WHAT GOOGLE MAPS AND MAGGIE SMITH TAUGHT ME ABOUT UNCERTAINTY - Andrew Taylor-Troutman
In my driveway, there will be one car. — Maggie Smith
The release of Keep Moving, the newest book by Maggie Smith (the poet, not the Dame), led me to her poignant reflections about the uncertainty of the future in her NY Times essay “Tracking the Demise of My Marriage on Google Maps.” Inspired and curious, I looked up one of my old street addresses, the mountain home in southwestern Virginia where my wife and I lived as part of a small, rural community.
While Smith’s home was photographed every two to three years, there was only one image of my former residence, and it was from eight years ago. The house itself is not centered in the picture, but rather what you notice first is the car in the gravel driveway—a light brown, four-door Volkswagen station wagon.
Eight years ago, I bought that used car from a local dealership. After living off student loans and part-time jobs since graduating high school, I had entered the middle-class, professional world. Earlier that summer, I had completed two years of ordained ministry as well as my second master’s degree. My wife was expecting our first child that fall. I was “adulting,” and I wanted a car to show it.
I don’t remember the year of the car or the exact model. I do remember my mother-in-law teasing me that now I’d drive around listening to NPR while sipping organic green tea. I still liked Led Zeppelin, but her description sounded pretty good to me.
I also remember the car salesman, Glenn. He was about my age, a father of two young kids. He had family photos on his desk where I signed the paperwork. After handing me the car keys on the car lot, he tapped the hood of the new-to-me-Volkswagen like I might pat a dog.
“Good car.” Glenn said, “It’ll keep you and your family safe.”
I shrugged. Sure, I knew about the excellent crash test ratings and side door air bags. But I was too excited by my shiny new admission ticket into the adult world to give much thought to the dangers on the horizon.
Looking back, my casual arrogance astounds me.
Growing up, my mother had taught my younger brother and me that we would take better care of something expensive, like a vehicle, if we gave it a name. I still recall the names of family cars from my childhood: Francine, the station wagon; Mickey, the Dodge minivan that we drove from North Carolina to Disney World.
But even though it was my first car as a real adult, I don’t remember the name I bestowed on that Volkswagen.
Less than two months after I bought it, it was towed to the junkyard, smelling of burnt rubber and melted ice cream.
***
The same month that Google maps captured the image of the Volkswagen in my driveway, the fairgrounds down the street hosted the annual flea market. For one week of the year, the sleepy state highway became a bustling thoroughfare for shoppers, hawkers, and gawkers. There was plenty to see. Eight hundred vendors offered everything from antique pie safes and armoires to Oriental rugs and Confederate flags, from wedding dresses and princess costumes to assorted knickknacks like toy cars made from paperclips and coffee tables plastered with Coca-Cola bottle caps. There was also every fried food imaginable.
The week of that year’s flea market was especially hot and humid. After supper, my wife wanted ice cream (not a fried stick of butter). In response, I quoted the line from her favorite childhood movie, The Princess Bride: “As you wish.” I clicked the key fob to unlock the passenger side door and helped her inside with a smile. We buckled up and headed to Wal-Mart for a carton (or two or three) of Ben and Jerry’s.
On the drive home, I saw the congested traffic up ahead. I was already slowing down when my wife screamed.
She had seen the Mazda run the stop sign while turning left across the highway. That car hit our right front bumper like a missile and sent us into a spin.
Our Volkswagen halted in the grassy median against a sign for the fairgrounds. Smoke rose from the hood of the car and from the airbags. I tasted blood. I looked over at my wife.
“I’m getting out,” she said, calmly unbuckling herself.
I hustled to the passenger’s side around the back of the car to avoid the smoke. As I ran to my wife, fearing the worst for her and our unborn son, I caught a glimpse of that Mazda on the shoulder of the highway. Its hood smashed like an accordion. The teenage driver was still white-knuckling the steering wheel with both his hands. His mouth hung open in a frozen scream of terror.
***
Eight years later, I found that Volkswagen resurrected on Google Maps. Its right front bumper without a scratch. Its brand-new tires gleaming. Glenn’s words came back to me: It’ll keep you and your family safe.
Everyone, including the young driver, walked away from that accident with only bruises and scrapes. Today my wife and I serve as pastors of two different churches and parent three very different kids. I have family photographs on my office desk, including a picture of our firstborn as a healthy baby.
Our financial and emotional resources, however, have not always been safe and secure. Wishes don’t always come true in real life. Even if one avoids tragedy, there is always uncertainty.
She and I have endured not only lean years of little income but also the stress of infertility. I’ve known sleepless nights worrying about the bills and fertility treatments.
In the dead of night, I have asked God if I alone would be enough for her.
Sometimes, I wondered if I was just talking to the ceiling. I never heard a voice from above, but somehow, I got the same message as Maggie Smith—keep moving. My wife and I have managed to move forward together.
***
In an episode of her podcast Unlocking Us, Brené Brown talks about “the scrappy, gritty work of love” with the Most Rev. Michael B. Curry, the Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church.
Curry believes, “We get stronger as the burden gets heavier.”
Brown replies, “Are you sure?”
After a long pause, Curry replies, “Well, I’m not sure theoretically…but I have seen it.”
For all of us, 2020 has been a year of terrible uncertainty. In my morning prayers, I watch the slideshow on the NY Times website of pictures taken during the coronavirus from around the world. The statistics of infection and death are overwhelming to me. I am unable to comprehend the enormity of so many lives that have been thrown into a tailspin.
My family and I have remained safe during the coronavirus pandemic. Yet, a single photograph can personalize the pain, even display the horror—like that young man behind the wheel after our accident.
On the same NY Times slideshow, there are also images of people moving forward in their suffering and loss. An elderly couple pressing their palms together from opposite sides of a windowpane. A masked restaurant owner handing a bag of food to an EMT worker. A child sleeping in her mother’s arms on a hospital gurney.
When I reached my wife after running around our wrecked car, she had already knelt in the grass next to the deflated tire. She squinted into the setting sun, her mascara running down her cheeks in two dark lines. Her bloodied hands traced the surface of her extended belly like metal detectors.
“He’s kicking,” she gasped. “He’s kicking!”
***
My wife and I now have two cars—Polly Prius, often driven while listening to NPR and sipping organic green tea, and a minivan our children named Minnie in their fervent hope for a future trip to Disney World.
I realize our carefully constructed, middle-class life could change in an instant. And what I’ve worked for as an adult could be lost in an accident or illness, the people I love taken through no fault of my own. COVID-19 has made that clear.
After journeying down memory lane in the old Volkswagen, I looked up our current address on the search engine. The most recent picture was taken six months before my family moved in. I noted that the previous owners kept two flower pots on the front walk.
But Google maps will never capture the image of any car at our current residence. Parking is out back.
If anyone were to photograph our home during this pandemic, chances are high that the image would include chalk art scrawled across that walkway. Pictures of flowers, dogs, rainbows, and ninjas. Those preachers’ kids certainly love ninjas.
I will remember the picture of our healthy kids drawing on the sidewalk, while their mother and I sit on the front steps. On the best days, she and I hold hands.
Andrew Taylor-Troutman serves as poet pastor of Chapel in the Pines Presbyterian Church in Chapel Hill, NC. His fourth book, Gently Between the Words, was published in 2019.
