A year into our time here it was time to get my driver's license. As it turns out, there are rules- there are the real rules, which I would have to know to pass the test and then there were the rules that everyone on the road actually drove by. The test contained 100 of 1000 possible questions all of which were necessary to study because the answers were not intuitive. There were safety questions about what to do if your car was falling off a bridge into a body of water- open your car window or put a plastic bag over your head and tight it around the neck? There were questions about when to use your horn- if there was an elderly gentleman wearing a cotton hat covering his ears or if there were children playing in the road? um, both? The signs were different, the speed limits were in kilometers per hour and the traffic direction hand signals were baffling to me. A man with his arm straight up in the air... go or stop? I don't even remember because I never see a police officer actually direct traffic. I managed to pass the test but actually driving felt like another hurdle.
Something happens to adults when they enter their cars here- we all turn into 4 year olds- we do whatever we have to do to get through the traffic: block people out, cut people off, cut in line, nose in lanes we shouldn't be nosing in, WE ALL WANT TO BE FIRST!!! AND WE WON'T SHARE OUR PSEUDO LANE!! And if we can get by with it... we likely will do it... Honking is just part of the music of the city, short "here I am" honks, medium "look out" honks, and lay it on "I can't believe you just DID that!!!" honks. Driving in this traffic will make the calmest person discover their inner anger. A friend once told me that the basic rules are the bigger vehicle always gets the right of way (unless you're an arrogant black audi) and that you're only responsible for what happens in front of you. Cars cut you off all the time and you're responsible not to hit them... I guess that means don't worry about cutting people off. Lane lines mean nothing, if there is not a camera at the intersection, anything goes, I don't know why they even put blinkers in cars here, Uturn whenever and wherever you want, watch out for jaywalkers- I mean WATCH OUT. I remember driving in the US and as I'm driving along I could just think and listen to music and all of a sudden I would be at home. Here checking out could mean running someone over. The nice thing I found was that if I found out at the last minute that I need to make a left hand turn but I was in the far right lane- no problem! Just cut over and make the turn. At first I drove very slow but then I realized that that was probably more dangerous. It only took a couple weeks before lane lines were dead to me and I only thought twice before creating a third lane on a single lane road. I still like to use my blinkers every now and then, just for fun.
I like to say that the chinese redefine possible. One evening I had parked at a busy mall and and I was trying to get through the jammed up parking lot. If I had half a foot between me and the vehicles on either side of me, that would have been generous. I just stopped, I was paralyzed- "this is impossible!" I thought. The driver in the oncoming car leaned out his window, pulled in his side mirror and laughed at me. I shouted, "I can't go!" He shouted back, "You can go!" So I inched forward as he laughed some more and sure enough we passed each other without a scratch.
I've seen cars parallel park with inches on either side. Parallel parking terrifies me... or I should say terrified me. Who ever has to parallel park in northwest Iowa?!! Sorry Mr. Fiech, but when I took driver's ed, I eeked out a pass on the parallel park and never did it again. Until I came here- if you want a parking spot in many places you parallel park on the sidewalk. I avoided it for years though- found other creative ways to park, left my back end sticking out, or even drove to the place and let the friend riding with me park the car for me. Just this fall I was making a quick coffee run one afternoon- I had just arrived outside a coffee shop and was reveling in the fact that I would even have a few minutes to sit down before I had to run off to teach a co-op class. The only problem was I was required to parallel park- deep breaths, I can haphazard park, no biggie. I pull up to the front vehicle trying to remember from driver's ed how far to pull ahead. As I stop and throw it into reverse, a man on a bike stops and looks at me... "It's not going to work, you're not forward far enough." "Huh?" I say. He gets off his bike, "Pull forward more or you won't have enough room." So I pull forward more. Then he goes around to the other side and starts instructing me on what to do. A couple others who were standing out on the street come a little closer to watch. Unfortunately the adrenaline pumping through my brain was not helping me understand what he was trying to tell me. He spent 10 minutes walking me through the whole thing. My car was now in between the two cars and I pulled on the e brake. "What? It's not successful yet," he says. I see my minutes of sitting in the coffee shop floating away. He instructs me through three more forward backs until I am perfectly between the two cars. The onlookers grunt approval and the man hops on his bike and takes off. I sigh with relief.... and now I can parallel park..... I'm still grieving those minutes in the coffee shop.
I learned how to drive a clutch a year ago... here... where you drive within inches of each other. I'm praising God there aren't many hills in this city. I had had one harrowing drive in a car with a clutch across the state of Washington back in college with a friend who very much believed that I could learn to drive her car... I was just thankful the transmission didn't drop out hours from her home. I remember her talking about the slow fluid motion of the clutch combined with the right timing of the gas and it was so easy once you got the hang of it. I didn't get the hang of it. For my maiden voyage driving a clutch in Asia, we chose the widest, least crowded road..... at night.... with a friend encouraging me in the back and another friend teaching me while I'm sure praying I didn't wreck her car in the process. Aaron offered plenty of instruction after that first try..... although for the first several weeks it was a very painful choice for both of us to let me drive. The kids always cheered, "Mommy's driving!!! It's going to be a bumpy ride!!!" I gave up for awhile. It was too stressful... my brain was spinning... CLUTCH!... GAS!... Pedestrians!!.... where am I?!... Look out for the elderly man with the cotton cap over his ears- honk! honk!... bikers coming out of nowhere.. praying lights wouldn't turn red so I wouldn't have to start in first again... and forget about parallel parking. I did finally get the hang of it... now I guess it just makes driving more interesting.
I have learned a couple things about life from driving a clutch, especially about driving a clutch when I'm stressed. (It's difficult to suck the metaphorical meaning out of every life circumstance but for some reason I can't even help myself most of the time) When the kids are screaming in the back of the car and cars and mopeds are coming at me from three directions, if I don't focus I'm slamming and popping the clutch, grinding the gears, killing it over and over, and lurching along the road. I drive my life like that often. Lately I wake up to two little dark, almond-shaped eyes and the words, "Ah Ohnee." (I'm hungry.) I slam the clutch to the ground, roll out of bed, grind the gears and lurch into the kitchen. I react my way through breakfast spills and screaming and happy wake-up noise. If I don't stop and focus, I keep right on slamming, grinding, lurching my way through the day. But no matter how stressed I am or how many demands are literally screaming at me, the clutch needs to be treated delicately.... slowly... fluid motions... think before you apply too much gas or jerk your foot off the clutch. It feels so incongruent to live in noisy chaos but attempt to move slowly, deliberately choose to refrain from reacting and choose a more thoughtful path. I wish that I could get the hang of it in a couple of weeks like driving but unfortunately these fluid motions aren't taking quite as quickly. Being in the place that God has put me at the moment that He has put me there is so counterintuitive. My brain is spinning.... milk spill!!....laundry!!... chinese homework we forgot... three year old disassembling the vacuum!.... more cereal and more juice (pause) please..... pull out something for dinner... did I brush my teeth?... My gears are grinding and we have to get places one way or another. I'm addicted to getting things done. Going slow or living in the fluid process doesn't really jive with my to-do list. It feels like I'm drying out when I force myself to slow down and not get things done- after a "get 'er done" phase, it takes a long while of practicing slowness to feel any kind of remote satisfaction from just being. But when I finally am able to relax, its so much better than the cheap high of checking something off my list. I want to know my Creator in the slowness, in the living and being of life, not just the doing of life or maybe it's the living and being in the doing. I don't want to drive my life, I want to live it with Him and the people around me. "Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness..... Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him..." Proverbs 37:4-7 For some reason the word dwell is so rich to me- it's more than just physically being in a place but when I read it, it feels like it's that living/being/doing wholehearted, soul-involved, whole-self-present-where-I-am kind of dwell. Enjoying the good, not escaping the struggle, living in the mess with the real people God has put in my now.... Dwell.
Comments
Post a Comment