This might not be a practical suggestion, but: if the media and the world at large could cease to publish the names/organizations/nationalities of terrorists and focus exclusively on healing the wounded and caring for the bereaved -- if, in short, terrorists ceased to get attention through the use of terror -- maybe they would be forced to find more acceptable methods of addressing their grievances.
I suppose that's a vain hope.
Ah well.
Back to the driving lesson.
I had my third one today. Tuesday, like I said, is a day of rest for the August Academy and Wednesday it was raining hard. Today, at eight o'clock, on the dot, there was the little red chariot, with its two occupants -- Mr Moccha and the silent young woman who is my co-student. I must correct a peculiar misconception: apparently the car I've been using does NOT have that triangular contraption on its roof! I seem to have manufactured it in my imagination, when reconstructing the lesson from memory.
Anyway! Today marked my transition from illiterate invertebrate to gear-using primate. I will admit that for the two days since my last lesson, I have been practicing changing gears by imagining what it might feel like, in my head. Like I mentioned in my earlier post, this IS how I navigate the by-lanes and cul-de-sacs of reality -- by imagining as much as I can of the path ahead in advance. It's a very cumbersome, resource-intensive approach, because it means I virtually relive everything that happens in my life except for the tiny bits of experience that occur unexpectedly(these are nearly always the nasty bits. I try very hard to imagine every type of nasty bit just to be fair and balanced, but -- wouldn't you know it? -- there are always very many more of them than I can possibly dream up).
As a result, it was almost fun, today. I won't bore the readers of this blog, nearly all of whom are drivers (only because most people who can turn on a computer are equally adept at leaping into cars and driving off into the sunset) with the details -- but I was quite surprised to find it didn't stress me out. Of course, Mr Moccha kept telling when to make the changes, but I think one element that has made a big difference is that I have finally realized that I can unhook my left foot from the clutch. Wow! What a relief. I am sure I've been told this many times over, but it has only now really got through to me that the brake is what I need in order to go fast or slow until there's a gear-change to worry about.
And the reason it got through to me now and not for all the 53 years before this moment, is that I finally made the effort to watch E's feet while sitting in the passenger seat day-before-yesterday, as he drove around the block to a friend's house. That's when I saw that his left foot sat quietly to one side while the right foot danced about -- stopping, starting, stopping, starting ... quite a busy little character, that foot!
This leads me to wonder whether left-handers feel uncomfortable, using their right feet for all that below-the-ankle-level activity? Since handedness is connected to the separate spheres of left/right brain activity, surely it should affect the feet to the same extent (gt -- are you reading this?)?
So we got home after a peaceful ride all the way through the mayhem of 8.00 a.m traffic -- busses parping, cyclists tinkling, school children leaping out in front of the car, all of that nonsense, and I was no longer wholly white-knuckled. A little, sure -- but less than the previous two days.
There's the reverse gear to be faced, of course, and parking and ... well, it's much better when I avoid thinking of the farther shore of competence and just stick with what I have today. Which is: 2nd, 3rd and 4th gears, yayyyyy!
A demain ...
15th July
Here's a grouse: I can't seem to log into my blog!! No idea why. Can't log into ANY blogger pages, so I'm not feel personally insulted. But it certainly cuts into my daily road-warriorette saga. Today was the fifth day of my transformation-to-be and what can I say? At one level, yes -- I can sense fundamental changes occurring in my DNA -- I feel a desire to change gear, and I no longer have that sense of lateral vertigo -- the combined dread/desire syndrome -- of fearing that I will crush every cyclist and motorist that comes within ten feet of my car. But at another level, I continue to feel utterly detached, as if there's someone at the wheel but it's not me (... PINK FLOYD ref, yes).
*sigh*
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