Let me cut to the chase: I passed my driver’s test.
Last night, in my dreams, I remember that I went to get the results and was told that my test had been archived for future generations, even though I had one answer wrong. Why, I asked? The Dream DMV person said, “It’s because your essay was just so beautiful.”
Weirdly, there was no essay section but the experience in Corte Madera (30 minutes away from San Francisco, a drive on the Golden Gate Bridge towards Muir Woods and all totally GORGEOUS) was beautiful. The DMV experience took 30 minutes, start to finish, and really 12 of those were spent because one person had some insanely complicated Death Certificate thing to do. Having an appointment was like being on the red carpet, ushered from one window to the next to the next.
I was, however, amazed at how many emergency case scenarios I had envisioned.
For one thing, I haven’t had my eyes checked in 3 years, so I worried about “what if I fail the vision test?” (Which was beyond effortless.)
Then I worried a lot about the fact that last summer I sublet my car in LA to a lady while I was in Florida and she had a ticket for running a red light via the automatic camera system. I got a bill for $800 which everyone –– especially the LA Times –– told me I should ignore. But still, I wondered, “What if this suddenly becomes an issue of needing to travel to the Courthouse in Beverly Hills and fighting this before I can drive again?” (It didn’t come up.)
I also worried that my UPS mailing address would be disallowed since the Parking People in SF won’t give me a temporary permit for it. Somehow, no one cared.
And I wondered what would happened if I failed the exam, particularly imagining that I would be left stranded in Corte Madera and that Belle would be taken into protective custody since I would be proven an unfit parent.
It is perhaps particularly interesting to note that –– since I’ve been reminiscing about this in my mind a lot –– I taught 1,500 people in Times Square on the Jumbotron without an ounce of worry or anxiety, and yet a simple test that every moron on the road in California has passed resulted in my strategizing about every possible avenue for disaster.
What is that about? (I have some clues …)
Returned to meet Amy at the beach and share some EFT tapping, and then my SECOND Bikram class of the day (!!! –– and number #51 !!!!), and then dinner with Susan to celebrate her biz triumphs and my re-licensing.
And now –– maybe it’s the 3 hours of being in 115 degree heat –– but I am thrilled and exhausted and ready to collapse, eager for tomorrow’s bittersweet sorrow of driving Amy + en famille to the airport, teaching a private, sending out 4,000 emails, and then –– at midnight –– picking up Adrian to begin my days of pre-birthday celebration.
[And, let me tell you, I was perhaps most keenly aware of how if DISASTER had struck at the DMV, all these airport pick-ups I have ahead would be BEYOND CATASTROPHIC.]
But, like the Coreys, I am LICENSED TO DRIVE and it it Good Indeed.
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