I'm not even sure it's really (or only) topographic agnosia, or just my generally bad visual skills, but I have a lot of trouble parking. In fact, I flunked the driver's test several times before I got my license, mostly because I couldn't parallel park. Driver's ed had also been a nightmare--I'd flunked that, too. Aced the written part. Effortlessly. Perfect score on the written test each time.
I still can't parallel park. Not only can I not tell how far away things are, but I have trouble trying to figure out which way to turn the wheel to back up in a particular direction. (I was in junior high before I could figure out which was my right hand and which was my left without raising my hands to see which hand had two freckles on the back.) I can't even pull forward into just one space--I need two or three spaces next to each other. Sometimes if there's not much room I have trouble pulling out. I try to avoid getting myself into tight spots--I've made people mad by not being able to figure out how to get out. Sometimes I've had to park taking two spaces because I couldn't get into just one. This upsets people, too. Pulling into new parking garages, gas stations, or drive-thrus can be a challenge.
Sometimes I can't go somewhere because I don't have anywhere to park. It's not as if I can just circle the block or drive around, looking for a place. I have to memorize the route to where I'm going to park. If I have to walk somewhere from there, I have to memorize that, too. Then I have to memorize the route back to the car, and the route back home from there.
A detour means I might be lost for hours.
When I was younger, I couldn't go anywhere by myself at school. I got into trouble repeatedly for being late to classes in junior high and high school, long after the school year started. I didn't even get my driver's license until I was twenty. Back then I couldn't figure out north, south, east, west. Somehow I've managed in the last twenty years to get a 'template', a very basic picture of where the main cities and roads are. A stick figure where most people would have a portrait.
My world, at least when I'm the one driving, consists of a few main streets. In the city nearby, there are (counting now) four main streets I can drive up and down. I can go to my mother's house, the main library (just recently acquired this--I used to have to walk from my parking garage), one parking garage (from which I can wander around downtown until I find a few museums and a couple of restaurants), one Wal-mart, a Chinese restaurant, an outdoor shopping mall (which includes my one movie theater), and the zoo. Oh, and the emergency room at one hospital. In another smaller contiguous city, I have one main road, along which is a grocery store and several fast-food places, and a gas station. I can also find another branch library (also recently acquired), and my credit union. In another small city, I have one main road, which leads to our vet, another Wal-mart, a farm store, and a small complex which includes a grocery store, a Chinese restaurant, and a Salvation Army store. Until they located that Salvation Army store at that complex, I could never go to a thrift store. Oh, and our nearby small town has two gas stations, a library, and a couple of restaurants. This is my world. If I'm by myself, I can't go anywhere else.
Well, that's not completely accurate. I can go lots of places. I have, lots of times. I just can't go anywhere I actually planned to go. Once I found myself on the interstate and wound up in another city. Once I was lost for hours in the dead of winter in a car with no heat. Once I got lost on the way to my mother's house for no apparent reason. The children have learned to speak up when I'm approaching our destination in case I drive right past it. After all, if I drive past it, I might very well be unable to turn around and find my way back.
If I want to go to a job interview, or a doctor, or a social event, or even a new restaurant, somebody has to take me, or spend a couple of hours driving me there and back until I can memorize the route. And they have to do that the day before if there's any hope of my retaining the information long enough to get there. I've tried to use a GPS, but it takes so much concentration to drive that I can't use it. (It's also hard to hear over the car engine--pesky central auditory processing disorder.)
I can't even meet up with a homeschooling group because of this--not unless they'd meet in one of the places on my list.
I'm lucky--my mother never learned to drive at all. People don't understand why she never got a license. As for me, I get told to pay attention a lot. My oldest daughter is getting ready to learn to drive. I hope she doesn't have as much trouble as I did. My husband is going to teach her. I probably wouldn't even be able to take her to a driver's ed class.
My sister is planning to visit this summer. Recently the possibility has come up that I might have to go to a baseball game with my parents and my sister, bil, and niece while my husband is gone this year. It's still difficult to explain that I'll have to park at my parking garage and walk. I'll have to map out the walk to the game. And the route back. And it will be dark when we get out. I'll be walking with four kids in the dark to a parking garage near a neighborhood known for it's homeless population. And then I'll have to drive home in the dark.
I really love the internet. I can go anywhere online. Without the internet, there would be no 'volunteer work' (clicking to donate for free), no news about what's going on in my cousins' lives, no specialized medical information so I can take care of myself, no updates on the world of homeschooling. I can't go to a concert to see a pianist play, but I can watch many of the best online. I can't go to college, but I can read about ancient Greece over lunch. I don't even get a newspaper here, but I've got all the news online I could ever want. The internet connects me to so much out there. Without it, I'd live in a much tinier world.
* The Lady of Shalott by Tennyson
http://www.pathguy.com/shalott.htm
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