Driving, Part One: Getting in the Way of the President of the United States
Dear police and secret service: So sorry I was in the way. That one time in Indianapolis when the former President Bush was held up? July 14, 2005? That was me. I was attending summer school at IUPUI that summer, and I was that last car through – the innocuous gray 2003 Toyota Corolla – before you closed the roads for the President to pass through unimpeded. There I was, the lone car on the streets, in a horror show of mortification, like running some custom-made gauntlet for bumbling oafs like me.
After I rolled down my window and asked inane questions about whether I was allowed through, I didn’t know whether to gun it and get out of the President’s way as fast as I could, or go the speed limit since I was surrounded by more police than I had ever seen in my life. I chose something in between, but whatever it was wasn’t good enough. The police officer who waved me on through just stood shaking his head in disgust at my ineptitude as I started my gauntlet run.
I don’t think there is anything that has ever made me feel more apologetic towards the rest of the human race than driving.
The attendant of a parking lot once told me that in twenty years of running the lot, he had never seen anyone park as stupidly as I had. Needless to say, this made me feel terrific about myself, and did wonders to raise my confidence for the next time I chose to venture outside my house. This man’s kind words will stick with me forever. (And in fact I have never been back to that area – not out of anger, but out of fear of further soul-crushing rebukes from lot attendants.)
Just to be perverse, I sometimes wish to add these items to a CV or resume:
Delayed the President of the United States.
Accomplished the stupidest parking feat ever.
And why not? It might at least get someone’s attention. My “serious” accomplishments turn few heads.
Without a doubt, parking is my worst handicap as a driver, and no degree of practice or strategizing has ever made me any better at it. I will never forget a particularly nasty letter left on my windshield at IUPUI.
I’m not going to elaborate on it any further than that. I’ll just never forget it.
Isn’t it remarkable the way we remember nastiness? It’s like mild PTSD. That’s how it is for me, anyway. It shouldn’t be so. The nastiness of people is what should fall away from our memories, and our minds should vividly hold on instead to the kindnesses people perform. But no such luck. You have to fight to force your mind to hold on to the good things; it’s a deliberate act that you have to decide to do. Meanwhile, the bad memories come upon you at all times unwelcome and unbidden. It’s sort of like how that one bad apple in a classroom can ruin the entire experience from the instructor’s perspective, even though the other 98% of students in the class are the most wonderful human beings imaginable. It’s so sad that the 2% wield such power.
But though the person who left the note on my windshield might have been a bad apple, most of the individuals who roll their eyes in disgust at my driving are not bad apples. They are simply individuals pushed to their limits by their jobs. They are stressed out and paid far too little – and then on top of that, who shows up, but me?
Police officers are often furious with me. The very fact that I ever made the trip down the birth canal seems to piss them off. This is unfortunate, because I have such awe and respect for what they do. But I can see why they would have contempt one such as me. It is probably unnecessary for me to observe that navigating the physical world and dealing with real world issues are not my strong suits.
I can’t imagine how stressful it would be to have to direct traffic. I recall about six months ago a policeman directing traffic at the scene of an accident at an intersection. I hesitated, not sure if I was supposed to be going or not. The officer went into a furious dance – it looked sort of like an 80s break dancing move – pointing accusingly toward me to make my damned left turn, already.
Such wild gesticulations, placing an exclamation point upon my idiocy, haunt me for days, even weeks, replaying in my head, making me unsure whether to laugh or cry. But who am I kidding? Though I’d prefer to salvage part of my existence by using it to bring others laughter, there’s no laughing in it for me.
I hasten to add that my incidents of utter bumbling nincompoopery while driving are relatively unusual. It’s not like I’m a hazard on the road. The only times I struggle are when I am in unfamiliar situations, like at the scene of an accident or in a place I’ve never been before. So, I try my hardest to avoid unfamiliar situations and I stick with the regular commute to work, the regular parking spaces, and so on.
But that kind of proscribed existence is a bit of a problem. In the U.S., the car has long been seen as a prime symbol of independence and roving and freedom and having good times. My own relationship with the automobile, having been fraught with difficulties, is no doubt one element that contributes to my reclusiveness. There is no escaping that the car is how we get places in the United States (well, except maybe in NYC), and more to the point, to other people. If you have trouble driving freely and limitlessly, you will have trouble connecting with others. It’s that simple.
When I was in my early teens I listened to a lot of heavy metal, and I was convinced beyond any doubt that my first ever mode of transportation was going to be a motorcycle. Specifically, a Harley Davidson. No joke. It is truly remarkable how little my young mind comprehended how I’m put together; and it is nothing less than astonishing how long it took me to grasp the full extent of it.
So no, there was never a motorcycle in my life, and there never will be. Indeed, I’ve had many a man dump me because I won’t even get on the back of one. However, this is not through any sheer stick-in-the-mud pigheadedness on my part, but rather it is for others’ protection as well as mine. From what the secret service, police, and parking attendants of the world have already conveyed to me, I do things of stupendous, mind-boggling stupidity – feats which cause others’ minds to reel with incredulity. So my avoidance of motorcycles is a considerate move designed to protect others from peril, since in my extreme awkwardness and clumsiness, even just as a passenger, I would perchance do something to cause us to crash.
I have also missed out on a countless number of promising dates by being unable to get up my courage to drive (a car) to a particularly challenging (for me) location.
It was a tremendous struggle for me to ever learn to drive a car at all, let alone a motorcycle. Everything about driving as a sensory experience was overwhelming and nearly impossible for me to overcome. When I was 16, it took months of just approaching a car and touching the door, then walking away, or climbing into the driver’s seat and just sitting there for a while, then going back in the house, to ever get up my courage enough to start it, let alone to cause it to move down a road.
But, after very much persistence, I gradually achieved an uneasy but somewhat bearable ability to convey myself from here to there. Then, after spending four years in New York City, during which time I didn’t drive at all since the need didn’t exist, upon my return to the Midwest I found to my tremendous discouragement and dismay that I had to start over completely from scratch – that I had essentially forgotten how to drive, that it was every bit as intimidating as it had been when I was 16, and that I had to learn how to do it all over again as well as overcome the same set of original anxieties.
Apparently, it is possible to forget how to “ride a bike” -- something that I never did learn how to do (and never will now) since I lacked the coordination as well as the social interaction that might have inspired me to keep trying until I succeeded.
So yes, challenges with manners of conveyance have been no small factor in the circumscribed nature of my life. I was not really designed to ever leave my house. But in the present day, work demands that I do.
So did going to college. When I started commuting to school, first to IUPUC and then to IUPUI (and by that time I was well into my 20s), I had to practice the route numerous times with someone else along, making sure that I knew of a predetermined and guaranteed parking lot or parking garage – an absolutely definite destination so that I could have all lanes, all turns and so on memorized down to the exact parking space.
My anxiety about driving only in very small degree involves fear of getting in an accident. Certainly, that’s part of it. But mainly, it’s that I get overwhelmed in certain situations – confused. It’s the uncertainty, the panic, the seeming lack of control in certain situations, of getting lost, of not knowing where I am or which way to go. Driving is the only situation in life which has given me consistent panic attacks.
I am proud to say, though, that through years of sheer determination and practice, I am a competent driver – probably even a good one. This may be precisely because I’ve had to struggle so much with it. I am excellent at comprehending my own limitations, and I tend to have to overthink everything. (Somehow, I think this is preferable to hurtling down the road completely thoughtless and brainless, which appears to be a much more common phenomenon.) I tend to perceive driving as a grand pattern, almost like a chess game, and I am constantly thinking many miles and moves ahead. If speeding or passing someone is illogical (because I can perceive that it will not actually take me to my destination any faster), I don’t do it. I never tailgate; there is definitely never any logical reason for that. I consistently drive somewhat over the speed limit since going with the flow of traffic is the safest move, but I never speed unduly or dangerously. I have never in my entire life been pulled over, and have never had a single ticket or citation. (Perhaps that is at least a somewhat remarkable fact; I once had a student still in her early twenties say she had been pulled over between 10 and 20 times.) In my adult life, I’ve never had an accident, except one that totaled my car, but for which I was not at fault and could not have prevented through any degree of defensive driving.
In my world, everything about driving must be safe, logical, and involve thinking about my own safety as well as others. I am a sort of caretaker of others on the road. If anything, I am overly concerned about the other drivers around me, looking to see if someone needs to be let into a lane, or, if I see that someone is about to make a potentially dangerous move or mistake, trying accordingly to make adjustment that will ensure their safety. I would argue that it should not be my job to do this – that others should be able to think for themselves and see to their own safety. But typically, on any given drive, I seem to find myself thinking for a large number of other individuals on the road.
Doubtless this consideration for others has little to do with any sort of saintliness on my part, but is attributable to the fact that I have to struggle with everything so much myself, causing me to be more aware of others around me and their potential struggles. I have to think deeply and carefully about everything, and so driving and everyone around me is included in that.
Other than a few parking woes here and there, what seems to annoy others most about my driving is my over-cautiousness in certain situations. I am aware that I am not always the best judge of speed and distance, and so occasionally at a stop sign I fail to pull out when I would actually have had plenty of time; I err on the side of caution. This can greatly annoy the person behind you. Generally if someone is angry with me, it is for being too slow – not for driving too slow, but for failing to turn out quickly enough. I get a lot of horns blared at me, which I take very personally. I go home tucked in fetal position haunted by the blaring of horns.
On the other hand, I’m the fastest person I’ve ever encountered at going once a light has turned green in an intersection. For others, there seems to be some sort of delay for which I don’t quite have an explanation. On my part, the split second it turns green, provided the intersection is safe and clear, I’m long gone, while others appear to be slowly…I don’t know. I have no idea what they’re doing – waking up from a nap? Zipping their pants back up? Completing a Mad Lib? Of course, it is possible that the reason for this delay is that everyone else is on their devices while they’re stopped at intersections, consorting happily in the hive, in the constant social buzz which others exist in and I do not. Unencumbered by devices or conversations, when the light turns green, I’m long gone. Eat my dust.
GPS has been the greatest blessing for me (thank you military-industrial complex for releasing it for civilian use, and more specifically, to me, one who no doubt you would have nothing but contempt for were you to know of my existence and that your technology had fallen into my nervous, fumbling hands). With GPS, I at least know that I will make it into the general vicinity of my destination. Even if I cannot figure out any way to park, or I take a wrong turn, the device will get me back on track. I would have to credit GPS as being the sole reason I am able to drive at all in the present day.
Still, there are limits, and those limits are permanent. I can drive straight down a highway or interstate easily enough (I don’t like being on an interstate one bit, but I will do it), and I can drive within small towns or certain suburban areas where traffic patterns are light and relatively predictable. But I cannot and never will be able to drive in cities. This is quite unfortunate for me since cities are the loci of all productive social activity on this planet. The grief I feel at being unable to experience cities is one of the keenest of my life.
Being for all intents and purposes exiled from cities is one of the main factors that curtails meeting people. I have tried to be as creative as possible over the years, designating locations to meet dates that were places I knew I could handle – “half way” points in suburban areas. But a lot of men aren’t really willing to go to that much trouble. For those that are, it works temporarily – it’s a kind of band-aid or stop-gap solution. Eventually, unless you can reach a city on your own steam, what I’ve learned is that no one is going to bother to mess with you.
In Raleigh, I tried using the public transportation system to get me to some reaches of the city that were otherwise too intimating for me. But one trouble with public transportation is that it is so confounded slow. You waste so much time sitting around to get somewhere that after a time it doesn’t seem worth the bother, and so you decide to just stay home in your apartment. Taxis would be a nice solution, but are prohibitively expensive.
Another strategy I’ve employed over the years is to only visit places at “off-times” in order to avoid the high volumes of traffic that overwhelm me so completely. This includes stores, restaurants, theme parks, tourist towns. But there again, when you visit places only when no one else is around, that doesn’t take you very far toward interaction with others.
Within my circumscribed bounds, I have grown somewhat comfortable driving, and even enjoy it under certain circumstances. Teaching bajillions of sections of college courses every semester for multiple different institutions of higher learning has taught me that the car is a place that no one can reach me. Driving along a familiar highway in the midst of a familiar commute with your phone turned off is temporary peace. No student can explain to me why her paper is late or why she can’t figure out APA formatting and citation. The worst thing that happens during a peaceful drive is that ideas for your book won’t stop coming to you, and you can’t keep them all in your head and you forget some of them before being able to get them all written down at your destination. (A student once asked me why I don’t use some sort of voice recorder to take down ideas while I’m driving; this is because I detest the sound of my own voice so completely. I tried this years ago, and I lost faith in and was instantly horrified by any idea that I heard stated back to me in my own recorded voice; any idea captured in that medium became anathema. So I just have to take my chances with forgetting them instead.)
My dream from the time I was very young and exceedingly romantic was always to have a partner to take me places – someone bold and charming who didn’t mind driving in and navigating the real world. This fairytale prince would whisk me away to magical lands that have been shut off to me my entire life. I would get to explore cities and exotic far-off realms – with his hand in mine, and his special verve and competence, I would get to experience that very distinctive surge of excitement and joy that accompanies being in gatherings of people when all is good and right with the human race. Even if I couldn’t take part, I could feel a part of it. I would never have become shut off and bitter.
Such lovely dreams. As already pointed out, it’s a vicious circle. If you can’t get anywhere to begin with, then you don’t meet anyone. No prince is coming for you.
Some people are lucky enough to have a partner or help-mate or even just a friend in their life who does most of the driving. But I’ve never had any alternative but to put on my big girl pants and deal. What I do is either drive where I need to drive (ain’t no one else gonna do it), or if I just can’t possibly bring myself to face it, I have to try to come up with an alternative creative solution. I do think that being forced to deal with my challenges has made me a stronger and more creative person. That I ever achieved a relative degree of competence and comfort with driving is really pretty miraculous, and at times, I have discovered that by pushing myself I was able to do far more than I thought I could do. However, by this point in my life, I’ve pushed myself to my limitations. I know my precise boundaries and I know what I can do and what I simply cannot. But this is also valuable to know. To know your limitations is to know how to approach problem-solving in your life. It dictates a course of action.
Every time I ever leave the house and have to get between the wheel, without exception, I’m always petrified. This has never changed. It takes a great mustering of willpower for me to ever make it out of my house, out of the driveway, and to any destination.
My first choice would have been to get whisked off on magical adventures in the world with a partner adept at transportation, and with his benign help to spend all kinds of time in cities and other magical places, right in the thick of it all. If this had happened for me, that person would have been the greatest hero ever to have appeared in my life. But without that mythical beast, I’m forced to my own devices, which seem to involve pissing the world off and getting in its way. If I could stay stuffed away inside my house and never leave, I absolutely would at this point. But I have to get to work, people. Just like everyone else.
On the other hand, all kinds of important, fascinating, highly competent, brilliant individuals out there on the road – completely insensible to my particular struggles – would probably be lost without me to curse at. And on my part, I had long suspected that I existed only to be either invisible or a pain in the ass to people more important and interesting than me, and driving has been the one thing that gave me 100% confirmation of it. At least I have no longer to wonder.
Police officers, secret service, President of the United States, motorcyclists, parking lot attendants, Judge, members of the jury, so sorry, but with no other choice on my hands, I will be continuing to annoy you within the foreseeable future.
