Once Upon a Time...

I got a voicemail from my father today telling me he had just turned out of the grocery store parking lot and had remembered a time when I was learning to drive and had--in his words--recklessly "spun out onto Route 20." I can't say I remember the particular incident to which he was referring, but that is because to this day, when either of my parents are in a car with me behind the wheel, they become white-faced and start clutching the armrest the instant the speedometer creeps over 30 miles per hour.

I do remember pulling out of the parking lot in question many times with my father in the passenger seat, during those early driving days, and wincing as he gasped when the car crossed the necessary lane to turn left. I remember the gasps collectively because they happened every single time, not just once, contrary to the impression left by my father's message today. I wonder if he remembers the conversation he had, in front of me and my sister, with our driving instructor, a kindly middle-aged man who wore the perils of his profession lightly. The one in which he asked if it would be possible to order an emergency brake for the passenger side floor like the ones that came in the driving school car.

My primary memory of learning how to drive involves my father, but in a good way, sufficiently pleasant to cast into shadow the untold annoying ones. It is a sliver of a memory, with no plot, no real story, but it is vivid, enhanced by its auditory component. The year was 1986, and my father drove a dark blue Audi, a sleek, classy car with a bit of an edge, or so I thought as I drove it jerkingly around town on meaningless errands and endless trips to the local Friendly's.

My memory, though, has no destination. It takes place on the strip of Dutton Road between my parents' house and my grandmother's house, the strip of road I have driven, walked, ridden my bike down, more than any other strip of road in the world. I actually think if forced, I could drive this two-mile stretch blindfolded. Sometimes still I find I have arrived at my grandmother's house without remembering getting there.

I am driving, although I should probably put "driving" in quotes. It is one of the first times, maybe even the first time, I have been behind the wheel by myself, in control (quotes again for "control") of a car. My father is in the passenger seat, my sister in the backseat, behind me, which was always her side of the car. On the radio a song is playing, a song I loved at the time, played over and over again. It was quite popular on the radio, if I am not mistaken, but not the thing at all at my high school, where alternative rock and edgier pop were favored, so in the privacy of our family car, with my family, it feels liberating to belt out the familiar lyrics. The song is called "In Your Wildest Dreams" by the Moody Blues and has a shallow catchiness to it that occasionally reels me in to music recorded past 1970, although very occasionally and somewhat unpredictably. The lyrics are bad. I know this but don't care. It is the era of "Lucky Star" and not of the poet lyricist a la Steve Earle or Lucinda Williams.

I specifically remember singing lines from the beginning of the song, the lines, "I remember skies, reflected in your eyes." I remember that my father, who also occasionally gets drawn in by a certain pop X factor, was singing along too, and that for a few seconds, anyway, as we both looked out the window at the road in front of us, and I marveled to myself that I was actually making the car move forward (and worried secretly that I would have trouble making it stop), there were no grimaces, no arguments, no power struggle. Instead, there was the music, and the road ahead, and the moment. And learning to drive with my dad.