Well, it’s a fine day here in Les Baux and yeah, yeah, yeah, ok enough of the Garrison Keiler talk because something huge has happened.
Are you ready?
Yours truly has taught herself….while in solitary lockdown…. to drive a stick shift car.
ALONE AS IN LITERALLY ALL BY MYSELF WITH NO TEACHER AND NO OTHER HUMAN NEXT TO ME TO PROTECT ME FROM MYSELF.
(Well. Except for watching instructional YouTubes and FaceTiming my incredible friend Max for support.)
So yes, it is a new day and a new dawn and a new world, and to herald this new world, MOI, JE NOW DRIVE LE STEECK SHEEFT.
In case you think I exaggerate the significance let me explain why je ne exaggere pas.
Here is a secret about myself.
I am that rare, mythological creature. The one you may have heard of but never encountered.
I am a native Angelena *who does not drive*.
Before you judge me as a.) not a grown-up, or b.) virtuos for lessoning my carbon footprint, I preface it with this:
I did technically obtain my drivers license, once upon a time, like every other Southern California teenager. Three months later I left for college in Manhattan. For the rest of my adult life (until very recently in 2018-2019) I never needed to drive. Undergrad in Manhattan? Nobody in college drove in Manhattan. Moving to Berlin straight out of college? Nobody in Berlin drove, either—at least, none of the people I knew drove anything other then a rickety old GDR bicycle. (Even in the snow. Because as the Germans cheerfully and annoyingly like to remind you, there is no bad weather, only the wrong clothing.) For long-distance travel I rode the Deutsche Bahn or flew (I am sorry, Mama Earth). My driving skills shriveled to the faintest of memories. Moreover, whenever I returned to LA for visits, my family would insist on driving me rather then lending me their cars. It was so much safer, they insisted, seeing as how I was out of practice.
You see the vicious non-driving circle I found myself in.
That all changed in 2018-2019 when I started spending more of my life in Los Angeles.
I had a nagging feeling that grown-ups do actually need to at least feel comfortable behind the wheel and driving would be empowering.
So two years ago I bought a packet of private one-on-one driving lessons. My teacher was a retired Hollywood stunt-actor with a brown comb-over toupee and a handlebar moustache. He was a patient teacher although he had the odd habit of narrating all passing activity while I drove. (“Child with balloon at 3:00 o clock” he’d announce helpfully. Or “ Tall lady carrying lots of house plants”.)
I am proud to say I passed my drivers test for the second time in 2019.
I am not proud to say that I promptly proceeded to rely, once again, mostly on Lyft. Because I was still intimated, because driving in LA is scary.
********************************
Fast foreward to the present.
The date was March 20th, 2020 and we were in the first week of lockdown, in France.
I was sick to my stomach like much of the planet. Holed up in my tiny Airbnb apartment in Tours, after my opera’s cancellation, animal fear and adrenaline raced through my veins in a cold acid wash. The skin on my arms burned, which is what happens when I get very anxious. I had not eaten or slept properly in several days. I seemed to have now completely missed the last flight to the US, Germany had closed its borders, and my French Airbnb host had just announced that I would need to vacate her apartment. None of my friends in France could invite a guest into their home due to the danger of the virus and Airbnb’s were now expressly forbidden to accept new guests. Hardly any hotels were open.
Then, like in a fairytale, in just the nick of time, my kind friends in the countryside of Les Baux rescued me. “ Just come” they said. They had a cottage near their house that was empty. I could self-isolate there.
I did just that.
Having visited once summer three years ago, I remembered that the closest grocery store to Les Baux was about 5 kilometers down the big beautiful mountain.
“You can use our electric scooter to get to town.” My friend said. “Or you can borrow our mini. We don’t use that car.”
When I arrived five days ago, after an epic and terrifying seven hour taxi drive from Tours, my sweet friend texted me.
“Welcome, lovely. I left the key to the mini on the table.” My friends were correctly keeping safe distance from me, since I was coming from the city.
After settling in, I went outside to open the car door and surprise! The car was a stick shift
That evening, I FaceTimed my friend Tom in LA.
“ I guess Ill just be taking the scooter.” I told him, weakly.
“ But you can just teach yourself!” he said.
“ Haha.”
“ You can do it.” he insisted. “ Watch some YouTubes.”
A light went off in my head. YouTubes.
The next day, I flipped open my Macbook. And typed the following words into YouTube search “ How To Drive a Stick Shift”. Boom. A very nice teenage cowboy in Arkansas appeared in his muddy pick-up truck. He explained things nice and slow. Also he had a cute accent and wore very good cowboy boots, which appeared to have real cow manure on them.
But I wanted to make sure I understood the cowboy’s instructions, so I called my friend M in CA for tech support.
“ OK.” I said breathlessly. “ Do I need to press the clutch and break at the exact same time or one and then the other.”
He thought about it “ Exact same time is OK.”
“ Do I need to take my foot off the clutch and THEN press the gas, or both at same time?”
“It’s a kind of tandem thing. You have to feel your way in.”
“OK let me go practice in the car and call you with questions.”
So I raced back outside and got in the drivers seat and stared at the ignition.
I was so nervous.
But my friends and I had agreed that we would share the grocery shopping runs so that we could all be in the store less often. I had agreed so I needed to be brave now, not just for my sake but for the sake of my friends. It felt existential. It was existential.
After about three minutes of staring at the ignition, I dared to I turn the key. My foot was on clutch and brake. So far, so good. Emergency brake released. The car purred.
“ Very, very good” I told myself, out loud. (Don’t judge. I work best with praise.)
For the next twenty minutes, I put the car in first gear—where at first it spluttered frighteningly — and then in reverse. That is literally all I did. Forward and backwards, forward and backwards, nice and easy, like a dance. Like rocking in place, like a kick-ball-change. Like swaying in a hammock.
“And we’re safe. And we’re good. And we are a very good driver” I crooned. And then “OOPS WOOOOOAAAAAH THERE that’s ok, we’re good, don’t worry…” when my heart lurched at the spluttering. “Everybody stalls at first, you are fine.” (Whaaaaaaat, also: who in the hell this new, soothing kindergarten-teacher-persona was who lived inside me, was anyone’s guess, but I liked her. She was very calming.)
After 20 minutes I raced back inside and called Max in CA.
“I did it! I told him.” I told him breathlessly. “ I rocked back and forth. I think that’s all I should do for today.”
“ I’m proud of you!” he laughed. “ You you will get this in no time.”
The next day I got back in the car, dared to move out of the parking lot and DROVE LIKE A BOSS IN A LOOP around the neighborhood.
“ Aaaaaaaaaaand here I go.” I howled as the car went down the hill. I braked. Then I went. Then I braked . Then I went.
I drove in laps around the neighborhood loop for about twenty minutes. Just in first gear.
At a certain point, a sweaty neighbor in stained overalls—who was busy with his tractor in the field across the way–squinted at me and walked over.
He tapped on my window and then stepped back respectfully, because social distancing.
“ Ca va, Madame?” he said, having now observed a strange, determined lady drive her sixth lap in a row, round and round in very slow, first-gear circles.
“Oui, oui!” I said, excitedly. I tried to explain in French. “ J’ai deja my drivers license, so don’t worry—Je m’enseigne simplement comment to drive a stick shift. Oui? I teach myself! Haha.”
He gave me an odd look but then smiled.
“Bon journee, Monsieur!” I called out the window as he returned to his tractor. “Et ne t’inquiete pas! Don’t worry about me!”
The next four days, I proceeded to practice every day.
Finally, I dared to go to second gear.
I would call Max in the house. Max would laugh and say he was proud. I would tell Max anything that felt weird, and he would scratch his chin and diagnose the problem, and then tell me to take my foot slower off the clutch, or to dare to give it a bit more gas.
And then the big day arrived. I buckled myself in, and drove all the way down the big mountain to town. The car hummed. I easily shifted gears. My mind was silent, almost meditative.
I rode down the mountain, the fields gently passing me, turned into Bedoin, and then turned seamlessly into the parking lot of Carrefoure.
I wanted to cry.
You know that expression about how necessity is the mother of all invention? Yeah. So I guess what I wanted to say is, that turns out to be true.
