Nicola Caroli

General notes:

I get a good sense of the narrator, I can follow her

Text seems to be about opposite states, static, moving, control, chaos

all things I put in brackets I would leave out

all the things you put in brackets I would also leave out

the mix of I, she and imperative are ambitious, sometimes it works quite well but I’m not sure

why not make the car the pivot of the story, everything is seen from this context, car connecting then and now, life before car different

The Story of an Hour

(With Apologies to Kate Chopin)

Twice a week, she gets to drive an hour to and from work.  Twice a week, for an hour at a time, her car becomes her entire world.  It’s a 2001 Mazda Protégé, Black. for how long have you had it? It would be a good idea to make the car the chronologer of the text. it works very well when she talks about her marriage. An automatic, which she thought she would hate, until she drove in Southern California traffic(; then, it was a godsend.  How can you be in one place and moving all at once?  Get in your car and drive.)  This is her car, her first car, a place where she can move and (finally) find some sense of stability.  In all the moves, in all the traveling, (at least) the car has always been there.  First, almost like new, then filled with the trash of a cross-country journey. What journey The floor of a backseat could be a site of cultural discovery, archeology of the everyday.  That trip for coffee, the fast food, the receipts for gas, address, cities, (the most grammatically incorrect sentence ever.  Find a verb, God!)

(How cliché.  Writing about writing.  But this is what it is like for her in the car. ) Mind pulled in different directions, but she is in complete control.  Pay attention to the speed, keep it just under 80, (which is a bit of a challenge because the car is in kilometers.)  Look at the little numbers, not the big ones.  Check the rear-view.  Fog coming up. Lead us into the change from rear to front, what’s the road like?  or leave the next two sentences out for rythm and sound. Car about a half mile ahead.  Probably will need to pass.  Oh, she likes this song.  Sing along, loud.  Indicate, change lanes, accelerate, indicate, get back in the right-hand lane.  Think about high school when she first heard this song.  How far she’s come.  A PhD.  A husband.  Two kids.  A dream job come and gone.  A house.  A life.  This song, who she was.  This car, who she is now. not quite correct, has been since she had the car

When she first learned to drive, she was tentative, fearful, a shell.  So nervous.  No one wanted to drive with her, and she wouldn’t blame them.  But she didn’t have her own car, and the family car was not easily attained.  Attained?  Ok, then.  She was the permanent passenger.  Front seat, back seat, sometimes the middle spot.  Drive to school, drive to swim meets, drive to drive.  We’re free, within reason.  To a 16-year-old, a car is the sign of adulthood.  I wasn’t allowed to be an adult.  Keep moving.  Just because she didn’t have her own car, didn’t mean she wasn’t moving.  Just had no control over the direction. from drive to drive, I find it a bit confused

Slow down.  85 miles!  She knows there are cops all the time along this route.  It’s quiet in the car.  Even with the music blaring, it’s peaceful.  She is in control.  Her mind is her own, and so is her time.  The two car seats in the back seat sit empty. this is great, one immediately sees the children. She can think.  Think about anything.  Think about everything.  She is so relieved to climb into the car alone.  But she misses her kids, misses her husband.  That’s a good thing.  Absence makes the heart grow fonder.  Two children under the age of three can make you insane.  You own thoughts are subsumed (subsumed?) by the demands of everyone and everything else.  What does that cry mean?  Where is this toy, that book?  What time is it? Time to eat?  Time to sleep?  Time to go outside?  There is no time, no time for thoughts, no time to spend in your own head.  That’s not that bad, she thinks.  Spending too much time up in here would be dangerous.  No time at all, equally perilous (perilous?).

sudden time jump here, use the car for bridge So for one hour, each way, she can live in her head, living in her car.  Get ready to teach.  What am I going to say today?  She remembers both of her grandparents are dead.  Why did she think of that?  The scarf.  Her scarf smells like her grandmother.  It’s a miracle she can smell it over the other smells in the car.  There’s some piece of food, somewhere, that’s slowly rotting.  There’s something else that’s musty.  And somewhere, an old shoe.  Or at least something that smells like an old shoe.  But, right there, under her nose (well, her chin), is her grandmother’s old scarf.  And that is all she can smell. you said the opposite earlier There’s a merge coming up, a car getting on the highway, indicate, check blind spot, move over, give them room, make your way back.

What time is it?  Where am I on the trip?  Which exit was that?  Calculate your speed vs. distance left to travel, estimate time left in the trip.  Descend back into the fog. Literally and figuratively.  Keep writing in your head.  If a conference presentation that takes 20 minutes to read is no more than about 10 pages long, certainly you can tell the story of an hour in six pages.  Surely.  If only she could write while she drives.  She has enough trouble reading a map.  Car rides were always a time for reflection.  She always gets car sick when she tries to read in the car.  She was so jealous of those who could read on trips.  She used to see the time in the car, traveling, as wasted time.  But then, she realized that quiet reflection was perhaps more valuable than any time spent reading, writing, studying.  And when she’s driving, it doesn’t matter.  Keep moving, keep digging deeper, because there is nowhere else to go. this paragraph isn’t very strong. why need say you’re writing in car

Always moving.  Move away to university.  Move even further for grad school.  Move away.  Far away.  Get away from those things that kept you down.  The wind is blowing you around.  She just goes with it.  Fall into things, situations, relationships.  Falls out of them again.  Keep moving.  Bring yourself with you.  Leave yourself behind.  Sit next to yourself, watch yourself.  (Ironic detachment.)  She is driving.  She is singing.  She is thinking, lost in thought, knowing exactly where she is going. ( Revel in the paradox!  Revel!)  When you go back, they will expect you to be who you were, and you will slip (uncomfortably) back into that role.  This is not who I am, you scream inside.  I have my own car now.  I don’t need to rely on you anymore.  But I miss you so much.  Can the person you are now still need the same people you did then?

The interstate highways are her favorite.  She loves to look at nature as she drives. more specific She is watching everything.  There’s that car that passed her a few miles back.  Is there a cop?  Adjust your speed, get in behind them.  You’re running late.  Keep driving.  The highway is about to become three lanes.  Almost there.  She loves this car.  Her first car.  She and her husband bought it just before they got married.  They drove in this car, together, to the mountains where for the ceremony.  They drove three days to start their new lives together.  He chipped it.  She got into an accident with it (not her fault!).  There is where she scrapped the side of the house.  There is where he dropped the water bottle on it.  There’s where they thing think they hit a raccoon.  Out to the dessert, over the ocean, up to wine country; the story of a marriage. the account of the marriage is great

Get off the highway.  Now comes the longest part of the trip: city street.  She wishes for another two cylinders on the car.  She knows the car well, but doesn’t trust it to accelerate fast enough when trying to beat city traffic, get that turn in on the red light.  The breaks are ok, though.  She knows the car, knows when it is faltering, knows when it’s time to get the oil changed, the breaks fixed I would not put that in brackets (that’s not true; she drove for a half-day with failing breaks, only mentioning it in passing to her husband.  Repair shop said they could have been killed had they left it any longer), How far they should get on a tank of gas depending on what kind of driving, how much gas will cost depending on where the meter reads.  All of this, she holds in her head, waiting to need to recall it.  (Subconscious.)  Just like knowing when her children are getting sick, getting hungry, getting teeth, getting scared, nervous, anxious.  It takes time to get to know a car.  She knows this car better than she will ever know her own kids, better than she will probably ever know herself.  (That is the challenge, isn’t it?)

Sit at a red light behind a long line of cars.  Know that it will take at least two more light cycles before you’ll get around the corner.  Did her daughter get to school alright?  Was her son upset she left before he woke up?  She is tempted to text her husband, but it’s a bad idea.  Traffic this slow, with everyone late for work, missing the light would be an insult (insult?).  Turn on the radio through her phone, now that there’s a better signal in the city.  She misses Southern California radio.  She doesn’t miss Montreal drivers, where she learned the laws of the road, survival of the fittest.  Pass, or get the hell out of the way.  Everyone always in a hurry because everyone is always late.  She will never be a laid-back driver.  Always needs to be in front.  If only in her car.  In everything else, always feeling left behind, needing to catch up (Time after time).  (Overwhelmed. ) In the car, with all that’s going on inside and outside, she is in control.  She knows how fast she is going, she knows where she is going, she listens to what she wants to listen to, and her mind is free to go wherever. but it doesn’t. it goes where she says she is not being herself. her accounts of being powerless, not being herself don’t ring true. dig deeper

And she finds herself in this place that she did not choose, in a situation she fell into, yet again.  No, that’s not right.  She chose her husband, knowing where it could lead.  She chose when to have kids, not quite knowing where that would lead, may yet still lead.  We never do.  She needs to put down roots, at least to try.  I will root herself in this car, she thinks.  I will sink into this seat, and the passengers may (will) come and go, but this car and I will remain together, she thinks cynically.  Too much moving has made her question what it means to make connections with people. is that true? See two lines later Don’t get too close, you never know when you will begin to move again.   She grew up in the same house her entire childhood; her mother still lives there.  But that feeling of uprootedness, of constant motion, has haunted her.  Those close to you will only hurt you.  Exhaustion or ignorance kept her immobile before.  She didn’t know how to protect herself, how to effectively move away, move on.  She’s still working on that.  These things haunt her, alone in this car, so far away, in time and space, from that time.  They live here with her in the car.  She can here her friends laughing, singing, her husband talking, her kids crying, her mom panicking, her dad fuming, her grandparents bickering, (semicolons?).  They live here with her in the car, because in the car, she can travel anywhere she wants, and everywhere she wants to forget.  (Revel in the paradox!  Revel!)

Find a place to park.  Turn off the car.  Pull out the keys, put the phone away, check yourself in the rearview mirror.  Deep breathe. breath It’s time.   You need to be yourself for a few hours, to teach, to read, to be a colleague, to prepare, to answer questions.  But don’t worry.  The car will (most likely) still be here when you get back.  Then, you’ve got another hour. smth missing in the last paragraph