My wife is a confident, relaxed driver. She’s been driving since she was fifteen, which is I’m Not Going To Tell You How Many years. Her first car was a Camaro, a racecar, whereas mine was a ’63 Chevy Bel-air, an aircraft carrier.
I drive more and more like an old lady. Especially when the roads I’m driving on aren’t the straight, flat, divided highways I’m used to in Florida. I’ve had episodes on hills, bridges, and tunnels when I think I’m really going to lose it, come totally unhinged, and wreck the car.
And when my wife takes the wheel? Forget it. I become a dangerously Nervous Nelly, the worst backseat driver ever. If I don’t close my eyes tightly, I become my wife’s worst enemy. If I gave voice to every twinge of nerves, my side of the conversation might sound something like this:
Look out! Oh my God. OH my GOD! Watch where you’re going. Watch where you’re going! Do you HAVE to fidget so much? Stop LOOKING OUT THE SIDE WINDOW! DON’T TELL ME HOW BEAUTIFUL THE SUNSET IS!
And so on, and so on.
My body/mind type is Vata, which means ruled by air. My wife’s new theme song for me is “Call Me the Breeze” by Lynyrd Skynyrd. I’ve moved thirty-eight times during my forty-four year life. I leave projects in half-completed condition, like a cyclone. I look at my condition this way: when you hang wet cloth on the line, it’s usually heavy enough to stay there. But the cloth dries, there’s every chance of it blowing away. I’m the same way when it comes to carbs.
We just drove from St. Augustine to New Vrindavan, West Virginia, for a 24-hour kirtan festival, where we were scheduled to participate.
The last leg of our trip took us alongside the eastern bank of the Ohio River in West Virginia, as the sun was setting over the western hills. On this stretch of the river are factories, nuclear power plants, and all other manner of gigantic industrial enterprise. I remember one smokestack that looked as tall as a mountain itself. I mean it was ginormous.
The relative comfort of the divided highway was behind us. It was all two-lane traffic from here on out. I was consuming Pure Bliss brand Pretty Good Stuff (our latest favorite addictive snack food) in an attempt to not completely blow away. Every time a car approached in the oncoming lane, I closed my eyes, thinking, “here it comes. This is it. better get ready for it, and make my peace with the world.” I could feel myself break out in a sweat every time a pair of headlights came into view. I felt certain that a deadly combination of slight inattention from my way-too-sightseeing wife would coincide with a slight bend in the road and send us directly into a head-on collision.
I’m telling you, I was suffering. And it was all in my head. As soon as we arrived, everything was OK. Actually everything was OK the whole time.
What do you think? Should I give up driving? Or is there a miracle cure-all for nervous wrecks?
Next time, just walk.
ROFL, LOL, I totally understand, I use the close my eyes trick when my son drives the camaro in Seattle. if my eyes are open I am screaming pretty much what you were but at least an octave or two higher because I am a woman. With son in driver seat and husband in passenger front and me in back screaming I finally realized they obviously don’t care if we die! So I shut my eyes and that is the only way I can bear it. They have drugs for this but I just use total avoidance when it comes to riding with them. Unless I drive!