I followed Sarah Kay’s advice about making lists to get thinking creatively about materials for spoken word, and I created a list called “Ten things I wish I had never done”
Here was my list:
1. Left my blind pet rabbit to run around unsupervised in a backyard with a pool
2. Taken my mom’s car for an impromptu driving lesson with my brother around the block
3. Worn slick-bottomed shoes to school on a rainy day
4. Purposefully wore the wrong uniform to my strict Catholic school to “make a statement”
5. Ridden my tiny scooter on a 100k/h highway
6. Tried to park a Budget rental car in their narrow-entranced garage
7. Kicked a soccer ball at the window of a classroom (accidentally)
8. Eaten a whole package of Oreos in one sitting
9. Read Twilight and watched the movie
10. Read New Moon and watched that movie as well (including all other Twilight movies)

I chose to write and perform number 2. Here is the result:

Driving lesson

I was seventeen and my brother sixteen
and we had almost no experience behind the wheel,
WAIT, my mom would tell us,
wait for Canada, you can learn there,
Indonesia’s no place
for you to be learning standard
with the laneless roads, the lawless drivers, the relentless clutch-slamming in traffic
as pedestrians joy-jay-walk across roads,
as family-packed motorcycles squeeze past your mirrors,
or against them, depending on the driver,
so why bother?

You wouldn’t believe the number of times we badgered our mom
to let us drive alone in that gator-green Suzuki around the neighborhood
convinced we would get good;
So, still she muttered her prayers
every time she got into the passenger seat,
her feet brake-dancing to invisible pedals
for her hour of terror-packed “teaching the kids to drive”

I thought at the time that I was getting pretty good
at, you know, driving around the neighborhood,
so one day I took the keys and told my mom I was going to
“take a drive” no worries, no sweat,
no threat of crashing or killing,
I won’t forget:
“clutch – gas – brake”
in that order, and not to go too hard on the gas
while shifting out of neutral,
not to pass on the wrong side of the road –
yeah, I can do this, I thought, and yeah,
so can my brother.
yeah, that was the theory.

It could have been worse, I guess.
Sure, the family who owned the parked car we crashed into
looked at us like: “Of all things, you hit a parked car?”
And sure, my mom was giving us the look of “Why did I have kids?”
while my sister gave us the one of “I’m so glad I’m not you right now.”
But all in all we learned our lesson;
it only took one ripped tire, one 90-degree bent bumper, one angry mother,
one pissed family, and one moment in history that no one in my family
will ever let me forget.
Soon enough I would be good at driving
soon enough I would have my own wheels –
yeah, that was the theory.

Now that I’m twenty-four
and now that the only vehicle I’ve ever owned was a scooter
that maxed out at 60 k an hour before it died of engine problems…
I might just have to rethink my theory about driving
and getting good.
Maybe I’ll just wait for the day when
I can parallel-park a Car2Go
without having to take three tries…
or the day when I make enough on a teacher’s salary
to pay an experienced chauffeur to take me across town
in a totally pimpin ride with the bumper sticker:
“You learn from your mistakes” slapped across the back of that baby.
Yeah, that’s totally the theory.