I’m teaching my 16-year-old how to drive, and my 16-year-old is teaching me how to live.
The second-to-the-last time we were in the car together, they were a little more nervous than usual. Clearly, wrestling with something internal, so we pulled over to talk about it.
Maybe it was tact, politeness, empathy. Maybe it was just not a whole lot of practice in how to convey their emotions.
Most likely, though, it was probably that I wasn’t ready to receive it.
And it took me a little while to understand.
I’m like that. Slow to process.
A few years back, at a mandatory seminar that I was reluctant to attend, during one particular useless session, I was killing time in the lobby where I ran into a friend. She was a colleague. And she mentioned that she was soon moving out West.
That led to a conversation of packing, and closets, and basements.
Which led to a conversation of why we hold onto what we hold onto.
Which led us to our parents.
Which led to her saying these words: My, what our parents do to us.
Which I use three times in my still-in-the-works novel.
For the last 16 years, my child has driven with me — to school, on trips, to the store … wherever it is a parent brings a child. And we all know that children are these fantastic sponges right from the day they come into the world. They hear — and absorb — everything.
So I have an anxious 16-year-old behind the wheel of their car taking an inventory of all the things that go wrong, rather than all the things that go right.
My father was a kind and patient man, which made him a wonderful driving coach. More, he loved to drive. Anywhere, in any weather, at any time.
Behind the wheel of his two-tone blue 1979 Chevrolet Caprice Classic — pretty much the nicest car he’d ever owned and, besides his family, his pride and joy — I gently slipped the silky transmission into Drive and, foot off the gas, let go of the brake. The car floated through the Montgomery Ward parking lot. My immediate thoughts floated to my future fantasies of sudden-realized independence: Driving with friends and dates. Or just by myself. Maybe I’d get a dog. Maybe I’d drive to California. Independence.
I was not anxious. I, like him, was focused on all the things that go right.
What could go wrong?
An accident. I had just purchased a new car — which is, besides my own family, my pride and joy — and not 24 hours after taking ownership of it, a driver at too-high a rate of speed entered the lot where we had parked and somehow didn’t see my car in the parking space he ended up pulling into, thus taking out my passenger-side door, front fender, front bumper, and hood.
First day. My child’s birthday, in fact. And, yes, they were there with me.
Then:
A near accident. A car ran right through a red light, and if I hadn’t been overly cautious and looked both ways despite that my light was green, my car would have been totaled.
A near accident. Backing up out of a parking lot, just about to slip into drive, when another car that somehow didn’t see mine backed up and almost hit me, if it weren’t for my blaring horn.
A near accident. A car ran through a red light.
A near accident. A car ran through a red light.
A near accident. A car — you’re getting good at this — ran through a red light.
And guess who was there with me each time?
Children today have a perspective that I won’t pretend is as original as we sometimes give credit. After all, growing up during the Cold War, the scars that came from Duck-and-Cover drills at school, Time Magazine images of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the Red Menace that always seemed to be menacing certainly was not only the stuff of nightmares, but also the end of any innocence I might have enjoyed for at least a few years of childhood.
My children, though, see the very soil on which they stand eroding and, worse, the burden of responsibility passed onto them as if it were an honor: Child, you will be the ones to save the earth!
What a horrible and unfair burden, among many others.
When I was a child, somehow, I felt — I knew — it would all be okay. I trusted our parents would do right by us and for us and keep us safe.
I was naive.
Could they, really?
Do we?
My child shifts the car back into Drive, and we circumnavigate the parking lot. There is too much tension, so we stop again.
Another day. Not today.
I’m being honest about the red lights. They saw the accident. They’ve been in another with their mom. Accidents happen. Be cautious. Be careful. You could get hurt.
If my mother, rather than my father, taught me to drive, I would still be a pedestrian. My mother had a knack for worrying. Before helicopter parents were a thing, she intuitively connected four blades to a rotor and hovered just out of my reach but always in sight.
Class trip to NYC? No. You’ll get mugged or killed. Mountain-bike riding? Never. You’ll fall and be left alone to die in the woods. Buy a motorcycle? No, you will wrap it around a tree.
Is it no wonder that I spent the first 16 years of my life afraid of heights, water, bears, snakes, lightning, relationships… Is it no wonder that I spent the next 16 swinging that pendulum as far in the opposite, destructive, and dangerous direction as I could?
My dad basically grew up on the mean streets. Orphaned for a bit. Played in sewers. At times, not knowing if he’d have a place to live or food to eat. He enlisted in the Army during the Second World War.
It was a better option.
And where my mom loved us fearfully, he loved us fearlessly.
Looking back, when those opposites attracted, they were the perfect balance.
“Dad, let people be who they are.”
“Dad, maybe they’re just having a bad day.”
“Dad, not everyone feels the way you do.”
Instead of driving the Subaru that day, we drove golf balls at the range. It was a perfectly sunny day, and although their confidence was shaken on the road, the nerves flattened out witnessed by the sound of the solid connection of steel and graphite on the sweet spot of their club.
I look up.
Pin-straight, perfect arc, gorgeous roll.
Gorgeous.
I don’t even have to turn around to see their smile. (But I do.)
Playing it cool.
But noticeably brimming.
Me, too — the second thing.
Four years before, the driving range was awkward. The best part of it for them was being outside, together. The worst part? Maybe the folks to the left and right hitting beautiful drives 300-plus when they whiffed every other swing. Or maybe their dad, gently guiding them: Feet apart, shoulders square, arms straight. Breathe into the swing. Head down. Relax.
That success was one part practice and repetition; the other part — the more important part — was the ability for it to become natural. It takes time.
And the more time behind the wheel of a car, the more these two elements come together to instill the surety, the confidence.
And even the joy.
And they will.
They turn the key. Foot is on the brake. Checking the mirrors that they are adjusted properly, and no other cars are anywhere in sight. Slip the transmission into Drive. It’s not smooth like the ’79 Caprice, but it’s solid. Foot off the gas, foot off the brake, and the car gently pulls forward.
This time, no quick, tense pull, over-pull, overcorrect of the wheel. No jerking brake.
The car glides around the course, which is nothing but the empty ski area parking lot on a late summer afternoon. I say nothing but “good.” I say it maybe three times.
The confidence is coming.
The driving is good.
There are no accidents here. No one’s running a red-light.
Their head tilts a little bit toward me. Just a little.
I know what it means.
You might just have done it semi-consciously, too, to see for yourself.
It speaks volumes.
Hmm. This is good.
I smile, too.
(My, what our parents do to us.)
Lunch?
Yeah.
You wanna drive?
Not yet.
Smiles.
Fearless smiles.