The first time I drove in Los Angeles, I was almost killed.

No, honestly, almost as dead as a doornail, and my brother along with me.

I was on Fig and Exposition, ready to start my sophomore year at USC-- but now, with a car. I mean, how badass was that? I was going to finally be able to zip around the city, go shopping or dancing or whatever whenever I pleased. And driving? What the hell was the big deal? It was DRIVING.
Man, was I wrong.

We were on Fig and Exposition, my older brother and I, listening to some radio station playing bumping hip hop (my choice, as he would peridocially turn to look at me and roll his eyes at my choice of music), when I needed to make a left onto exposition. I realized, though, that there was no left turn signal.

"Uhm," I said, confused, as I looked at the lights, "if there's no left turn signal, when the hell am I supposed to turn?"

Now, growing up in a small suburb, we had always had left turn signals. Of course, not alot of people in my town drove, so there was never the LA street traffic I was experiencing.

My brother took a pause before going, "Uhm, I have no clue."

I made a worried face at him, unsure what to do. Both my parents (Angelinos for as long as they had been in the country) were in the car behind us, unable to guide me now. I looked around, and saw that there was a quick break in the long line of cars as the lights turned green. Well, OK I thought to myself, I guess I just go for it.
When the break came, I hit the gas as hard as I could and pulled my car into a hard left turn. I drove as fast as I could, half-high on the fact that I had seemingly figured out how to turn on my own.

Until I realized that I, in my rush, had turned onto the wrong side of the street, and was now facing a huge LA Metro Bus, blaring its horn and coming head on to me.

I screamed. My brother screamed. My parents probably screamed behind us, unable to believe they were about to lose their two children on Fig and Exposition to a bus. Cars honked, people yelled, and in a silver second, I was about to die.

I swerved as fast as I could into a break in the meridian, and barely missed the car.

I turned to my brother as we both watched the bus pass, as the car honking died down, and heaved a sigh of mixed relief and fear (as I knew my parents would now finish the job and kill me).

"Well, I guess this is driving LA."
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My parents, surprisingly, didn't give me a toungue lashing after that. They would've been completely justified, in my opinion. I mean, I had almost killed not only myself, but my brother. My father, grateful I had survived, had merely told me "When you want to make a left turn, you have to pull forward in the intersection, and go when the light is between yellow and red."

"But Daddy," I began, confused, "that doesn't make any sense. Isn't that illegal? Won't people be mad?"

"It may be illegal," he replied, "but they shouldn't be mad. It's the way that people drive out here. You have to be like them-- they're aggressive, they're fierce, and you have to jump at the opportunity to turn the way they do."

So I started learning to drive in LA.
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My navigation of LA started slowly. At first, I was too scared to leave on my own (especially after almost dying). I would take my car out MAYBE once every few weeks, if I HAD to go on an audition, or to Target. Anywhere else, I was still walking, or begging people for rides.

Then I started spending my time driving around LA with a guy I was seeing. He drove most of the time, but he was aghast at my lack of knowledge of the LA area-- not because he thought it made me uncultured, but because he was scared that I would get lost and hurt. He began to drive me around and teach me about different streets. Fig, Vermont, and Hoover were all parallel. They were crossed by streets such as Adams (which would take me to the market), or Olympic (which was the street right before his house). On Hoover I could find good Pupusas, Fig would take me towards Downtown.

He failed to realize that my problem, however, did not lie with street names and remembering intersections, but with a true lack of a sense of direction. I could be driving down Vermont, but I had no way to tell if I was going North, South, East, or West, because I had no clue which way the street went or which way I was driving. I became more brave, however, and started driving myself to Salsa clubs, to his apartment, to go get pupusas on my own.

I got lost, though, coming on the 10 west. I got onto Hoover, and realized that I didn't know which way would go towards Campus. I looked around, and saw a "Carnitas Michocan" sign that we had always passed on the way back to his apartment. Remembering that, leaving campus, it was always on my right, I gained my bearings and drove home. When I mentioned my method, he laughed at me, saying that my rudimentary system would get me lost and mugged/raped/kidnapped. Instead, he began to insist that I let him drive me places, or walk with me places, because (as he put it) he "didn't trust the city or the people in it". Basically, he felt that Los Angeles was too dangerous for a little girl like me to try and navigate it on her own.

We broke up eventually, but the little knowledge I had gained from him stuck around. I could figure out how to get to Rite-Aid on my own, and by memory of his driving me around, I could find places based on landmarks.

Recently, someone else has always begun to try and teach me about the city. He's attempted to throw in Cardinal directions. It hasn't worked well.

"So, Hoover, Fig, Vermont-- they all run parallel, right?"

"Right." I confirmed, as he sat in my passenger seat and directed me around the city.

"Those streets all run North to South."

"Ok."

"And all the streets you cross as you go, Olympic, Venice-- all those are East to West streets."

"..." I hesitated for a moment, "ok."

"What?" he asked, sensing my hesitation.

"Well, I mean, I don't know how to use any of the knowledge you just gave me."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I have no sense of Cardinal directions-- North, South, East and West--I have no clue how to tell which way I'm going for any of it."

He and I talked for a little more, and he helped me learn how to combine my use of landmarks (ie downtown) with his sense of direction (i.e. if I am going down Hoover, and downtown is on my left, then I am going South).

"You should just come with me everywhere," I laughed, "it'd be easier that way."

"Yeah, but that wouldn't do you any good."
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I was driving around on my own recently, and was trying to decide how to get home-- should I go South on Vermont? Maybe I should take a left at Hoover?

In my driving, I realized I had gotten myself mildly lost-- I was in an area of LA that I wasn't as used to. I looked around, and was tempted to call someone to ask how to get home. Then I saw a restaurant I had been driven to once, and the memory of that evening hit me like a ton of bricks. Images, sounds, smells suddenly flashed through my mind, and I was able use that to figure out where I was. Then I saw Downtown and began to readjust myself.

It was then that I realized that I had made driving in LA my own. The best lessons I had gotten from men and driving had been from the ones who had been trying to give me independence. What none of us had realized, however, is that independence cannot be GIVEN by someone, but must be gained instead-- I could not use someone else's style of directions to navigate my way. Instead, I had taken a little bit of the lessons I had learned and made it into a system that was completely my own. It was only then that I could do it by myself.

I looked out to the LA skyline on my left, east, and smiled.