the hill

L and I went to the mountains for memorial day weekend. We rented a house with friends, and on Saturday morning we (let's not even front here--I) packed up the car and we drove to Boone. We met at a park for lunch, then caravaned the rest of the way to our rental cabin. To get there, we drove up a big. ass. hill.

I love my car. It's amazing in the snow, it's been with me through everything. Longer than any boyfriend, longer than Lena. I love my car, I will defend my car to anyone. However, there are a few things that my car cannot do. It doesn't accelerate that great. It kind of shakes a little on the highway, if you go above 70. The stereo sucks. The air conditioning just stopped working. It..doesn't do hills that well.

The hill came up out of nowhere, and before I knew it, I was flooring the poor subaru, listening to the engine growl in protest, watching the speedometer slowly fall from 25 to 23 to 20...

L is in the back--happily pointing out trees and flowers-or asking me questions-or talking to herself, continuing our game of twenty questions started on the highway--I don't know, the only thing I could concentrate on was driving up this hill, wondering whether I was going to make it. My car is an automatic, but under the little notch of "D" for "Drive" are "3","2","1". Between wondering whether I was going to make it up this hill, the vague thought crossed my mind that maybe something about these numbers might be relevant, and that I should perhaps investigate what they do.

We finally make it up the hill, and for the rest of the weekend's activities, we pile into one car. I'm in the back sitting next to the 4 year old, and I never have to worry about driving up the hill again. Only one thing haunts me: driving down.




There's a really big change that happens when you become a parent. It hits a lot of people in different ways, it's probably contingent on where you are in life, how sensitive you are to the rotation of the earth, the changing of the winds. My change into parenthood was gradual, because I don't think I ever understood the weight, the gravity, of what it means to have a child. The best analogy that I've heard and that I love is that having a child is having a piece of your heart outside your body. As a twenty year old, I didn't know what my heart was. As a twenty-six year old, I know a little more of love and of loss, and my daughter, who is my heart, who walks on her own, thinks on her own. Lives and experiences things on her own.

So my change was this. I am fucking anxious now. It might be grad school stress induced, but driving on the highway stresses me out. Turbulence on planes freaks me out. Lena near roads, Lena on walls, Lena in trees, Lena careening down the hill on on her bike. Be careful with my heart! I want to shout. So selfish, I know. Forgive me. I'm only twenty-six.



I used to drive up to Asheville all the time. My best friend from high school  and a handful of other friends moved up there during my senior year, and I went up to visit them plenty of times throughout the year. Speeding on I-40 on a Friday after school let out. Driving from Hot Springs back to Asheville at 2 in the morning, singing Tracy Chapmen's Fast Car, into the yellow lights of a neighbor's party. Climbing up cliffs, looking for shortcuts, getting baked, setting up a tent on a hill in the dark, waking up a pile of tangled bodies at the bottom. One of those boys is dead now, the obligatory statistic of a high school class of 400. But nothing scared me then. Nothing at all.



(In retrospect, a little fear, one moment of not feeling invincible, would have served me well. But then I wouldn't have been young.)



After many hikes, meals, wonderful conversations, watching our children play, it's time to go home. Which means, time to drive down the big ass hill.

We drove up and down the hill plenty of times over the course of the weekend, so I had a plan. I was going to use these other gears that my car has. Because you're not supposed to ride your brakes, you're supposed to let the engine do the work. So at the right turn into the downhill, I shift down from drive into 3, then 2.

Then I rode my brakes the entire way down that hill.

When I made it to level ground I let out a whoop of joy, one of my arms going out the open window (because my air conditioning doesn't work, remember?) I did it. I conquered this hill. And after that, I had the most perverse thought of all: I wanted to go back up and do it all again. And do it all again, better. Because I did it. I made it up and down that hill.






For some reason I thought there was some great extended metaphor here, but I think I lost it somewhere. Anyway, I was really proud of myself for making it up and down this big ass hill. I felt really grown up and independent woman about it. The end.