Drive me to the moon.

Mom's view:

I took driver’s education when I was sixteen. I vaguely remember a sandy haired man who had seemed pretty laid back at the beginning of the course looking at me warily and saying something like, “I’m a little afraid of your driving.” I was afraid of my driving too. More than a little. There was something horribly powerful about driving a car. It was a little like standing at the edge of a cliff – the thought that I could throw myself, or someone else, off of it filled me with paralytic dread. It was the same thing with a car. You could turn your wheel once and end up in someone else’s lane, putting an end to both you and them. You could drive off of bridges, cliffs, hills, highways, into lakes, people, animals, other people’s houses, windows, fences, or a brick wall. One turn of the wheel. It was terrifying.

I ended up driving like a puppet, in choppy bursts that were deeply unsettling to those in the passenger seats. I gripped the wheel like it was the only thing between me and world destruction, sweating profusely and probably muttering a little. The whole thing wasn’t pretty.

Fortunately, I found out I’d gotten accepted at NYU and would be able to rely on public transportation. I promptly dropped out of driver’s ed, putting an abrupt end to the madness, and I suspect my instructor and all of my fellow drivers breathed long, satisfying breaths of relief. I know I did. I remember vigorously waving at the gold driver’s ed car as it left the school driveway, feeling extra fond of it since I no longer had to actually drive the thing. It was great, that feeling.

Fast forward 2 years, after a crack addict pounded my face into a mushy blob and sliced up my hand so badly that I needed plastic surgery on it (I lived in NYC in the Koch years). Suddenly, even the lure of socially acceptable public transportation no longer made me want to set foot within 10 feet of New York. What’s a girl to do? She goes to Iowa!!!! Iowa is the opposite of NYC. Instead of crack addicts, they have cows. Cows make a lot more sense than humans.

Needless to say, the public transportation system isn’t all that great in Iowa. In fact, it’s pretty well non-existent. You can get around the University of Iowa area without a car, but if you’d ever like to go anywhere else in Iowa, you need a car. On the other hand, here’s another way Iowa is different from NYC. Empty roads. Lots of them. It’s a perfect place to learn how to drive.

After I picked up the trick to the whole thing, which involved a lot of driving wildly into corn stalks and, the day I got my license, having 3 accidents in rapid succession (one pulling out of the car dealership lot with my newly fixed used car – hit a beamer; one pulling out of my mom’s driveway – hit my mom’s beamer; and one running into the lamppost with the riding lawn mower trying to make up the whole multiple accidents thing to my mom by mowing her lawn, at which point she told me to go in the house, turn off all the lights, and lay down), I realized how freeing driving could be.

Let’s say I’m sitting around in my house in ____________, which is pretty close to the East Coast, and I think to myself, “Hey, I’d really like to see the Grand Canyon!” It really doesn’t require a whole lot. As long as I have a reasonably well-functioning car, the gas money, and a few changes of clothes in a duffle bag, I’m there. Of course, in my case, I would also need to make arrangements for ___________, board the dog and cat, close up the house, and take vacation time from work, but those are all traps of my own making. There was plenty of time before I had a child and there will be plenty of time after he leaves from college for me to scatter myself to the winds, if I so choose. That’s an amazingly cool thought to me.

Some people don’t really care about such things, as I have found out on numerous occasions. Those conversations go something like this.

“Isn’t it cool that if you wanted to go to California all you’d have to do is jump in a car and go?”
“California! Why would I want to go there?”
“It’s just an example. You could go anywhere.”
“Why would I want to go anywhere else? I have everything I need right here.”
“Well, you could always come back.”
“Then why leave?”

You get my drift. But for me, the allure of having the world at my fingertips is pretty inspiring. I would hate to give that all up. In fact, I’ve seen two grandparents have to finally give up driving, and it’s perhaps the saddest thing I’ve ever seen. From that point on, they had to rely on someone else for everything. The ability to hop in a car and take care of business is such a small thing. You barely notice it until it’s gone. But when it is, I think a part of you dies. And it’s a good part, that one that might jump off the couch and drive up a mountain. It’s the part that smacks most of the energy of life.

_________________ is 5 years away from being able to legally drive, and that thought fills me with dread since I’ve seen him drive a golf cart and, like my driver’s ed teacher, I’m a little scared of his driving. I’ve been encouraging him to save for his first car nonetheless, because I figure the kind of freedom you get from driving is wasted on the middle aged. You need to take advantage of it while you’re young.

_______________ doesn’t quite understand the point of the whole thing yet. He still really thinks it’s about the car itself, and he spends a lot of time focusing on car related details like cost, coolness, or speed. I understand the desire to buy a car you look good in, but like our bodies, the car is only the shell. He hasn’t had that moment of clarity, hasn’t had the walls of his world fall away from him and the rest of it open wide. When he does, a part of him will be born. (And the part of me that actually sleeps will die).

Son's view:

When I first get a car I want a Jetta. The reason I want a Jetta is because they are stylish, affordable, and an overall good car. I can’t wait to start driving because of all the freedom I will have. It will be fun. But, my dream car is a 09’ mustang with a six pack and a v8 400 horse power engine. That probably isn’t real but sounds awesome. Yeah. That’s right.