Learning to Drive (Movie Tie-in Edition)

OVER THERE, THE RED JEEP. PARK! BEN, MY gentle Filipino driving instructor, has suddenly become severe, abrupt, commanding. A slight man, he now looms bulkily in his seat; his usually soft voice has acquired a threatening edge. In a scenario that we have repeated dozens of times, and that has kinky overtones I don t even want to think about, he is pretending to be the test examiner, barking out orders as we tool along the streets above Columbia University in the early morning. I am impersonating the would-be licensee, obediently carrying out instructions. Pull out when you are ready! Right turn! Left turn at the intersection! Straight! All right, Ms. Pollitt, pull over. He doesn t even need to say the words. From the rueful look on his once again kindly face I know that I have failed.
 
What did I do wrong this time? Did I run a red light, miss a stop sign, fail to notice one of the many bicyclists who sneak into my blind spot whenever I go into reverse? Each of these mistakes means automatic failure. Or did I fail on points? Five for parallel-parking more than fourteen inches from the curb and not successfully fixing it, ten for rolling when I paused for the woman with the stroller (but at least I saw her! I saw her!), fifteen for hesitating in the intersection, so that a driver in a car with New Jersey plates honked and gave me the finger? This time it was points, Ben tells me: in our five-minute practice test I racked up sixty. New York State allows you thirty.
 
Observation, Kahta, observation! This is your weakness. This truth hangs in the air like mystical advice from an Asian sage in a martial-arts movie. That, and lining up too far away when you go to park.
 
The clock on the dashboard reads 7:47. We will role-play the test repeatedly during my two-hour lesson. I will fail every time.
 
 
Observation is my weakness. I did not realize that my mother was a secret drinker. I did not realize that the man I lived with,

Katha Pollitt is the author of the essay collections Learning to Drive, Virginity or Death!, Subject to Debate, and Reasonable Creatures and is a poet, essayist, and columnist for The Nation. She has won many prizes and awards for her work, including the National Book Critics Circle Award for her first collection of poems, Antarctic Traveller, and two National Magazine Awards for essays and criticism. She lives in New York City.

The kind of book you want to look up from at points so you can read aloud certain passages to a friend or lover. Chicago Tribune
 
A powerful personal narrative . . . full of insight and charm . . . [Katha] Pollitt is her own Jane Austen character . . . haughty and modest, moral and irresponsible, sensible and, happily for us, lost in sensibility. The New York Review of Books
 
With . . . bracing self-honesty, Pollitt takes us through the maddening swirl of contradictions at the heart of being fifty-something: the sense of slowing down, of urgency, of wisdom, of ignorance, of strength, of helplessness, of breakdown, of renewal. The Seattle Times
 
Essays of breathtaking candor and razor-sharp humor . . . [Pollitt] has outdone herself. . . . [Her] observations are acute and her confessions tonic. Forget face-lifts; Pollitt s essays elevate the spirit. Booklist (starred review)
 
Candid, confessional prose . . . But even at her most intimate, [Pollitt] manages to infuse her tales of dissatisfaction and heartbreak with levity and humor. San Francisco Chronicle
 
Pitch perfect . . . painfully hilarious to read. The Boston Globe