Baby You Can Drive My Car

There are many things that you aren’t told about getting older:

1. how you will become afraid to sneeze or cough because you will most likely pee on yourself
2. how your ears begin to get a bit crusty (I don’t know else to describe that)
3. how every part of you expands, except your bladder, forcing you to wake up every night to pee at 2:30 a.m.

There are many, many more – really but what I wanted to talk about was the fact that no one tells you about how odd it feels when life starts to come full circle. When you have small children, you revel and bask in their new discoveries. It’s exciting to see and be a part of those times. Mostly that’s because you can’t remember those times first hand. I have several video camera memories. I’ve watched the video or seen a picture and those images are part of my memories, but not the moment itself. But when your children get older, they begin to experience life moments that you actually remember.

Franklin has just gotten his permit. And we have begun our endeavor of learning to drive. This weekend, I took the first step in creating a new family tradition and took Franklin to Land Between the Lakes to learn to drive. It’s really an ideal place because there’s nothing there. The roads are curvy and empty and there’s no better place to get used to driving a car. Sitting in the front seat slowly talking him through the process just made me think about learning to drive myself; though, surprisingly, the details seem somewhat dim. I don’t remember much about it. I remember driving Glenda’s giant car that took up most of the road and felt as if it were powered by a rocket. I remember driving across the Lake Barkley Bridge and gripping the wheel so tightly that I felt as if I might bend the steering wheel.

I don’t think that Franklin has ever seemed more like Jose to me than during this time. He has this stoic-ness to him that amazes me. I have never really been one to hide my emotions – any emotion – from anyone. And Franklin, like Jose, keeps himself close to himself. His excitement manifests itself in raised eyebrows – no hopping up and down, or vocalizations for Franklin. And though he will admit to being nervous after the fact, he doesn’t allow himself to appear nervous during it. After he had finished driving, and we were on our way back to Bowling Green, he told me how nervous he was when he was driving over the bridge – especially when the moving van was coming at us from the other way and there’s really no where to scoot over on the bridge. And he stuck his hands in front of him and was pretending to steer and told me that he was thinking, Papita, you are talking but I am not listening to you right now, I will talk to you again when we are off the bridge. Which was so much like what I felt the first time I drove across the bridge, except I’m sure that I maintained a running commentary of everything that was happening the entire time it was happening as I was driving.

And when Franklin would make me a little nervous because I felt he was too close to my side (the passenger side) of the road and I would reach my hand out to grab the door, Franklin would say “it’s o.k. Franklin can do it.” And when he took a turn too wide and a tad too fast, or today when he the light turned yellow before he quite got under it, he would make a short, low “oooooooh” almost like he was about to say “ooh, you’re getting in trouble.”

I am glad that he is nervous and that driving isn’t something that comes easy for him – because I am hoping that will make him cautious and careful. I’m pretty sure that since he’s been practicing with the boys in the backseat and my dad in the front seat, he is really developing his skills to ignore in car distractions. He hasn’t even asked to turn the radio on – which seems so not a teenager to me.

It will be interesting to see, in some 30 years or so, when Franklin has a teenager of his own how he will feel about teaching him/ her to drive. I hope he takes his children to LBL to practice too.
(click on title to view accompanying video)