SavageTimes

Being a parent is scary.

Today was the first time I drove with my son when I didn’t have to clamp my mouth shut to avoid screaming.

I started him driving last July in parking lots.  My son could care less about driving.  If we lived in a town where public transportation could get him to where he will be going for classes next year, he wouldn’t bother.  But after we looked at the bus routes, he decided learning to drive was the lesser of two evils.

The only memory I have of driving with either of my parents was the very first time my dad put me behind the wheel: both my younger siblings were in the back seat.  My dad stopped at one end of a straight road a block from our house. He made me drive to the stop sign at the other end, probably about a quarter of a mile, if that.  My sister ducked in the back seat and screamed the entire time, and my brother was yelling, “Help, help, help!”   It wasn’t a fun memory, for me.   The only other memory I have of learning to drive involved getting on what passed for the highway in my little cowtown, with my Driver’s Ed teacher and two other students in the back.  Apparently I was approaching a red light without slowing down.  That’s what I was told, anyway. But it was the only stoplight in town, and it was my first stoplight, so, I wasn’t used to it.  My instructor had to step on his special right hand instructor brake.  There was screaming that time, too.

I wanted to give my son better memories.  And how difficult could it be? I’m a good teacher.  I’ve taught people to do things I don’t even know how to do (calculus; spreadsheets) simply by asking the right questions and giving them confidence.

We started out in parking lots. He did great.  He’s logical and practical and cool and calm in a crisis.  More importantly, I did great.  I didn’t yell at him even once, even though I really wanted to, many times. This is easy, thought the Live-in-the-Moment part of me.  And on its heels would come my Wise Self, saying, Don’t get ahead of yourself.  You’re in a parking lot.

As my son gained confidence, I found larger and larger parking lots.  The last one we drove in was the parking lot of a church that appeared to be a small city unto itself.  There was the church, and then several other outbuildings. There were bus terminals for shuttle pickups and one way lanes and a lot of cars there, even at night.  When my son stopped saying, “This church scares me, Mom,” while we drove through its many parking lanes and aisles, and he began pretending he was a shuttle, pulling up to the empty bays and looking around for any “brainwashed cultists,” I knew it was time for him to hit the streets.

My Live-in-the-Moment self scuttled away, to the far recesses of my mind, because I felt sudden and surprising terror in my heart at the idea of driving on the streets with this child who could not find the orange juice in the fridge if it was hidden by the iced tea.  My Wise Self told me again to calm down, but she was kind of snickering, too.  Sometimes, she’s not very nice for a Wise Self.

The first time I let me son loose on the actual streets, I had him drive through our neighborhood.  He almost took out a mailbox, and in a cul-de-sac, lined with cars parked at the curb, I thought I might faint from breathing yoga-style too fast, mouth clamped shut, one hand gripping the jump bar of the car door and the other tucked under my thigh where it wouldn’t grab the steering wheel.

The drive was spontaneous after I picked up my daughter from school.  My son said it was fine that his sister was in the truck, but without realizing it, I’d re-created my own first-driving experience.  My daughter huddled in the back seat and alternately laughed, screamed and cried out “Help, HELLLLPPPP!”

But my son’s been doing great.  So have I.

The one time he almost took out the parked car was partially my fault, as I was bereft of words when he took the corner too wide and fast and the rear of the Prius loomed large on my side of the truck.  My hand gestures and weird strangled noises in the bottom of my throat apparently made no sense to him.  Still, he got himself out of the near-problem while laughing at me.

Like I said, cool and calm in a crisis.

Me? I find myself longing for a cigarette quite often.  I don’t smoke, but even a straight shot of tequila wouldn’t, I am certain, be what I need.

Today, I felt something new about my son–something more confident and easy in his manner.  So I suggested we drive to the next town over, which involves going 40–yeah, 40–mph and more traffic as well as several blind curves.  I’d offered this before, and he’d said “NO.”  Today he said, “OK.”

“Oooh,” he said as we hit the 40 mph sign.  “This is fast.”  Then a few seconds later, “It’s fun.  Wheeee!”  I said nothing, except when we got into town and needed to slow down and he wasn’t.  Then I just said easily, “Slow down.”  And he did, without jerking the truck or making me suck air through my teeth.  He did great.  But he’s always done great at anything he’s decided to do, whether or not he actually wants to do it.

Me? I might not need to take up smoking after all.