9:05 a.m. - 2003-08-25
Driving, finally.
The astrologer I obsessively read every evening (Jonathan Cainer), has been talking about Mars this week. In case you haven't been keeping up with your astronomical phenomenon, Mars is closer to the earth this week than it has been for 60,000 years. This is a big deal for us Scorpios, as Mars is our ruling planet.
And it's an even bigger deal for me, as not only is my Sun in Scorpio, but also my Moon, Neptune, and Mars itself.
Accordinging to Jonathan, it's supposed to be a breakthrough week for us!! A time when things are happening like crazy! Well, I don't know if I'll get rich and famous this week, but I am set to do something that, for me, is the biggest breakthrough I can imagine.
I'm going to drive to Birmingham. By myself. Tomorrow morning.
Wendy and I have been talking about going to a show of quilts at the Mobile Museum of Art. It's a series of quilts by women from Gee's Bend, Alabama. Very African based and very, very beautiful. It's only up till August 31, and so if we want to see it we have to go this week. There's also a show of art by women from all over Alabama that my friend Lucy is in, and we can stay over in Fairhope, a fairytale arts town, with Wendy's cool friend Jo, whom I'm dying to meet.
Wendy can drive from Birmingham to Mobile and back. The only problem is getting me from Huntsville to Birmingham to meet her.
She offered to come pick me up, but that adds four hours of driving for her, and I couldn't bring myself to put her through that. I could take the bus, but they are infrequent and we'd get a late start. Bruce can't take me because this is his first week of classes and I know he'll be straight out.
Wendy and I talked about it for awhile. FInally she gently said "Ruth, you've been talking about how you have to get over your fear of driving. Maybe you should think about driving down."
You know how sometimes you just get a flash of "Yup, it's time for me to stop being a wimp/face my fears/go out and meet the world"? Yeah, I had that flash. I realised that I'm not afraid of having a seizure while driving, which has always been my excuse for not driving long distances. If I were really afraid of having a seizure, I wouldn't drive to the corner store. That would be irresponsible and just downright dumb.
Nope, I'm afraid of dopier things. I'm afraid of getting lost, because after fifteen years of not driving I have no sense of direction whatsoever. And I'm afraid of crazy highway intersections, which is leftover from living in Boston, with it's crazy highway system and obnoxious drivers, for too many years.
Wendy and I had a long talk about this, and came to what I hope is a brilliant solution. She went out on highway 65 this weekend and figured out a way for me to come into Birmingham without going through the one huge highway interchange that scares me silly. Basically, I can come in through some backroads (through an albeit very funky part of Birmingham!) and I'll wind up just a few blocks from the gallery on streets that I already know pretty well. From there, Wendy will meet me and I'll follow her home, where we'll park the car while we're gone.
I'm so excited folks!! I'm finally going to have some freedom, instead of having to be shepherded around everywhere like a ten year old!!
Wish me luck and say a few car prayers, eh? And hopefully Thursday I'll be back with cool museum stories!
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