I am not able to say what the bigger challenge is for me. Weather to remove by myself 375 kg of cement in 25 bags from the garage so that I can clean it, or to take car keys.
I chose the garage first. I could not look at it anymore. There were bags of cement piling in the corner of the garage since we have started reconstruction (as we bought them in sale). In addition, there are ripped bags with jointer – white, black and grey – who knows which one will be needed. Many things were added in the meantime – tools, woods and everything that did not fit anywhere else. We though (I blame nobody in particular) that it will somehow disappear. Renovation in full speed, smashed walls, part of the house nice, the other part…better not to imagine, it is enough for us to see this every day. Therefore, cleaning of the garage was a healing process for me.
Comparing to this, take the car keys of our Golf (well, it is in fact Touran) before his retirement does not represent any healing process at all. Only nerve-racking and stress. “Try it”, I am saying to myself. And then: ”Do not do this, you will not manage”.
I will make it short. It took me four month since Peter passed away to take car keys. There were 19 years before that. I tried to drive in America for the last time – and I was indeed driving. Beginnings were tough even there. I had my driving licence from the Czech Republic. I passed only for the second time. Everyone who knows Evropská street in Prague knows that it is not a piece of cake. I did my exam around the tram depo Vokovice. There are tram rails and who knows what else. Once, during the lesson, I went on the hill in Suchdol with a driving-school teacher. There are posts in asphalt warning that it is prohibited to go there…but I am driving, driving and driving until the teacher could not bear it anymore, stepped on the break and shouted, “Get out!” I was staring at him like an idiot, since due my slow reactions I did not understand that the pots would not move away.
In States, we had a car, which parked in five-floor garage. I tried to get started the car. I was scared and went more and more up and if I did not have some self-preservation instinct and did not find the brake, I would have flown from the roof as women in the film Thelma and Luise, who did not care.
I have an artistic sole. Since my mother and father were not driving, and my mother was telling me every while how dangerous it is, I have developed a phobia. Some people manage to get rid of such effects while other connect and keep them in their heads. My phobia has grown with an experience on the grade crossing. I was driving our business car nine months after Anicka’s birth. I am driving close to Čáslav, I see rails, I see blinking the red signal, I even hear the warning sound, and still I go like crazy across the rails. Peter was sitting next to me. I crossed in high speed, on the red, I realized that I could have killed all of us, I turned driving wheel when Peter was rightly shouting on me “what I am doing”. The car in a fosse, since I came to realize that the train could have hit us. Completely out of mind, my thought are on many places during the day, I hardly concentrate on one thing only. It does not match with driving.
Since this experience, I am happy that a man takes care of driving. It is egoistic…but frankly…everyone is egoistic in something, so this is my thing.
Now, a huge click. My driver, personal bodyguard and love in one is looking at this from above. He will not help me anymore. It is a price for years in shopping centres, where I did not have to carry bags by myself, since we were going there together, as I was not driving. Now, it is me who has to know everything, including driving a car. How do I cope? I have to.
I do not remember traffic signs. I have so many things in my head – I do not want to learn – I am thinking about a short cut. I ask Terka to bike and film the road I would like to take on mobile. She is kind and does so. A week goes by and I am convincing myself to try. I realize that coronavirus has pushed people out of streets and there will not be another good opportunity like this one. There is at least some good use of these strange times. I take car keys. I ask Terka to look for us in case we will not return in one hour. My second teammate at home – Klarka – is so kind to go with me. As a driving school teacher (but she is much better- kind and emphatic). She advise me how to drive out slowly, where to give priority…She knows it from her bike, she knows the traffic signs. Paradoxically, she does not drive. She was eighteen a few weeks ago; she does not have a driving licence. What a team are we! We are going. I am nervous but we are going. A victory, a three-times around a roundabout and a bit of road in addition. I am completely destabilized by every pedestrian, by every girl with a dog. Every car I see in the rear-view mirror is my enemy.
I have no idea what is what in the car. My friend Luda was helping me over the phone. He was somewhere in the mountains. He lives in Frýdek and I live in Geneva, so since he is so far I do not feel ashamed to ask what is what. (He already helped me virtually when I was jumping with the car on my garden, trying to go back and forth for the first time). Since Luda has already nailed me once when I – absolute non-runner – was training for 10k race in Lausanne, he would not be surprised.
I put the phone in a drawer in the car and turn the voice up. I took a picture of the car inside. (I think that Luda’s family has the same car, just a newer model). He advised which pedal is break, which gas and how to start the car. I manage the first distance lesson with him. Other few lessons I did on my own on in the garden – slightly damaging a car and few barriers there. Sometimes, I can go back, even to the garage. It goes but it is hard. I do not understand how someone can talk, eat, listen to music and overtake while driving. In addition too many excesses, Klarka advices: “Be careful with the speed.” I am saying, calm, it is fine, I see that my speed is twenty. Klarka, not so calm, is looking at me…I was watching a different counter…the speed counter is another circle…now, I know.
I have to drive at least for a half an hour, to keep the battery running. Men from TCS (a service that is rescuing hopeless drivers when their cars are dying) visited us a few times. Fortunately, such service exists. They are only surprised why they have to come so often.
I have two-week interval between my driving trials. I promised myself to be more courageous. I will try to dig it. I have already driven with garbage to the waste collection center. The same success for me as the moon for Armstrong.
Cartigny, 21.5.2020
Miss you Petr!!
I hope he is somehow with us. Lea