Driving Lesson

My 17 year old son recently obtained his California driver’s permit.  I posted flyers around the neighborhood telling people they may want to consider working from home until he gets some basic skills … or common sense … whichever seems to look promising in the moment.  There are a slew of adults who can take him out driving.  And understandably, my son wanted ME to go out with him and bestow all of my worldly east coast behind the wheel survival techniques.  Problem was that my own driver’s license had expired more than seven months ago.  I haven’t been driving at all for some time now.  So it wasn’t as impractical as it sounds.  But at the time, losing my license was a huge head trip.  The long lines at the DMV and the drive over there were simply beyond what my dysautonomic body could handle.  Even getting a California state ID would require the same trek and hold-up as the simple paying of a check and fingerprinting now required by cal-law.  Thank you homeland security.

I could tell long stories about the lengths my amazing family and dear friends went to back then to try and help me get down there to renew.  But it just wasn’t going to happen.  So I did what all good Zen girls do … I cried .. beat myself up for my short comings … and considered myself a complete failure at Life and other such illusions.  But if the Buddha taught anything … he told us to watch closely and notice all that is — not what seems to be.  And in that close watch of the third eye, we do see that everything changes.  For me at this cross roads of my life, it means a body that continues to shut down, to shed pounds despite my efforts and to completely exhaust itself on the most minor tasks.  However, it also means that the hyperadrenerigic storms have also shifted for the time being.  And instead of fighting the fire of the dragon, I tend to curl up next to the beast and rest in its bed.

In less metaphoric terms .. it means that a window opened up whereby getting to the DMV was possible.  So my son dutifully made an appointment for me and we scheduled a time for the new road trip.  Unlike the horror and quake of the failed missions of last year …. the ride down was filled with laughter and ease.  And despite long lines and hundreds of people in queue … I was in and out within 6 minutes.  SIX MINUTES!  A gift from Grace to be sure.

So … I am once again a licensed driver.  Pity my body won’t let up long enough for me to actually DRIVE anywhere.  But one day it may .. because you know … EVERYTHING CHANGES.

Today then, was the first (could be last) time I went out driving with my son.  My area of specialty?  Parallel parking!  Who cares that California doesn’t test for parallel parking on the driving test.  EVERYONE should know how to parallel park.  So we packed up the van with a few tall ladders (as markers for parked cars … I’m disabled .. not stupid … we weren’t going to risk this with REAL automotive property.)  And we went for a drive around the block.  You’d think we were on the high seas by listening to my sailor’s mouth in the passenger seat.  Yeah, I know .. I’m not winning mother of the year AGAIN this year.  Did I mention it’s one hundred degrees at high noon and the air conditioning doesn’t work in the van?  I took the small hairless pup with us, I apparently didn’t mention it to her either because she was panting up a storm.  Though that could have been NERVES … afterall she READ the flyers I had put up on the street about a new student driver loose in the neighborhood.  Turns out Dalai had a cut on her foot that was bleeding.  So my faded green tank top had blood spots all over it which made it looked like we had already just been in a car wreck but somehow managed to eek out of it alive.

As we parked the car underneath some trees, not more than a block from home, my son opened up the hatch and began setting up the ladders.  A police car comes by and slowly watches us as we are quickly becoming a public nuisance.  My son comes back to my side of the car and says … does it matter that I don’t have my permit on me?

YOU DON’T HAVE YOUR DRIVING PERMIT!?!?:!?  I yell.  Probably loud enough for the cops to hear.  He shakes his head and I scoot over to the driver’s side of the car.  We can’t get ticketed if they never SAW him actually driving right?  Rollz eyes, shakes head.  So I drive us the hundred meters back home and into the driveway — you know, without gunning the brakes, or bottoming out the car over the curb or hitting the mail box.  I bake in the car while my son goes through his room looking for his wallet.  If you’ve ever seen a teenagers room, you know this to be a major search and rescue mission.

Back in the car we head off to set up the ladders … again …  Still with the pup on my blood stained shirt and my blood pooling legs now propped up on the open window.  I realize its not the best crash dummy safety pose .. but it was either that or pass out … so you do what you gotta do.

I explain to my son the logistics of how one parallel parks.  He listens intensely, follows my instructions closely .. and winds up 6 feet away from the curb on his first pass.  Not bad.  If I recall his older sister’s first attempt I think she hit one of the trash bins, rammed the wheel into the curb and I yelled at her for the next five days.  But that was eight years ago and afterall I’m an IMVU addict now .. and I’ve lightened up quiet a bit in my OLD AGE.

My son proceeds to make a k-turn so that he can line up for a second pass at the parallel park.  Not before stopping next to a house that had their sprinklers on and ensuring that now my blood stained tank top was also soaking wet.  Rollz eyes, shakes head.

Take two.  He cuts the distance in half and is only a yard away from the curb.  Whoo hooo.  Of course then we had to take a break while the girl friend calls his cell phone.  “Hi hunnie” …… Really?  Is that what kids say now?

By the third pass, my son manages to get up close and personal with the curb without actually running into it!  YAY!

Mission accomplished.  Blood stained shirt soaking in sink.  Pup and I are curling up for a nap.  And as for the complete failure at Life story …. I’m sure its still there, lurking in the shadows of I want it now and I want it my way … but in this tiny moment it is easy to see that it is all simply one more lesson on Life’s long road.