Driving lessons

April 16, 2009

I can gauge my mother’s mood by how she holds the steering wheel. Tight in her hands (knuckles white) is fury; silent and stubborn. She jerks the wheel around, hitting the acceleration pedal too hard on turns, and never lets her fingers leave the wheel.

I stay silent when I see her like that, not wishing to anger her, not really wanting to help.

I merely watch the twists and turns of the road in front of us; the roads I will soon navigate, with the same steering wheel and the same old tires.

My mom will probably grip the seat edges then, or the handle by the window, instead of the steering wheel, biting her lip, suppressing fury or nervousness, without the aid of the pedal.

To be honest, I don’t really want to drive.

I’m content to sit back and watch. I like seeing the pavement appear in the window, covered in pale dustings of snow, or trembling with heat.

I like listening to the radio, or the sound of my mother breathing, quietly, or heavily.

I like patterns. I don’t like surprises. The road is surprising.

I don’t want to have to jerk the steering wheel this way and that, suddenly and sharply. I don’t want to have to flip the blinker on to hear the ticking sound it makes.

I simply want to observe, changing nothing about myself except the movement of my retinas.

I don’t want to become the frantic mother, forced to take the wheel, forced to concern herself with lives and moods and what to buy for dinner or how much gas is.

I don’t want to.

But time passes and suddenly, you have to do what you don’t want to.

She enrolled me in Driver’s Ed and I took a written test, passed it somehow.

And with that passing grade came some stamp of approval. Apparently, the state had deemed me worthy of a permit, pending driving lessons.

And that was how it is that she’s taking me to my first driving lesson at the DMV.

I tried to put up a fight on the way there, but it was mostly futile. The struggle really wasn’t worth it and I was too tired to put forth any real energy. I gave in and now I’m sitting in the car, arms folded, watching the road as we drive to meet the instructor.

I’ve been told it’s a man, which doesn’t really please me.

I suppose the overt fury of my father is better than the suppressed sort of my mother, but I’ve always seemed to prefer women to men.

So, when we pulled up to find the man waiting, skin sagging like a crested tent, it did little to improve my disposition.

My mom handed me over to him, to the borrowed car with the sign denoting a new driver.

And I got in the car. And we drove, barely speaking. But, I could still watch the road, only differently. I had to think and watch. My thoughts couldn’t wander. I had to learn to accept surprises. The unplanned. Watch as my skin would sag too. Watch as my hips would widen. Become sails.

Soon, though, the lesson was over. And soon, I had gotten my permit. No picture of me, just a book of papers, bulky and stubborn. They wouldn’t fit snugly in any wallet, so I had to hand them over to my mother to deposit in the glove compartment. She smirked at that development.

I didn’t drive for three months after that. It wasn’t that driving was traumatic, I simply had no desire to.

Finally though, I got back to the wheel. My mother sat silently as I put the key in the ignition and turned it.

Buzzing. Scrapping. Fire.

We started driving. My mother stared straight ahead, face a little white, fingers gripping just a bit too tightly to the sides of the seat.

I started off slowly.

Emma Stein, attends Newark Academy and is a member of Nu’s teen board.