Prompt # 7Write about an incident when you were learning to drive.
In the VW.
Going up a hill.
The light turns; yellow, now red.
I have to stop.
I don’t want to stop here.
On a hill.
I take my foot off the gas and push down the brake.
I press my other foot all the way down on the clutch.
(Yup….a clutch….on a hill.)
Dad at my side.
His calm voice giving instructions.
OK. Nice job.
Now. When then light turns green,
Push down on the gas – nice and easy.
And let off on the clutch, nice and slow.
You can do it.
You know you can.
(I didn’t know if I could. It was my first real hill-with-a -clutch experience.)
The light turned.
The car in front of me moved.
I looked in the rearview mirror.
There was a car behind me.
Dad: Here we go.
Me: OK.
Deep breath.
(I heard my dad take a quiet breath too.)
I moved my right foot off the brake.
I felt the car start sliding back.
I pushed down with my right foot and lifted up with my left.
Slowly.
Too slowly.
A jerk.
A sputter.
Almost a stall.
Dad: More gas. Just a little more gas.
I pushed down more on the right.
Lifted up on the left.
Another jerk, but forward this time.
Dad: Keep going. Down on the right, up on the left.
You’ve got this.
(Do I?)
Another jerk.
Another move forward.
Slowly, slowly moving in the right direction.
Inching up the hill.
Smoothing out.
Gliding.
Moving.
Driving!
(And both of us smiling – and breathing.)
Writing to Learn, Learning to Write 
This reminds me of Dawn’s recent post about her youngest daughter, Megan, learning to drive. I noticed your dad was just as calm and reassuring as she was with her daughter. These things matter when you’re learning something new!
One thing about these prompts of yours is- I do think they are forcing you to put some great older memories down on the page!
Oh wow – this brings back all sorts of memories for me, too. I’ll start by saying that my dad was not *nearly* this calm and – possibly as a result – I was not quite this successful!
Oh I just love vw stories. And I really miss having a car with a clutch. Even on hills.
Me too! I love the standard shift cars.
Oh, boy…I felt this. I was back there, in my dad’s car, on a hill (it was snowing, too), stopped at a light, one foot on the clutch and the other jammed firm on the brake. Your words transported me right back into that driver’s seat with my dad’s steady encouragement filling my head and heart. Thank you for this Slice…I cannot express my gratitude for bringing my dad back to me for just this brief moment.
The prompt is interesting, and even before I read yours, I thought of a driving incidents myself (both past, and how my 9 YO is a backseat driver). You built the perfect amount of suspense here as you went up a hill driving standard. It almost actually parallels what the car does kind of hovering before you give enough gas. It really brought me back, so thank you!
This story is so perfectly rendered in this format which is both poem and prose. The spacing creates the atmosphere and as others have commented, brings the reader into the moment. This is a beautiful mentor text!