The Impossibles
The 6’3” center on my college basketball team drove a lovingly-used black Volkswagen Beetle. Watching her unfurl from its tight confines was entertaining, but it paled in comparison to the ride. Most of our teammates and I had cars in varying size, form and functionality, but hers was the one we took when we were more about the going than the place we had to go. The Bug was perfect for short jaunts from the gym to the dorm when the undeterred north wind was howling and we, soaked with sweat, needed to get from point A to point B (preferably without catching pneumonia). It was our vehicle of choice for a 7-Eleven Slurpee or a stack of pancakes at IHOP. It was always what we took when we had nowhere to be but felt the urge to go. As the point guard --aka, the only one who could fit-- my spot was in the backseat behind the driver, knees tucked under chin.
On our small liberal arts campus, the roads went around not through. These circuitous paths that hugged our “city on a hill” weren’t flanked on the exterior by curbs or landscaped hedges or parallel-parking spots. Only grass stretched out beyond them as a moat. We used to joke that the design was either meant to detain us or to form a boundary to keep the riffraff out. Mostly, the encircling roads made it impossible to get anywhere in a hurry. Overzealous campus cops made double sure of that. Oddly, in one frequently passed spot on a grassy expanse just to the south of the dorms, two metal poles jutted up from the ground with a small patch of concrete in between. It looked as if someone had once envisioned a walking bridge to span the culvert but got sidetracked along the way. From the road, the opening seemed maybe wide enough for a couple of people to walk through together shoulder-to-shoulder. The kind of thing you notice without ever thinking about.
Until the day you do.
Late on a non-descript fall afternoon while waiting for the cafeteria to open, a couple of my teammates and I decided to go for a drive. Still belting the REO Speedwagon hit that was bellowing through our hallway, we piled into the Bug with the kind of freedom that lands on you when you’re not where you were, but you’re not yet entrenched in where you are going to be.
I had scarcely “assumed my position” when out of nowhere I heard our driver-- my relied upon center, the one whose sure hands and soft touch earned me around six assists per game-- say, “Hey guys, you think we can fit?”
“Fit? Fit what? Where?”
“Through here!” she said as she released the clutch and gunned it. Before I could even wrap my head around what was happening, the Bug was flying toward the make-shift gate in the middle of the grassy field like a missile aimed at the moon.
I closed my eyes and screamed.
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Within seconds that ticked like forever, we were bouncing across the field through and beyond the metal posts that we’d just split on a diagonal path toward a parking lot that led to the four-lane street. Dizzy with adrenalin and in a stupor spawned by shock, we slowed to a stop and let the rush sink in. I could not make it make sense. Never in a million years would I have dreamed a car—even a tiny one like a Volkswagen Beetle—could have fit between those poles. I couldn’t imagine there was a fingernail’s space left over on either side. I looked out the back window incredulous at the teensy-weensy opening we had somehow cruised right through.
As the revelation washed over us, we screamed in unison before doubling over with laughter, each of us holding our ribs and flailing until we couldn’t breathe. The piercing of the illusion continued to juice us for days.
Then we did it again.
And again.
And then we stuffed different teammates in the car and did it yet again. Before long it was a gauntlet we passed through while in mid-sentence (though the rush never completely went away) to short-cut our way to the street. From seemingly out of nowhere, the once incomprehensible threshold became the path we took.
Our eyes don’t always tell us what we need to know.
It didn’t take too long for the campus cops to catch on to our game and put a lid on the frequency with which we could use our now not-so-secret route. Sometimes as I’d drive past the “gate,” I’d glance at the metal posts and nostalgically marvel at my teammate’s chutzpah while still arguing with myself about whether or not the car could actually fit. Though our eyes don’t intend to deceive us, they can make impossible real.
“You can’t get there from here,” I often think and sometimes say, whether I’m trying to make it to the interstate through a maze of rural backroads or attempting to reach consensus on a subject with paralyzed sides. An impasse can look so daunting from an outside perch. When what my eyes see and what my brain tells me are two completely different things, I think about the way that wasn’t one until we chose to take it. Risky faith in action. Part of doing what doesn’t seem doable is trusting yourself to give it a shot.
P.S. Not Going to Fit