in issue eight
Scintillations
Surf’s Up
A Right to the Left
Hooray Soleil
The Power of Letting Go
Fuzzy Alien Antennae
Storms and Silence
Incredible Shrinking Woman
Apologizing to Mandy
Sex in the Outback
Dream Interpretation
Moody Girl
Younger Self
Single (again)
photography
Meditation
Single Sunflower
Porch
Park Feet
Smith Doors
Subway Guy
poetry
Courage
Fear
Change
Revelations
My Illusion
artwork
Dancing Star Girl
Noire
Nude on the Side
workshops
Play With
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Magic Money
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Issue Nine: Humor
Issue Ten: Free Write
It's taken a few months and a good
measure of hesitance, but I've finally learned that
I, too, am entitled to drive in the left lane.
When I first began my work commute from Chicago to the suburb
of Highland Park nearly
twenty-five miles away, I tentatively tried to use the left
lane with little success. I had grown up in Kansas City,
Missouri, a city in its own right but in comparison to Chicago
the highways and interstates of Kansas City move at a slower,
far less aggressive pace. I was completely unprepared for the
experience of driving daily through rush hour traffic in a
larger city. My small '91 Corolla was dwarfed by big SUV's,
fast sports cars, and newer Corollas that were at least made
in this millennium. It didn't seem to matter that my car could
keep up with everyone else; because my car is older and
smaller, the other drivers on the Edens made it clear that
they don't want me in the left lane. At all.
After a few months of the commute, I finally figured out that
the difference between commutes around a big city versus a
smaller city-aside from the sheer number of drivers on the
road-is a power hierarchy. There is an intricate power
hierarchy to driving in any big city, which is not as present
in smaller areas. It
goes like this:
If the other car is bigger, it's best to move out of
the way because they're not going to yield. While SUVs are the
biggest problem, all large vehicles seem to do it.
The most obvious example of this would be anytime a
city bus swaggers in front of a lane of traffic, indifferent
to the nearly missed collision, or the middle finger that
nearby drivers may be throwing its way.
Drivers of fast cars (read:
Corvettes, Ferraris, and wannabe sports cars) want to
be at the front of every lane. Unless they're at the front, no
one else is driving fast
enough, and they'll make it known-usually by swerving
out from behind roughly to make their agitation obvious, and
then nearly cutting people off when they pass, even if there's
plenty of room to pass without all of the drama.
It's
generally thought that if you're driving an older car and only
going twenty miles or so over the speed limit, you're going
"slow" because your car just can't go faster. In my
case, this isn't true. According to my speedometer, my car
could go 110+ miles. Maybe I should start posting pictures of
my speedometer on my bumper to prove my
car's capabilities. Then when someone gets on my ass
they'll know that I'm really able to go faster, but that I
just don't feel like dying in an accident because I'm going 90
miles an hour.
So pitted against Bigger, Faster, and Newer, there's my
car-Small, Speed-Conscious, and Older. Puttering along the
highway and trying to avoid getting flipped off, I spent
several months cowering behind the wheel and humbly sticking
to the far right lane.
And then one night I did it. I don't know if it was the
powerful inspiration of Ani DiFranco pouring out of my tape
deck, or if maybe I'd had a long day at work and just couldn't
bring myself to meander in the right lane any longer. I began
my move into the left
lane. I started with the center lane, figuring that if anyone
wanted to pass me, they had two options for getting around.
Using the center lane a few nights, I tried traveling behind
huge transport trucks because after careful observation I
noted that not only were they the least likely to slam on
their brakes, in addition few people wanted to be behind them,
so it was unlikely that someone would swerve in front of me
and cut me off. And then, feeling confident doing this, I
moved into the left lane.
Yes, a few people honked at me and acted aggressive at first.
I realized that these people weren't driving aggressively
because of me, they were driving aggressively because that's
the way they drive. Having a small, speed-conscious, older car
just makes me more of an obvious target. If I'm breaking the
speed limit and staying with the flow of traffic, I am doing
all that I can do. With that realization, the power that I had
projected onto other drivers and then felt intimidated by
vanished. Suddenly,
I was the one who was powerful. I had the ability to just get
into my car, and drive-no rise in blood pressure required.
That was when the change occurred.
Suddenly, I just didn't care. I turned up Ani DiFranco louder and
rolled down my window so that my hair could blow in the wind.
Singing loudly and slightly off-key, I now spend my commutes
bobbing my head to the music and marveling at how much more
quickly an hour of brake, go, brake and go seems to pass by
now that I, too, have a right to the left lane.
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