Our Daughter Started Driver's Ed

"WE'RE NOT SCARED"

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This pocket is for Anna, who I’m so, so proud of.

Without further ado, today’s pocket.

Do you remember the children’s book We’re Going on a Bear Hunt?

“We're going on a Bear Hunt! We're going to catch a big one. What a beautiful day. WE'RE NOT SCARED.”

This precious book was a family favorite for years, read to our kids at bedtime, and then recited out on the trail, one foot in front of the other, verse by verse.

“Oh-oh! GRASS! Long, wavy grass. We can't go over it. We can't go under it. Oh, no! WE'VE GOT TO GO THROUGH IT!

This week, three afternoons out of five, I dropped Anna off at driver’s ed and then headed to the hills to go hiking and forget about the fact that not only were we long past reading and reciting We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, but my little girl was also old enough to take driver’s ed.

I headed to Iller Creek as it is a short drive from Fast Lane Driving Academy.  It was late afternoon, and I was hiking alone. A brown and white parks and rec sign informed me I should be alert for bears. Fortunately, according to the sign, there were several things I could do to protect myself.

Number one. Don’t hike alone.

I was not off to a good start.

I like hiking alone. I like to notice all that is blooming, the lupine, the larkspur, the wild roses, oh the wild roses. I like to listen to the birds singing. I notice the birds singing more when I am alone. On this day, I was completely captivated by bird song at the beginning of the trail. Who could that magnificent bird be? The whistling reminded me of my grandfather shaving over the blue bathroom basin. Sometimes when I’m alone in the woods, I don’t feel alone at all. “Cheerily, cheer up, cheerily, cheer up.” It turned out it was a robin, a bird that lives right in our backyard and visits daily, but out here, alone, my ears felt better tuned for her song.

Out here, I was singing too because that was number two on the list. Make noise. You don’t want to surprise a bear. “Cheerily, cheer up, cheerily, cheer up,” This time I was making the sound, trying to whistle, trying to make any noise that would make up for my solo status.

To give you a full picture of how ridiculous I looked singing and whistling at the top of my lungs to deter bears, picture Jean Ralphio and Mona-Lisa Saperstein, from Parks and Rec, singing “Don’t Be Suspicious, Don’t be Suspicious” over and over again.

I began my concert in the woods with “Walk on the Wild Side” because I had just listened to the song on the drive over. Plus, the title felt fitting. However, it was a terrible choice as I didn’t know any of the words. I know the words to lots of songs, but on the trail, I couldn’t think of a single one, my mental energy was completely spent calculating my chances of encountering a bear. Instead of really singing, I just kept repeating the chorus over and over again as I hiked. Hey Man, take a walk on the wild side… I walked a few more steps and then repeated myself … Hey man… I did manage to throw in a doo do doo do doo do do doo every once in a while, and I switched things up by swapping out Hey Man with Hey Bear.

Hey Bear…

It occurred to my rational brain that it was more likely that I would run into humans on this hike than a bear, at which point I would probably be embarrassed for trying to sound like Lou Reed while shouting Hey Bear, but it was dark in the woods today, and it had started to rain, and my irrational brain was kicked into high alert. Perhaps, I really had made a grave mistake by thinking I could casually go for a hike in the middle of the afternoon without getting attacked by a bear.

Bear attacks, particularly fatal ones, are rare. I know this. I also know that bear attacks usually only happen when a bear is startled, hence my questionable rendition of Walk on the Wild Side, but my irrational brain wouldn’t hush. My irrational brain was spoiling Lou Reed and my hike. My irrational brain was a total party pooper.

It was an excellent distraction though from the other places my brain was going. Perhaps, I really had made a grave mistake by allowing my daughter to take driver’s ed. Bear attacks are incredibly rare. Car accidents, on the other hand, are not. I don’t know anyone who knows anyone that was killed by a bear, but I do know people who loved people who were killed in car accidents, and I imagine that you do too.

On the first day of class, Anna’s instructor, Paul, told us that he is a dad to four kids, and all of them have been in car accidents. Paul, you might want to lead with something else, I think to myself, and then it occurred to me that I have been in several accidents as has most everyone I know. My first accident occurred when I was sixteen just a few weeks after getting my license. I had just gotten my hair done for the junior prom, and I had driven myself to the appointment. I was driving my Dad’s van, and I forgot I had parked next to a cement divider. It felt like a minor detail next to all things prom. My date, Tim Malloy, was coming all the way from upstate New York. He was so cute, and he was going to the prom with me. Thinking about Tim and my dress, I forgot about the divider. I moved forward to get out of the spot instead of backing up, painfully scraping up the side of the van. Such an awful sound, and yet I didn’t realize what was happening right away. To this day, my dad doesn’t trust me to drive a van. In case you are wondering, Tim Malloy turned out to be a terrible prom date. He spent the entire evening flirting with a “friend” of mine and at the end of the night, he told me he had a girlfriend. I should have scraped up Tim Malloy’s car. “Doo do doo do doo do do doo…”

Paul continued with his story. “I taught three of my four kids to drive,” Paul said. “The oldest had already learned by the time I married his mom. All of my kids have been in accidents,” Paul repeated, “but the youngest three were never in accidents that were their fault.” Paul is offering us his credentials to teach defensive driving, and I’m grateful for Paul as I am for all educators who genuinely care for kids, but all I can think is …so many accidents… In the end does it really matter whose fault it is?

When Anna was completing her permit application, she took out a measuring tape. She measured her foot.

“What are you doing?” I asked her.

“It says feet,” she said. “then inch…” She burst out laughing.

I burst out laughing too. “I think you just had an Amelia Bedelia moment,” I said, referencing another book we read all the time when she was little. Amelia Bedelia worked for the Rogers family and frequently misunderstood the tasks she was asked to do. When told to draw the drapes, she took out her sketchbook. When asked to dress the chicken, she took out a measuring tape and made the chicken a pair of shorts. The Rogers were always on the cusp of firing her until they tasted her lemon meringue pie.

“I’m not worried about you starting to drive,” I joked. “Not worried at all.”

Whenever I go hiking and I see a bear warning, I think about it relentlessly for the first half of the hike. I wonder what will happen if I’m attacked by a bear.

When I step into my car, I rarely think about the possibility of getting into an accident, except lately. Lately, I think about this a lot more. I think about all the things I do when driving that I shouldn’t do.

Anna said Paul had the kids raise their hands if they’ve seen their parents text while driving.

“So many kids raised their hands, Mom. Texting while driving is so dangerous.” (Thank you Paul. Keep telling your stories.) “Don’t worry though, I didn’t rat you out,” Anna said.

I vowed to never text and drive again. The next day I checked my email while driving. I am more dangerous than any bear.

In We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, nothing can be avoided, not the grass, not the river, not the mud not the forest, not the snowstorm, not even the bear.

We can’t go over it. We can’t go under it. We’ve got to go through it.

So we do…

We stumble trip through it all, through a summer spent learning to balance on a big girl bike,  a midnight visit to the emergency room because Anna insisted she was dying and the relief that she was just fine, past the painful pulled tooth, so much worse than the dentist said it would be, to the broken foot that spoiled a soccer season when Anna somehow still managed to make jokes as they wheeled her off the field, it eventually healed and only increased her abundant empathy, through a broken friendship that was beyond saving and the brownies we made in consolation together in our kitchen, through many an open mic where Anna’s beautiful music reached the audience right in their soul, and the one time where that didn’t happen because some people in this beautiful world are ignorant and cruel.

Stumble trip, Stumble trip, Stumble trip through an awful first job, and the courage Anna had to know she didn’t deserve to be treated that way, to a better second job and the diligence to show up for every shift, to new friends and learning how to set boundaries and believe in ourselves, to the drives back and forth to the Fast Lane Driving Academy where Anna learns from Paul, and I continue to learn from her.

We can’t go over it. We can’t go under it. We’ve got to go through it.

I’m not scared. It’s a beautiful day.

“Hey Bear…”