Confession: I did not spend all of Sunday writing, as I usually do. Instead I went galavanting around with my mom. Together we trawled Salvation Army (I found the perfect blouse) and read aloud from our school books and pleasure books. It was a great day and I don’t regret it. I simply did not have the wherewithal to start writing late last night. What’s more fun than watching Richard Gere and Debra Winger in An Officer and a Gentleman? And following it up with Russell Crowe and Meg Ryan in Proof of Life? Nothing. Now here I am on Monday morning, hot tea in hand, grimacing at the blank page.
Look, my day off was super productive. I had my first purely successful driving session. I’m months away from turning eighteen and all my friends are already licensed; some of them have their own cars. But I think I’ve seen too many movies to not understand that cars—especially driven by teenagers—are death-boxes. (I’m totally with the dad in Footloose on this one.) So I avoided learning to drive for a long time. I even formed my Common App personal statement around the wealth of arcane skills I had accrued, and the dearth of practical ones—among which I listed “How to roast a chicken. How to drive. How to tell a boy I like him without embarrassing either one of us.” Admissions counselors all over the country are worried for me. They already think homeschoolers are weirdos and I haven’t exactly given them a reason to think otherwise.
But I finally went to the DMV and got my learner’s permit. I was bracing for the DMV in the movies—thronging with life, redolent of tears and body odor, populated by unhelpful bureaucrats, distressed adults, and wailing babies. But I live in upstate New York, where there are approximately twelve people. It was empty and painless. Can you believe they let me on the road after I passed the test by only one point? Yikes. My first few driving lessons, admittedly, betrayed my incompetence. I was no natural. White-knuckled and pallid, I strayed too far to the curb for my parents’ comfort; I inched along fast roads, irritating the bullish drivers behind me; I halted jerkingly and turn-signaled too early. But yesterday I was good. I parked in a brimming farmers’ market lot; I kept a steady forty miles per hour on the freeway; I crossed busy intersections; I turn-signaled like a pro.
There is something about learning a practical skill that makes one feel especially like a grown-up. I think part of being an interesting person lies in the balance between the intangible, ephemeral qualities of mind and the concrete, practical skills demonstrated by the kinds of people we all like to be around. The art of forming adults is increasingly neglected: we’ve turned to producing prodigies and preprofessionals, young people who look good on paper but prove easily flappable. (Bosses all over the country marvel at their interns’ coding prowess but wonder why they can’t turn on the Xerox machine. Why, instead of trying to figure it out, they immediately ask for help.) We’ve lost sight of what it means to be a worldly young person, someone both charming and competent, both eccentric and suave.
So, begin with road skills. Then to the kitchen. Taxes. Graceful social interactions.
I got this.