volume eighty-five
“thank you, driver!”
When I was seventeen years and three-hundred-and-sixty-something days old, I went and took my learner's driver's test. It was almost two years later than I was eligible and the only reason I did it was that I was soon going to be of legal drinking age, assumed I would get my license eventually, and didn’t want to pay for the license and the proof of age card because that would have dipped into my precious booze and clothing fund unnecessarily. There might have also been a boyfriend who was going to be turning the drinking age a few days before me, therefore he would be out at bars, and I knew already too well that I didn’t trust that not to end with him going home with someone that wasn’t me. I thought, with all the privileges I had been awarded in life thus far, that I might be able to outsmart a bouncer and present a card that clearly said I was not yet 18. I thought that they would be so bad at their job they wouldn’t notice because I had the card and what were a few days? The audacity of myself.
I failed the test and the only moment that stung was when I turned around to see my sister and her daughter who had brought me there, holding learners' plates ready to congratulate me.
I never wanted to drive.
I still don’t.
I am a woman in her thirties who has never once thought “Wow, this would be easier if I could drive” which is something I got to confidently say to a friend this week and have her support and understanding despite my usual assumption of judgement coming. I have thankfully always had the bus or train as my plan — even learning to do so when getting to and from the airport — I know. I am an icon who doesn't ask for a ride to LAX, or YVR, or SYD.
I have gratefully many times, been given a lift with someone, usually to a shared destination, only to feel uneasy about how they were doing something I never learned how to do. Not because of how they were doing it (most of the time) and not because I wanted to, but because of all the unknowns out of their control, and mine.
On a bus or a train, I feel comfort. I feel a cushion of protection. Most of all, I feel like I am a part of the human race. Whether ears out in the wild absorbing it all in or deep in a podcast, I am present. I am a participating in the world collectively made up of many cool, interesting walks of life all on the same four wheels or set of tracks.
Recently, while being visited by a friend (the same from an earlier paragraph), she very kindly offered to hire a car for the day. We got further in less time than we would have by the transit we both happily took on all other days of her visit, we fit more into a day than I would have without her, and our brand new suitcase purchases were slotted into the boot and the backseat instead of wheeling them around beside us on a bus and gripping them for dear life around every corner.
I was thankful and exhausted.
I realised that with the time you save driving and not transiting, you soon take up again trying to find a parking space. Drivers: if you added up all the time you take trying to find a parking spot, and you could claim it back, what would you do with that time?
The stories I make up based on the snippets I witness of strangers didn’t exist that day we were in the car. The inconvenience of just missing the bus, granting me another 20 minutes was taken away, so I didn't find myself strolling down a street I wouldn’t have otherwise to fill the time and meeting eyes with someone I never would have before.
The pace of that stroll usually means I can peer into a window briefly and witness people falling in love at the stove, helping their kids with their homework, teaching a pet to sit, or an armchair and side table combo that I instantly admire.
On a bus, I am never taken on the fastest route, instead weaving down side streets to collect everyone, getting to see corner shops, or perfect fences, or magnificent trees that main road goers don’t get.
On the bus, I usually arrive with time to spare to meet someone, basing my life around the transit schedule. This means I can browse a bookstore, find us a table and get a cold drink, write a few sentences in a journal, fix my hair in the toilet mirror, or flirt with waitstaff, all before my guest arrives. These are precious moments I would otherwise miss. In the evening, when buses are fewer and fewer, I can soak up the freshness of the night air and take in the stillness of the world as I wait.
Long, long, long ago I knew that driving wasn’t for me. There was a brief moment last year where I bought into “embracing your fears” and “doing the thing” and “writing down 100 things that scare you and doing them” and decided that meant I would learn to drive.
Thankfully, I came to my senses and was reminded that responsibility was too much for me. Not the financial responsibility, but also that, which means parking, insurance, registration, gas, and maintenance. In my life, I better invest that in ice cream, plane tickets to see family, and monthly manicures as my indulgent self-care. But I also mean the responsibility that is hauling machinery that weighs a tonne (Google says the average weight of a car is 1.4 tonnes), at fast speeds, through busy roads that contain pedestrians and cyclists and other heavy metal things on four wheels speeding along.
I knew (after some reflecting on how we should live in each day and plan things but don’t do life to-do lists) that I had spent far too long enjoying my life already with the bliss that is people-watching while waiting or riding, and daydreaming gifts that transit brings while you are escorted to your destination without any need to concentrate on how it happens, freeing you up to take in everything else. It was with that, that I knew what I would miss too much if I gave all that up for so-called convenience.
I wonder if people who drive everywhere know what they are missing?
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here are three things I struggled with this week:
🙀 Self-doubt.
🫶 Patience to the point I am embarrassed of my behaviour.
😳 pt 1: Made a fool of myself arriving at a comedy show early and being nervous about that so made a silly joke about being the only one there. I didn’t think I could ever ask for spot on that show, which was the intention behind me checking it out in the first place.
here are three blessings from this week:
🆒 Shooting your shot with someone and getting an enthusiastic yes.
✉️ Moving an email to a folder without responding.
🫣 pt 2: The comedian then made a fool of himself by saying my name was she/her because I had my pronouns in my Eventbrite profile. Ugh.
here are three goals for the coming week:
💯 Take advice from my lovely friend who visited and change the layout of my days so that when I am at 100%, that is when I am doing the things I have 100% of my heart in. Things I can do at 60% I will.
🖋️ Mondays are for writing, not day job-ing.
🫠 pt 3: The comedian smugly asked me when I was doing my 5 minutes, without knowing I do comedy and was more just trying to make a point. I told him I have a 10 and thanked him for meeting his quota by booking one woman on his show that night. I woke up to an email offering me a spot. I am gunna do it, and I am gunna slay.
here is something I enjoyed this week:
My friend Lou is taking her book tour to the USA! If you or someone you know live in one of these areas, you’d be a fool not to attend.
pics or it didn’t happen:
I love you. I’m so grateful to those who read my substack 🧡 because I really love writing it to you,
LD
xoxo
It has literally never even occurred to me to learn to drive. Haven’t even sat behind the wheel of a car, the thought is too stressful for me to want to deal with it. I didn’t grow up with a car either so was very used to walking almost everywhere or getting public transport. And except for the rare moment where I wish I could just drive to a hut in the middle of the woods or something I actually don’t think I’m that fussed by not driving. I can get where I need to get via public transport or by walking, the former means I get a lot of reading done to!
I used to enjoy taking buses anywhere that was too far to walk (which I repeatedly learned was a lot farther than most people were happy with) I never learned to drive either. I got halfway there a bunch of years back but that's about it. That cost was always beyond me.
Plus I loved finding my way to places. Walking wherever my mapping skills, then phone gps when that arrived, took me was fun. Or following a new bus route and finding my way from the stop to my destination.
One city I lived in, I knew shortcuts and alleys and out of the way places, and I swear some of these places in the city centre were little wormholes because I'd walk down one and wind up in a totally different part. I loved that.
Unfortunately I don't get to walk anymore. And I can't take public transport. The amount we spend on taxis is extortionate, but still less than a car. Plus I wouldn't be able to drive now anyway, and Cuddles rejects any possibility of getting behind a wheel which I respect.
I miss the days when I could walk. Even when that was walking 3 miles to and fro from work in shoes that ripped my feet apart. It's the freedom. The ability to be in my little zone with music or a podcast playing.
This is getting to be about the same size of your post now so I'll go be quiet 🤐 😆 I just had a flood of memory and emotion there. Thank you 💜