The way we learn
Suddenly time, which flapped wetly about me for days, is speeding up. I’m teaching Manko to drive (but she won’t be ready before I go), doing back and leg exercises the physical therapist gave me, making hurricane plans for Manko and the animals, teaching this interminable course (we’re on Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs now, much better, and on a roll headed for Whitman and Dickinson and final exams). I keep going back to Phil Cousineau’s wonderful instructions, from The Art of Pilgrimage, and today, his instructions (for pilgrimage, for life) and Manko’s driving lesson came together like a clash of cymbals (pun not intended, I groan), like a clash of Zildjians from Seth’s rock n roll drum kit, like a great crash. Here is the juxtaposition:
“Before setting out, remind yourself of the purpose of your journey. From now on, there is no such thing as a neutral act, an empty thought, an aimless day. Travels become sacred by the depths of their contemplations. As in myth, dream, and poetry, every word is saturated with meaning. Now is the time to live your ideal life” (69).
“Imagine the way you see yourself seeing. How are you seeing your way? How to you plan to record it, remember it, observe the journey as if it were a work of art? Try to see yourself as a peripatetic artist whose job it is to capture in words, art, music, or story the essential secret of the day. How would you do it? The practice you pursue will determine the quality of your pilgrimage” (103).
“For one friend who had difficulty remembering details from his travels, I suggested he take on the task of writing a poem every day during his journey abroad. . . . He told me, ‘when everything is a possible poem, the world is suddenly far more interesting’” (111).
So when I came home from Manko’s driving lesson, I wrote this:
Driving Lessons
She conquers one fear at a time
as concentration beads her upper lip.
I sit beside her encouraging, praising,
as we drive round and round the parking lot:
left and left, right and right, figure eight. Backing up, moving the foot
from the accelerator to the brake. I say,
“You have to hit the curb sometimes;
that’s how you learn where the curb is.”
Round and round the parking lot,
then a loop through the neighborhood,
speeding up to twenty, Settler’s Way,
thirty, then all the way home
on Lexington, forty, past the mailman,
between two parked cars, home.
She throws the gear into park,
beaming, amazed. Her fingers,
from clutching the steering wheel, are
colorless but for the polish on her
nails called “Red Comet Express Finish.”
“I did it! I drove all the way home!”
We high five, “I did it! I did it!”
This is the way, going in circles, this
is the way, backing up, moving
from accelerator to brake, this is
the way with terror, this is the way,
despite the fear, the (faster faster)
the way thirty-five, forty, the way
slamming the gear into Park, the way
hitting the curb, hitting the
curb, the way we learn, this is
the way we learn where the curb is,
this is the way we learn,
this is the terrifying way.
Tags: Books and Movies, Driving, Manko, Preparation, Seth
Kendall
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