Check the clutch. Push the clutch to the floor. Shift to first gear. Gently, gently now, lift the clutch to mid-position. Feel the car rise? Keep the pedal midway whilst you check your interior mirror (that’s Scottish for the rear-view) and the right-side mirror and blind spot. Good to go? Step lightly on the gas and pull out. Take your foot off the gas, press down on the clutch and shift to second gear and hit the gas again.” (See footnote 2.)

  I am going 15 miles an hour and it feels like flying. Like finally standing up on water skis after countless turns thwarted by mouthfuls of fishy lake water, vicious shoulder dislocation, and brutal lacerations by the handle rope. Also like my attempts at water skiing, victory is short-lived.

  “Okay, now take your foot off the gas, hit the clutch, and punch into third gear.”

  Look at me! Look at me! I’m driving, ma!

  “Okay, now we’re nearing a round-about.”

  What? A what?!?

  “I’ve never done one before. Who has the right of way?”
  “You’ve never done a round-about?”
  “No–they don’t have them in the States.”

  Don’t panic. You can do this. Be like Buffy. You are the Slayer.

  “Oh no. We need to pull over. Put your signal on; check your interior and left mirror. Take your foot off the gas, break a bit, hit the clutch…”

  So many instructions! So much information! There must be a short cut! There is not. Be quick, Buffy. Keep up.

  “Go into first. We’re all clear. Pull over. Break. Clutch. Shift to neutral. Hand break. Okay, let’s turn off the car and I’ll get us turned around to a quieter street.” Mere inches in front of us, speedy motorists whisked around on the turn-about while we played a quick game of Chinese Fire Alarm.

  My American moxie must be more potent than I realize, because apparently when I explained to my instructor, Roddy, that I hold an American drivers license and have been driving for nearly nine years, he took it to mean that I was ready to rehearse Evil Keneival stunts. I signed up for lessons to understand European driving laws and learn to drive a stick, as automatic transmissions are virtually non-existent in the UK and I am in the market for a used car to get me to good Scottish hiking trails (see footnote 3). And now, in the oddly situated passenger seat to my left, the instructor who was moments ago chuckling when I used the word “stick” to describe the manual transmission (apparently, people in the UK don’t use that jaunty, phallic bit of American slang), was now in the process of swallowing a silent scream. I studied Roddy’s face–the forced soothing of his furrowed brow, the dry-mouthed gulp entangling his Adams apple–and remembered learning to drive the first time around, a panicked American teenager haplessly navigating the streets of suburban Detroit…

  Throughout my girlhood, I fantasized about driving. Some girls imagine themselves brides or mommies, but I entertained daydreams that I was a hyper-real crossbreed between Speed Racer and an Agent of Espionage. In certain scenes, I would be drag racing, like in Grease only I wore a sleek racing helmet and leather jumpsuit, and no one would know who I was, only that I was crazy to race against Freddy Nostrils, the most infamous racer in town. When the red flag was dropped (by a giddy bombshell in fuchsia hot pants) and the Nostril car was left spraying dirt from its tires, my Lamborghini would jet off like the Batmobile, seamless and stealthy. At the finish line, I would seethe from my car and lift my racing helmet from my head, letting my long, suddenly silken brunette locks fall about me in glamorous, film-nior style. A collective gasp would resound from the crowd. A greasy Captain Obvious would squawk: “she’s a girl! Nostrils was beat by a girl!”
  “That’s woman to you, pal,” I would say before getting back into my black Lamborghini to save the world.

  Needless to say, driving on a learners permit with mom in the passenger seat was nothing like the sexy driving fantasies I’d concocted. Especially not on the day I sat in a parking lot, shaking, sobbing, ranting that the car was “a fucking death-trap.”

  I was driving to a music lesson. My mom was in the passenger seat. She usually narrated my drives, providing a soothing Greek chorus to accompany my anxiety-ridden navigation. But today we were bickering. I had gotten cocky. I was being a Rotten Teenager.

  The route we were traveling entailed a tricky Michigan Left, and the traffic I was to turn in to was unrelenting. I was itching with everything–the traffic, my mom, myself. The constant stream of cars became a metaphor for teenage life: constantly waiting to enter a world you are sure you are ready for. I was sick of waiting. I was sure that the best way was just to dive in, head first, ready or not.

  Honking horns are the loudest noise in the world. The second loudest noise is that of blood coursing through your veins. This happens when your human heart has been replaced with that of a rabbits. It makes you hot and shivery all at once. It makes you sorry. It makes you sob to think that you could have killed your mother by driving so recklessly. It makes you call the car a fucking death trap.

  And imagine, a mother, undoubtedly experiencing some of these reactions to a near crash, quietly swallowing a silent scream and telling you that it was okay, that you would get better. That, most importantly, you would never make that mistake again.

  How did my mom do it? How did Roddy do it? If I were trapped in a car with a student driver barreling headlong towards a round-about teeming with motorists, or thrust into a reckless Michigan Left, I’m not so confident that I would be able to so calmly instruct her to pull over and try again.

  Like my mom, Roddy never let my mishaps shake him. He let me try, try again, choking back whatever silent scream might have bubbled up, praising me (miraculously) when I was on the right track. And so I got better. And better still I will get.

  My next lesson is on Sunday. Wish me luck on those round abouts! (See footnote 4.)

  Footnotes
  1.) According to a serendipitously related article in today’s issue of The Independent (a favored British newspaper), Britons have been traveling on the left side of the road since feudal times, when aristocrats rode on the left to better draw and wield their swords with their right hands. The right side of the road was reserved for peasants.

  Also cited by The Independent, travel on the right side of the road was introduced to the Netherlands after Napoleon’s conquest of 1795. In a symbol of democracy, Napoleon decreed that all citizens, not just peasants, should travel on the right.

  2.) My description of operating a manual transmission is gleaned from my first lesson and thus may be riddled with error. Please do not try this at home.

  3.) The city of Glasgow has a remarkably good public transit system: a subway and reliable, grand double-decker busses. You do not need a car to live in or visit this city. However, there are many superb hiking trails (not to mention the bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond) within an hour of here that are best accessed by car. (It was a goal of mine to hike my heart out this year.)

  4.) The entering driver to your right has the right-of-way on UK roundabouts. Also, they call yellow lights “amber lights” in Scotland. The light turns amber between green and red, as well as between red and green.
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  Any driving tips? How did you learn to drive?

  ::Random Tangent::
  Good news! We got internet hook-up at home today! The library internet blocks nearly every site known to man, Shaun’s ebay account info was stolen while using a public connection, and hauling my laptop to internet cafes where I had to pay for stuff was beginning to suck hard core. Especially as I search for a job! Now that we’ve got internet, I’ve churned out 10 applications to serve in various, non-stressful, clerical positions in Glasgow. Days prior to this, it was slower going with the slow internet library and sessions timing out, ect. So yeah. Very happy about this.

  Also, I read a great interview with SNL queen, Amy Poehler in the most recent BUST Magazine. The interview was so spectacular, I have to tell everyone to read it. It gave me such a boost. Of her hopes for today’s girls, Poehler states: “I want them to feel that they can be sassy and full and weird and geeky and smart and independent, and not so withered and shrivled.” Poehler also said, “I’m over this weird, exhausted girl. I’m over the girl that’s tired amd freezing and hungry. I like bossy girls, I always have. I like people filled with life. I’m over this weird media thing with all this, like, hollow-eyed party crap.” Almost directly after reading the interview, I had the pleasure of listening to a Margaret Atwood lecture at Shaun’s university (a blog about which is coming soon). Two feminist perspecives in one week! I thought I’d died and gone to heaven.

  • 11:14 am
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