Driving

I remember a day when I lived in Baltimore--back when Maisie was a baby, I think--and I was so tired that I couldn't focus my eyes. I was driving on 39th Street, near my house, and I saw a man in a bright red suit. Boom--I stopped the car in the middle of the block, in the middle of the street: in that moment, the suit translated into a stop sign. I'm fascinated by these brain hiccups.

My father has these kinds of hiccups when he drives, only his are age-related and they alarm me. Multiple threads of logic stress him, and so, for instance, he might have no trouble understanding that he has to wait for the oncoming traffic to clear before he crosses--but he'd be flummoxed by the additional predicate that he can't cross if the light turns red, even if the oncoming traffic has cleared, or if a pedestrian walks into the street. In the same vein, I notice that if he's running late, the effort to not be late takes precedence over careful lane shifts, or leaving some space between him and the car ahead of him, or making full stops. My father, who has always lorded his role as Mr Safety over all the rest of us, now makes dangerous mistakes--even causing an accident a few years ago when Liam and I were in his back seat. (He didn't see a yield sign.)

I have quietly made the decision that I won't let my Dad drive my kids anywhere. And I've told him that he scares me when he follows other cars too closely, so when I'm in the car with him he concentrates on leaving more space in front of his car...which I know reduces his capacity to focus on other things related to safety. So much is bound up in one's ability to get up and get in the car. It's got such value beyond its precise value.

But the day's coming. The Big Bad Talk. I dread it.