in twelfth grade I flunked my first attempt

in twelfth grade I flunked my first attempt at the driving test

when I failed to yield to oncoming traffic on a left hand turn.

the test giver shouted and I quickly braked, knowing right away I’d blown it.

I followed his directions to get us back to the dmv without any further incidents,

and then I didn’t try to take the test again until eleven years later,

when my fiancée said I had to be able to help her with driving

if I wanted us to go down the west coast so she could meet my father and stepmother

before they came up to washington from california for our wedding.

it was in order to unite my past and future that I hunkered down and managed to get my license —

after practicing in parking lots with my fiancée’s best friend, her toddler in the back seat,

she the same person who’d recently gotten ordained to marry friends,

and who would soon do the same for me and dawn.

“I’ll help you,” say people, and then one day maybe they’re gone,

but that’s part of their helping too it turns out, we learn with time.

ironically, after spending so many years in this city

building my identity around walking and biking and taking the bus everywhere,

while also being driven places by others, suddenly I was driving all the time,

especially when I became a stay-at-home parent twice over,

for a total of 10 years of play date and school drop-offs and pick-ups,

and grocery store runs and sundry other errands and unexpected vehicle uses,

such as driving a strapped-in baby out of town and back to get him to nap.

toward the end of that period, I slowly rejoined the workforce,

first briefly as an elementary school reading paraeducator,

but then for almost five years as an employee of the children’s museum,

where my most consistent duty was delivering newsletters and other marketing materials

to businesses all up and down the south sound region,

at first in my own prius and then in the big van the museum acquired,

which I had to take a defensive driving course at the city bus depot to be able to use.

they gave us some good tips — such as scan, cushion, and communication —

but it wasn’t anything I hadn’t already gotten an instinct for as a driver of a decade by then.

in fact, it was my being praised by my museum bosses as a safe, efficient driver

that got me a second part-time job as a floral delivery driver when I needed more income

because my marriage suddenly ended after 13 years, or rather 18 years together total.

that was where the road had taken me, it turned out, or rather my hands on the wheel.

you’ll know how to recover when you begin to lose control on the road

should be the only lesson they teach in driver’s ed, since all tips will vanish in the moment.

the first time I was pulled over for speeding in my life was about eight o’clock at night,

going down pacific on a week night in november, about to get on the freeway

to go back to the third of four homes I’d live in in a six month period back then.

I was lost in my thoughts as my rear view mirror became a video of bursting birthday balloons.

I pulled over to the curb, my feeling of terror mixed with resignation at the inevitable,

and then I experienced all the tropes I’d seen in the media: the cop at my window,

intimidating in innumerable ways, asking for my license and registration, then of course

if I knew how fast I’d been going, and then he had me step out and over to the sidewalk,

where I successfully eyed the officer’s pen moving side to side in front of my nose,

his partner watching us from the shadows beside their cruiser, never saying a word.

I was told to get back in my car and pull into the empty car dealership beside us.

they pulled in behind me and then sat there for a long time, their headlights like a blizzard.

then the main cop came over and returned my items and said he was just giving me a warning

and I burst into tears and thanked him and I said I was going through a bad divorce,

that we were in and out of family court, and that in fact, I’d just left my therapist’s office.

he then surprised me by saying he used to be a social worker and understood very well

how life’s turmoil can be just as distracting while driving as holding a phone,

and he recommended I find somewhere to calm down, like a diner up there road.

I thanked him again and after they drove off, I got on the freeway and slowly drove home.

that drive was like my return to the dmv way back in twelfth grade,

feeling like everyone around me could see that I’d failed and had no motivation to try again.

what a miracle then is forgetting and letting life rush back in like the tide,

pushing sand back into all the holes we dug out of frustration, so we can claw at that all again.

the second time I got pulled over — and last, for more than three years now —

was two months later, the week my divorce was being finalized and I was gritting my teeth

as I awaited returned documents from the lawyer I’d futilely tried to have removed

from my case, due to his and his paralegal’s blistering incompetence,

but that only felt like the half of it, as I’d just moved yet again, my daughter had new anxiety,

and I was applying for better jobs all the time but was still 16 months away from getting one.

mid-afternoon one weekday, as I entered I-5 west at hawk’s prairie,

after delivering stuff out there for one of my jobs, I sped up to fit into the middle lane,

then braked some as I saw a semi coming up behind me fast, and then glanced ahead

and saw a state trooper standing on the shoulder beside his motorcycle,

pointing his radar gun my way, a sight that caused my foot to press the brake even harder,

which led him to point directly at me and then at a point on the shoulder up ahead.

once I’d drifted like a knight in chess across the lanes to my designated spot,

this officer quickly appeared by my window and, unlike the last one,

he didn’t let me off with a warning, but rather immediately gave me a ticket

for over a hundred dollars, although for the lowest number of points on my record,

because, as he explained, he was less concerned with my speed than with the opposite:

how dangerously quickly I’d braked on the freeway —something that astounded me,

because not only had I partially done so due to his staring at me, but also, moreover,

because I’d never been taught that that was a thing to watch out for.

I pondered that as I pulled ahead, then off to a side street to email my bosses,

the idea that there can be an infraction that’s unwritten in any training manual.

your test won’t include the things you’ll fail to yield to far in the future,

but it will lead you back to the place where both failures and successes park side by side.