Perfectly Rehearsed in Sound Stage That Others Call a Car
The woman in blue is making a great pitch. Direct eye contact, engaging head tilts, the occasional bridge-building gesture, she moves with confidence from her introductory material into the heart of the matter. Her eyebrows come together, she points once or twice for emphasis, pauses now and then for her words to sink in, then begins her denouement, allowing a smile to defuse the situation, a light laugh to soften her demands, to bring a spirit of cooperation into the conversation.
Then the light changes, and she’s off, heading toward that confrontation with her boss or day in court or after-school conversation with her sullen teen, after which she will wonder why it all sounded so much clearer, so much more convincing when she “practiced it on the way over.”
One of the great things about living in Los Angeles is this automotive prep time. On our way to the office or home, to a dinner date or family reunion, we can turn that inevitable backup on the 110/Golden State interchange to our advantage by rehearsing what we’re going to say to our staff/spouse/soon-to-be-ex-lover. We can try out key phrases, work on intonation, anticipate questions and objections. If we’re really good, or traffic is really bad, we can use the rearview mirror to gauge the visual effectiveness of our expressions and gestures.
Memo to self: Work on inviting sidelong glance.
If we don’t have any particular conversation to prepare for, we can just polish our various acceptance speeches or te^te-a-te^tes with Larry, Dave or Jay.
The denizens of other cities do not have nearly our freedom. Try practicing your “We Need to Decide Where This Relationship Is Going” speech on the subway or in a taxicab or walking down some rural Main Street, and you’re bound to receive some really unsolicited suggestions. But here in our cars, where we feel safest of all, we can talk to ourselves from Santa Monica to Azusa--and if other people see us, who cares? They’re getting off at the next exit, and anyway, they’ll just think we’re on some big, important conference call with Steven, Jeffrey and David.
Memo to self: Practice Dreamworks conference-call conversation.
The car is also the perfect place for the impassioned soliloquy, which under other, less private circumstances, might be misconstrued as simply malcontented muttering. In this sense, cars provide a crucial service to both human temperament and the future of American letters. While a modern-day Scarlett probably couldn’t find a scorched field in which to rail against fate, she would certainly have more than a few oaths for God to witness while stuck with no snacks in a leased Geo on the 605 at rush hour.
The problem, of course, is when we get out of the car. When we leave our own personal sound stage, we must confront reality, which invariably includes other people and similar distractions. Our soliloquies are interrupted by the FedEx guy, our carefully orchestrated conversational arc is demolished by an unforeseen argument. Our witty observations sidle by unnoticed, our bottom lines dissolve, and we are left with something that bears no resemblance--no resemblance at all--to the scene we had rehearsed in the car.
Maybe what we need, at times like this, is a little steering wheel to hold onto while we talk, like toddlers have attached to their car seats. A little steering wheel and maybe a small rearview mirror.
Memo to self: Rehearse thank-you remarks to Fulbright committee.
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Mary McNamara can be reached by e-mail at mary.mcnamara@latimes.com.
