A couple of months ago, I became a Belgian driver. After almost ten years of living in Europe, I finally received an official driver’s license.Growing up, my brother and I counted the days until we could apply for a driver’s license. So desperate was my brother to motor around on four wheels that he learned how to drive a tractor when he was ten. It didn’t matter that we had a lawnmower. He liked the feel of pushing the gear shift forward and backwards, spinning past hedges and plants, and dodging the dogs whenever they scampered after him.
We grew up in the countryside where everything was a car ride away. Whether we wanted to go the supermarket or the movies, errands were always an all-day event on wheels. We dreamed of riding a bike to a friend’s house like the kids we saw in movies. But bucolic life meant embracing trees and homemade forts not hanging out on playgrounds or baseball diamonds. Whenever we drove past the local Department of Motor Vehicles, we dreamed of sliding that license to freedom in our wallets. I already had the outfit picked out for my photograph.
My driving instructor, a sweaty-handed bald man in his forties, never looked me in the eye from the passenger seat, as if to show me that, regardless of where you sit, you should always keep your eye on the road. The day I took my driving test I thought I’d flunked the moment he slammed his foot on the emergency break as I was parallel parking. He wiped his wrinkled, sweaty brow and finally looked me in the eye to shriek that all women drivers were the same. This time, I kept my eyes on the road, and forced back my tears. Perhaps he saw I could be a tough broad on wheels so he signed off on my test and said I could pick up the license a week later. But, at that point, I was too terrified to drive.
My father wanted me to test my new powers by driving all of us home in the new family car, a burgundy, station wagon Volvo that we’d had for only four days. It was a stick shift, and I stripped the gears on that fifteen-mile ride home badly enough to make the roadside squirrels cringe.
But my parents insisted I learn how to drive stick-shift for three reasons. One, it was more fun since you had more control of the car than autopilot-driving. Two, if you found yourself in an emergency, you could even drive a truck. And, three, you’d be able to rent a car and drive it without a problem in Europe. (This was before rental agencies in Europe had automatic cars for Americans.) That’s what sold me, number three. Driving already sounded delicious. But driving in Europe was the most tempting of all proposals.
Years later, I ended up driving in Europe for the first time when I was living in Italy as a journalist. But before a car, I drove a moped. First, there was my SH50, a second-hand Honda which I knick-named my “nifty-shifty-50.” When it became more shifty than nifty, I turned it in for a tomato-red Scarabeo with a banana seat. I thought it was super slick - and so did the thief who stole it off the street from me. Between the robbery and a run-in with a cat crossing the road which left me with a broken wrist, I decided it was time to drive a car in Rome. A colleague of my husband sold me a Smart car second hand which started my career in matchbox parallel parking. The car was the size of a hotel mini-bar. There was room for one passenger, my dog, and groceries in the back.
When we learned we were moving to Brussels, we managed to convince our movers to squeeze the Smart car into the moving van. The first thing to roll out of the eighteen-wheeled truck was a ramp which welcomed our Smart car onto our new Belgian street.
I no longer drive the Smart car much anymore since my son and I now toot around in the family station wagon. As a new mother in a new country, it seemed like a good time to finally get my license. So now I have a European and an American license. You’d think that driving in Brussels might be easier than driving in Rome. But I actually feel more comfortable amidst the chaos of rickety mopeds, zippy motorcycles, honking taxis, shrieking Mammas and hollering hunks that overpopulate busy intersections in Rome than in the straight lines of traffic in Brussels.
Driving has always made me feel independent. As a student, I used to exclude any invitation that was “fuori citta’” because I hated not having a get-away car. Having a car, and feeling confident to drive it, makes getting to know a new country a much easier ride.
