learning how to drive 

It is a grey-sky day, good weather for an argument.  A gorgeous sunny day diminishes your case. It is bigger than you; its planetary scale scorns your mundane picking at details and inward, vague concepts like happiness.  A sparkly winter day with snow coming down has the same effect.  But a cloudy, shadowless day does not have an opinion and leaves room for you to indulge the idea that you can change others.  

It is mid-May, cloudy.  Graham is planning on taking advantage of the even light to photograph the streetscapes of Koreatown.  He is coming downstairs.  His father is sitting at the dining room table, reading the current issue of the Journal of Anthropological Archeology.

“September is around the corner. Have you figured out a plan for this year?” Graham’s father asks.

“I’m going out to photograph,” says Graham, thinking he needs a snack for the day.

Graham’s father looks up at Graham, who is heading towards the kitchen, “But do you have a plan beyond this afternoon?  A long-range plan.” 

“I plan to become a photographer,” Graham calls from the snack cupboard, pulling out crackers, then grabbing a pear from the fruit bowl.

“That’s not a plan.  That’s a goal.  How will you achieve that goal?”

Graham puts his pear,  crackers, thermos, and camera in his tote that stands open on the front hall floor.  “Through faith and doing.” 

Graham’s father gets up and heads to the kitchen to make more coffee.  “You need to have an order of operations.  A set of defined steps, beginning with the first step, that will build to the next step, on a path that will lead you to the desired result.”

Graham directs his voice back towards the kitchen.  “That’s one way to look at it.”

“Four years of college are supposed to set you on a course,” says Graham’s father.

“They did,” says Graham.

“Then have you charted the best route for becoming a photographer?” asks Graham’s father.

 “There are those who navigate using route knowledge – point A to point B to point C, and so on,” says Graham.  “Then there are those who navigate using survey knowledge – they have a mental map of an area, which means they can picture alternative routes if they hit a roadblock.  I learned that in a book I read.  You might like it.  Written by a physicist who got lost in a kayak.”

“Okay, okay.  But do you have either?  Mental map or point-to-point, what’s your first step?  In order to start a vehicle, you must locate the ignition,” states Graham’s father, returning to the dining table with his fresh coffee.

Graham opens the front hall closet and considers whether he needs a jacket.  “And to locate the ignition you have to be motivated to drive the car.” 

“Is motivation the problem here?”

“I don’t have a problem, do you?” asks Graham, speaking into the closet.

“You often talk in circles,” says Graham’s father.

“What if I’m not interested in driving?” says Graham, now fully turning towards his father.  “What if I’m sitting on the trunk of the car, facing backward, soda in hand, my heels on the bumper, looking at the landscape?”

“What are you talking about?” says Graham’s father.

“What if I didn’t even know what a car was, and I just saw it as a thing to sit on, so I could marvel at the way the light casts shadows on the hillside?   And if I did know it was a car, what if I don’t care about getting into a machine and going fast?”

“Who’s talking about going fast?  Anyway, the automobile defined the prosperity of this country in the twentieth century and beyond,” says Graham’s father.

Graham inhales.  “Cars are a leading cause of death.  They pollute the environment.  They depleted cities of civic centers and commerce.  They led to soulless suburbia, isolation, and depressed housewives.”

“What are you talking about?” asks Graham’s father again. “Why are we talking about cars?”

“You’re the one who started talking about cars,” says Graham.

“I think I was talking about you.  Your plan.  Or lack of a plan.”

“You said I need to locate the ignition,” says Graham, now standing by the front door.

“Yes, but I was using a metaphor, I wasn’t talking about cars,” says Graham’s father.

“Neither was I.  I’m not interested in cars,” says Graham.  “I’m interested in photographing the world around me, and I don’t need an ignition.  I’ve already begun.  And I’m on my way out now to photograph the city before the light changes.  See you later,” says Graham.

“We’ll start this conversation again when you get back,” says Graham’s father, returning to his journal.  “Maybe I can help you make a plan.”

But Graham has already shut the door.

. . .