Parkblogging

I'm intrigued by the relatively large number of blog posts related to driving -- the mercifully brief craze for "tireblogging," for instance, or Richard Cohen's rundown of exasperating drivers. In a recent post of my own I compared driving to dancing, but now I'm wondering, is driving somehow like blogging? Does sitting, in front of a windowlike screen, hands on the controls, maneuvering through the twisting streets of association, dodging pedestrian thoughts (!), resonate with driving, especially driving alone? Both are reflective, meditative, alpha-rhythm states, in which one is apt to be surprised and have to react quickly.

Hunting for a parking place on the streets of New York City is a peculiarly brutal, Darwinian competition. There just aren't any -- every legal inch is occupied by a smug hunk of steel sneering "I got mine, screw you, loser" -- and in the unlikely event that one opens up, the fastest, most ruthless and unprincipled driver will get it. If you pull in front of a space and line up to back in, like a proper little parallel-parker, you may see in your rear-view mirror someone swoop frontwards into the space and snatch it away. For some reason I find this all quite humiliating and degrading.

I mentioned the parking struggle to a Feldenkrais classmate this weekend, and he gloated that he had just found a fat one right on Park Avenue. I commended him on his luck, and he said, "Oh, no -- you have to pray!" This struck me very funny, first of all because I would never have pegged him as a religious guy, and then because it wasn't the first time I'd heard of praying for a parking space. A woman who regarded herself as a neo-pagan once told me that when she needed a space, she'd say, "Squat, find me a spot!" -- Squat being, I guess, the goddess of parking places -- and sure enough, one would always materialize. And then there was the time we went to my very religious friend Eve's for Easter dinner, and I was wondering where I'd park -- my husband can't walk far, and we didn't have a wheelchair yet -- and as we turned the corner onto her street, someone pulled out right in front of her building. When we exclaimed about this to Eve, she said, "Of course! I just said 'Lord, in the name of Jesus, please give them a good parking space.'"

I told these stories to my classmate, and he said, "Oh, I pray to St. Henry Ford!" I howled.

Monday morning there I was, circling and searching and having that homeless humiliated feeling, like the loser in musical chairs. Making one last pass before giving up and putting the car in a preposterously overpriced lot, I decided to pray, but I didn't know who to pray to -- it seemed to me that God shouldn't be bothered with such small stuff -- so I just sort of threw it out there. I took a last cruise up and down Park, and sure enough, there ahead of me a man was getting into his SUV. As I pulled up to wait for him to finish his cellphone call and leave, my car radio started playing America's "Horse With No Name," a song I love. It's those little extra flourishes -- call them coincidences if you like -- that make me feel cared for in this universe.

- amba

Comments

[Richard Lawrence Cohen]

Squat helps those who help themselves. Back in my Brownstone Brooklyn days (1981-84) I was one of those arrogant car owners who used to switch my parking place from one side of the street to the other in accord with the alternate-side parking regulations. It was heaven.

BTW, in Texas we smile, wave, and allow the person who was waiting first to enter the available spot.

More seriously, it seems to me that driving is nothing like blogging, but that driving is very much like meditation, for the alpha-wave reason you mention. The analogy between parking and blogging is very apt.

I wish you hadn't mentioned that you like "Horse with No Name." Now if you'd said Brewer and Shipley's "Wichi Tai Tai" (sp?), that would have been outasight. America (the band, not the hemisphere) did make a positive contribution to humanity by supplying the soundtrack to the movie "The Last Unicorn."

[amba]

after a slow start, I've learned to play the alternate-side parking game. I've even gotten a little flicker of sadistic joy from being the one sitting serenely in my car on Sullivan Street waiting for 6 P.M. and shaking my head when someone pulls up alongside me and honks with that doggy expression of forlorn hope that I've felt on my own face. But there are those times when your scheduled activities just won't allow you to be in the right place at the right time, and then you're thrown back out into the Hobbesian war of all against all. I rent a garage in Teaneck, NJ, at the intersection of two bus lines to the city, so I don't have to deal with this all the time.

texas sounds nice. Driving seems to bring out the worst in people, especially in new york and Miami.