in Atlanta....

...the traffic is crazy, scary, overwhelming and frightening. I usually get myself into town to point A, then turn the keys over to someone else. People who live here who seem to have no hesitation for drive like maniacs. While I sit in the passenger seat with my feet firmly pressing on the non-existent brake pedal, and eyes squinted nearly closed.

If you find traffic in the city as intimidating as I do, not only do you avoid it as much as possible, you deliberately do not learn how to navigate. So determined to avoid, you fail to make any effort to find all the shortcuts that help avoid congestion and traffic lights.  Absorbing just the bare minimum of information that will get you where you want to be. I often tell people when talking about life in the city that the Only reason I go there is to see people I love. If there were not people I care about in that confusing place, I would never get anywhere close to all that mess: constant, endless highway construction, orange barrels and cones, slit fencing, dug up streets, abandoned cars everywhere.

I have a cousin who have lived here for years, and always amazes me when I ride with her: traveling through alleys, down side streets, slipping along through residential neighborhoods, avoiding backed up intersections. She really knows her way around, as a result of living and working all over for most of her adult life. Very adept at navigation in and out of traffic, changing lanes as traffic slows with impunity, fearless at running through yellow lights.

But all that whizzing around, changing lanes, dashing through residential areas makes me want to say: 'let me know when we get there'. Close my eyes and begin my meditations. Except that I would probably get car-sick if I was not wide-eyed and alert.

I took myself to the cousins' house earlier in the day, to ride with her to visit a relative. And accidentally left my warm cozy gloves in her car. So had to go back as it was getting dark to retrieve the hand-covers out of her mailbox.  Taking a passenger along, who knows and likes city driving even less than I do.  Although my claim is to know nothing about navigating in the city, I confessed I do know how to get from point A to point B. And proved that by going twice yesterday. Safely.