Spring

Bang!
Jack-in-the-box colour
Wound 3 months tight.

Brown magicked to green
Pop-up flowers
YellowPinkSo much purple
(Jacaranda City)

Roses, roses, suddenly roses!

Thunder storms booming relief, the
Sun curling her beams around us.

We are friends again with the weather,
The laughing trickster!

#5

Driver’s Licensing Exam.

18 October 2012

09:30 Off on our expedition, hearts wet with hope and mouths dry with anticipation.

Our first stop is for petrol and rescue drops.  I have never taken rescue drops but since my fear-filled ordeal last time, I count them as my grace-gift from God (for only R69,00 a bottle at Clicks).

The drive down to Four Rivers is long; it’s at the southern tip of Gauteng. We were there just 2 weeks ago to book, on account of them promising quick deliverance to broken hearts.

11:30 When my dad and I arrive, I do some driving around this strange, small town and notice the road markings have faded into an almost indistinguishable state.

(It’s such a beautiful day, the sky is a brilliant, honest blue with picture-perfect pure white clouds.  The sky is so much bigger than the road, bigger than me.)

12:30 I meet my friend Thapi, who is testing at the same time as me. We talk about snow and tornadoes and the glory of thunder storms. We watch a family of cows wandering around the roads and hope they will not want to compete with us for road ownership.

13:05 Finally, a short, red-shirted man calls, “Hohls!”

I follow him, with my head held high as possible, into a small room where he tells me the rules I know by heart. “You will not roll, you will not touch a pole, you will not mount the curb, you will not cross any solid white lines. If you do any of these, it is an immediate fail. We will start with the yard test which you are to complete in 20minutes and we have 15 minutes for the road test. Any questions?”

“Yes, when you were a child did you want to grow up to be a driving tester?” I don’t ask this.

We go outside and I show him our car, little CFC (christened after its new Gauteng number plate.)

“I like these types of cars.”

I wonder what’s so special about golfs but I nod that I am just as in love.

I run seamlessly through the external check and interior checks.  He says in a bored voice for me to continue to the yard test. I feel fluid, like the car and I are one. Through all our trials, we have bonded. I feel like the car is Optimus Prime and I am his owner, whatever the other guys name is. Although, Optimus seems more important, so I think I’ll claim being him and  CFC can be the human. So…

Optimus Prime and CFC are doing well: we fly through every parking test with flying colours, as if we were birds: flying. My checks are precise, my steering is purposeful. 

The last test is the incline. The tester gives me the instructions to drive up and stop before the line, then to pull off without rolling. 

I drive up and stop. Pull up the handbrake. Slowly let out the clutch. Rev the accelerator. Let   the   handbrake   d   o   w   n….

I want to say it happened in slow motion- I wish that it had because I would have slammed the brakes before rolling. But no, it was over before I realised it was.

The tester was outraged.

 “Why are you rolling back? This is the last test in the yard before we go into the road!”

 He seems more upset than I am, his eyes are bulging and his logic confusing.
But we both seem to want the same thing...
The disappointed faces of my driving instructor and my parents flash in my mind’s eye, and the pain that brings is overwhelming.
So do the only thing I think of: I beg. 

“Please, please let me try again.”

“No, why did you roll back?”

“Please! Please!”

“No, this is the last test…”

We are like two lunatics chasing each other in circles.  Finally he calms down enough to tell me that trying again is against the law so: "drive back."

13:15 I fight back tears as we walk into the office. He hands me my mark sheet with the terrifying  “FAILED”. Note to thrifty self: I should start using these sheets as giftwrap.

13:20 I find my dad and water his shoulder for a bit while he comforts me gently.

13:25 Now for a long drive home.

A whining voice begins in my head, “You’re not really good at anything, not one thing…” I stare at it in the eyes until it shrinks away.

It must have been the rescue drops: as soon as we are on main road, I am already back to “tis the season to be jolly, falalalala….” But I’m still bitter enough to make a snide comment on my dad’s driving.

You would think the useless dog in my chest, Pride, would have died by now.

The stars are still holding their breath, they must be blue in the face, waiting for my wishes to come true.

And God, the Author and Perfecter of my faith, will give me my licence when I need it. For now, I live off lifts and kindness.

Drive Like a Boss....'s Lowest Employee

There is one test of skills and one test only that shreds my brain into a state of screaming terror. One that activates my sweat glands to waterfall mode. One that has seen the my heart race like that guy named Lightning or something.

Heights? They make me laugh. Snakes make me coo, spiders don't interest me, the dark is my element, I speak to a full room as if the people hang on my every word.

And yet...

More horrifying than a second language Zulu exam, more adrenaline pumping than a modern dance concert, more paralyzing than a practical piano exam, more humiliating than any Afrikaans oral, more numbing than any performance of skills I have yet experienced.  

Drivers. Licence. Exam.

Looming, ominous, and I lie defeated before it.

(Fall down seven times, get up eight.

In my case, it's fall down four times, stand up five.

My parents pocket's hold thumbs that I am not the one to fulfill that Chinese prophecy.)

K53, I bow and scrape to the song of your finicky demands. I am checking those mirrors like a Paris Hilton wannabe. Checking those blindspots like a secret agent. Hand-signals like a gangster. 

But then I rolled - like a gangster. And I pulled out dangerously in front of a huge truck - like a secret agent. And I was unroadworthy - like a Paris Hilton wannabe.

This fruitless pursuit has involved 11 visits to 4 different lisencing bureaus, and more money than Ihave the guts to count. But oh to drive! Independance and freedom are yet to be mine.

The Princess and the Weeds

"Mother! We eradicate every weed from the garden,

For though the Summer rains have greened the grass

And coaxed out blossoms

It has brought to life weeds.

They've been lying dormant,

waiting,

anticipating,

the return of their reign.

Now they grow stronger every day -

We shall - we must!- out them, 

Restore the place!"

"Ok. But I think you can leave the ones under your window, the pink flowers are quite pretty."

The world world grew heavy, pulling her to her knees. Keep the weeds? Keeps the weeds? 

Wherefore shalt she keep the weeds? She gasped in wordless outrage and then stormed outside with the herbicide. 

What was her mother thinking? They are weeds, they do not belong in palace gardens. They are parasites. If they were mushrooms, she would love them and serenade them in the shade, Sylvia Plath in hand. If they were a sapling, she'd measure it with daily eagerness. If they were roses, she would bury her nose into them and breathe in a kiss of dizzying gentleness. But weeds? They were not poetic, not absorbing and certainly not romantic.

But her mother was never wrong.

She angrily sprayed the other, plainer weeds with chemical death, skirting around the weeds under her window. Until they were the last and final soldiers. They seemed defiant, turning up their nose at their dying companions, ignoring their sure and certain coming death. 

"So, you think yourselves pretty?

Be sure, you are the lowest of low

and you deserve to die.

But my mother thinks you're lives are to be spared

On account of your pink buds.

You have yet to win my favour

Since I am your reeper, 

I am the one to please."

They weeds said nothing. Their weak, gawky long stems swayed slightly in the breeze. They seemed to realize their current position though, because they did not look her in the eye. The princess waited for them to do something impressive in order to save themselves. But all that happened was that one of the flowers began to cry. The princess was take aback since she had never known a flower to cry. Since it was a weed, it was quite an ugly cry.

"Weed... you weed...

You are now...

Behaving weedy..."

She was lost for words, for the second time that day. Her stutterings would not even come out in cursive. So she decided to let alone the weeds, since those who took away her words were those that won her respect. Although she continued to pretend they did not exist, the weeds flourished proudly, for they had been pardoned by a princess.