Monday, 31st May 2004
On Driving
I passed my driving test, second time round, when I was 17. The Monsters That Created Me spent lots of money on driving lessons to get me through the test and then I upped and moved to London and never drove again.
There are lots of details in between that, like how I reversed up a street near where my parents lived, in their car, and knocked the wing mirrors off every single car on that street. Or like how that street ran along the back of a police station and so those cars were probably the copper’s cars. Needless to say that inspired a grave panic and I am not sure if I ever told the truth as to why the side of their car looked like that. “It was like that when I came out of the party”, was my excuse then and perhaps now, if the old biddies are reading, perhaps now, 12 years later, they are finally learning the truth of it all.
Mother tried to give me a lesson up the common before I moved to the states which consisted of me going round and round in circles, screaming. That experience, about 6 years ago, was the absolute last time I drove until 5 days ago.
My aunt and uncle have bought an old banger to leave in France so that they can catch cheap flights out and have something to get around in whilst they are here. As do all inanimate objects around me, the old banger has acquired a name - Cecilia - and I have been told I can use the car, provided I collect them and return them to the airport when they come. This means that I can get to a real, live supermarket and the awesome market in a near-with-a-car town on a Friday.
Naturally then, I had been having huge anxiety attacks about the prospect of learning to drive. Part of me thinks this is another reason as to why I wanted to bolt for their visit. I really wanted to learn, because I realised that if I do not want to go back into cities with their tubes and buses, I do need to drive. However, I have issues with depth perception and the judging of size because of my jacked up eyes and so my major fear was not having the physical capabilities to actually safely drive. This fear was, of course, exaggerated by my removal of all those wing mirrors so long ago, since the lie I tell myself about that night was that I wasn’t that drunk really…
So here is Cecilia and she has now become The Precious™! I have been walking around, for about a week prior to their arrival, saying to myself, over and over, “I am a brilliant driver, I’m a brilliant driver” and it seems to have worked, because lo and behold, I am, all of a sudden, a brilliant driver! Cecilia is an old Ford Granada, an automatic with power steering and since she is British, she has the steering wheel on the wrong side of the car. However, we LOVESESESES her and are getting along incredibly well.
The first adventure was just to the farm and back and I screamed “VROOOM” and “WOOOHOOO” and “I’M ALAIN FOURNIER!!!” over and over throughout the 5 or 10 minute drive. I think I grated my uncles nerves, but I didn’t go into a single ditch, nor vomit, nor run over a single cat, chicken or cow. I am convinced this was due to the Rescue Remedy I shoved down my throat to calm my nerves. I am also convinced it is because I am a truly, brilliant driver who was afraid of showing up the world with her dazzling panache, verve, care and attention to the skill of driving until now.
So the next day I actually did a huge drive! This time with my aunt and cousin whom I am now convinced should start up a driving school because they are rather calming and confidence bolstering. I was supposed to stop as soon as I got to a road with two sides, as I wasn’t sure how I felt about oncoming traffic. However, just before we got to the “main” road, I met a tractor and didn’t run either us or it off the lane, so I continued my merry confidence building way. Both affirmed that they felt very safe in regards to my driving, but were both very afraid of my “VROOMing”, “I’M A RACE CAR DRIVERing” “WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEing”, “WOOOOHOOOOing” and “GYEAHs”!
So, for the last couple of days I have actually been going out by myself and last night, I even did a night time drive, which I have to confess I didn’t like at all. However, all these positive affirmations regarding my brilliant driverness seem to be paying off as they prohibit the panic rising. I am coping. I am good. I am safe. I am a brilliant driver. It’s quite an interesting experiment really in terms of the inner monologues and mantras we have for ourselves. If I hadn’t been doing all of the emotional / psychological work I have been, I would have sent myself in a huge panic by constantly telling myself how bad I probably would be at driving because of my eyes. Lesson learnt for the rest of life I hope.
And so even though Cecilia is an automatic with power steering, which I had previously sneered at, I am so grateful to her and my aunt and uncle for teaching me to drive again. I think that a manual car would have been much harder to comprehend. Cecilia gives me a head start on this driving thing which is something I need for my new country bumpkin life. One more crippling fear overcome which is as amazing as the spider I caught under a glass and set free yesterday afternoon.
Incidentally, is Alain Fournier a race car driver or a novelist? I can’t remember…
Saturday, 29th May 2004
Not for the skim readers in the house
I have always believed that one shouldn’t say something about a person that you wouldn’t say to their face. When I was 13, I was terribly backstabbed by my 3 “best friends”. They went around the school telling people that they hated me, that I was weird and miserable but yet were nice and smiling to my face. For weeks (or months?) this went on and I was clueless to it all until some other kids came and broke the god awful news. It obviously hurt tremendously not just for the malicious betrayal of it all, but because I had been “best friends” with these girls since I was 5 or 6 and had given, as usual, so much to the friendships. I decided then, as I cried and cried and cried alone at night, (because I NEVER cried in front of them), that I did not choose to ever make someone feel the way I felt then. Hence my commitment to my opening statement.
So here I am faced with a moral quandary. It turns out that my uncle and aunt googled my name a while back and came across this here place. “As a person with morals and values, I find you very offensive.” “I mean come on, people think you are gay for gods sake.” “Think of the poor little people in Peru, how could they possibly understand you?”
And so this is why I walked away from every last one of them nearly 10 years ago to the day. The comment that closed the door, so absolutely, last time was, “Why did you move to London; aren’t there loads of Black people there?” Talking of which, my uncle seems rather indignant about African-Americans being able to say the n-word, but he “a white man” not.
Okay.
And so I have this moral quandary, don’t I? I am here, in a house that belongs to them in part and, as such, I have to deal with them. This is something, as I have mentioned, I am learning how to do. And so I have said things, as I talked about this learning, that I am, in some ways, worried about. Because while were the situation any different, (i.e. were I not in their house), I would say these things to their face, I am also now worried that my honesty might render me homeless. Especially since, when I was asked why I had maintained 10 years of silence and I replied that it was because I had not ever felt a genuine bond with any single member of my family, my aunt, with a little false laugh said, “Well get out of my house then.”
And so the quandary goes…
I am not a malicious or spiteful person and would not choose to intentionally hurt someone; however, I will not lie when asked a direct question. In addition, I do not feel comfortable with the notion of having to censor myself on this website. To say someone “grates on your nerves” could be considered cruel, no matter how true it might be. And incidentally, I think time has mellowed her and the shrieks are not anywhere near like they used to be. So she doesn’t grate on my nerves at all, she is just very, very different to me.
And so I explained that my journey was different from theirs. I explained that I believe in an inward journey, not an outwards accumulation of “wealth”, husband with good job and big house in the suburbs. I explained that it is not a bad thing to be considered gay. I explained that it is wrong for a white person to say the n-word. And I explained that the “poor little people in Peru” are not necessarily lacking in empathy, compassion, love or open minds, which is what we all need to understand someone. I explained that tolerance and a broad mind is not borne of a university degree and a fat diamond on ones ring finger. I explained that it comes from heart space which is something both we and the “poor little people in Peru” have abundant access to.
And so I have got this moral quandary, you see? I am living in a house I don’t want to leave just yet with people who don’t understand me and seem to want me to be more like them. I am living in a house part owned by people who I do not identify with on any real level, but I am willing to be with so long as I am free to be myself. Because superficially, I don’t mind these people at all. I think they have been kind and generous to me and even though I think they are closed minded and obsessed with the way things look, not the way they are, part of me does like them too. And so I don’t mind if they care about the size of a diamond on a fellow airplane passengers finger or want to refer to the counties of England as “the provinces”. I presume that someone needs to. They are welcome to their lives and concerns and I wish them well in their travels, but I do wonder if I am welcome to my concerns..?
I do wonder if I am allowed to be different to them without being asked to leave? I do wonder if I am able to have my morals and viewpoints which contradict theirs and still be allowed to remain in this house? Because I held my tongue when the three of them put me under the inquisition and only defended my life choices. I did not attack theirs nor place myself in opposition to them; I just stated me and let them place me where they wished. I did not express my disdain for their values or morals or choices because I no longer feel the need to. It is enough now, that I be myself. However, if I am asked why, I will answer and whilst I may omit to spare a feeling, I will not lie to mask a truth or to make people less uncomfortable.
Every day now, I am finding more and more of myself to be and to unravel and with these discoveries I am finding it difficult to care about who or what anyone else may choose to be. If someone wants to be a bigot, so be it, and when questioned I will posit myself in answer, but I no longer care to change them. I am fucking huge, almost unmanageably so and this gathering of the rope of my being is wonderfully engrossing work that leaves my life both so full and so paradoxically free. I want to be left alone to be, as Miller puts it, “more and more of myself” and I wonder, I really honestly do wonder, if I am going to be allowed to do that and remain in this house?
So few people have ever fully understood me in my life and all of them have been Artists. No one else understands this journey I chose so long ago, that I forgot even doing so. It is becoming so clear here, in the Dordogne, what “my path” is and as such, I can feel the great rivers inside of me parting to clear passage for the boulders to move through me. I am starting to notice a profound stillness and from this stillness is rising, like a dawn mist, a great sadness which is painting my face in an aloneness and finally freeing my soul…