Hay fields and industrial parks
Sweet corn is rare and wonderful stuff. My parents insist that you can only buy sweet corn in the North East, and when you are in the North East you must buy it from a roadside stand. I don't know if this is true, or just another lie they've told me ("You can't reformat zip disks if they come formatted for Macs!"). I usually accept it as true, however. The other day, (which, incidentally, will forever live on as The Day I Saved The Turtle From the Middle of the Road) I was sent to buy corn for dinner. My dad sent me email with detailed instructions of how to get to the stand that I just sort of skimmed.
I don't understand instructions, particularly of driving. I used to read books, and skim passages where they described "turning left onto Atkins street" or "slamming on the brakes for a four way stop." I always thought it would all make sense to me, and be easy to picture, when I started driving. I still skim them. Driving should not be explained by yield signs and stop lights and hard lefts.
I wing things. I wing recipes. I wing driving to buy sweet corn. I shake off recipes and instructions with my elbow cause I don't need 'em, I'll just wing it. I had a vague sense of where the roadside stand was. I knew the general direction, I just couldn't picture the roads I would need to take in order to get there.
My car is in dreadful shape. It's needed an oil change for a while now. It still isn't repaired from when I smashed it into a guardrail, driving too fast on a wet road on an exit ramp. It needs looking at. It makes heinous noises. It makes me worry. The speakers are iffy - neither tape deck nor radio will play for more than 30 seconds at a time. It needs a tail light fixed.
I love driving it. It has a thousand things wrong with it, but I love it because it is small and it has panache. I even love driving in silence, as long as I can roll down all the windows and the sun roof and let my hair get sucked out. Summer evenings make the car smell wonderfully too, clean and warm, and it fills me with joy.
I was out there, winging directions in my car that makes both endearing and disturbing rattles now and then. The funny thing is, I knew a straightforward path to the roadside stand. I knew exactly which roads to take in order to get there, but they were all busy streets cramped with strip malls. There was a different way, I was sure it went through hay fields and eerie industrial parks and open air, I just didn't really know which right to take and which road I'd take at the three way stop. I took the unsure way.
It is a funny feeling, you know. It's a hoping-this-works feeling. It's hoping the way all becomes clear soon, cause the suspense is just about to kill me. Am I gonna get there? Or am I just gonna end up near the resevoir? The possibility for frustration is terrible and looming - I could be heading in the complete wrong direction here. Self doubt is almost crippling. It was a funny thrill when I turned onto the right street, cause then I realized I knew the way all along. I just didn't know I knew.
2000-08-17, Driving entry
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