Motion Sickness

by Marty Lane
Most of my life I’ve suffered from motion sickness. A sudden curve in the road or a wrong turn of my head can produce a debilitating condition of nausea and vomiting especially if I am a passenger. I trained my husband to negotiate curves slowly and even to avoid curvy roads altogether. At home, the broad and expansive interstate system gifts us with long easy curves. Italian roads and public transportation do not coddle my ailment; respect for center lines and speed limits is compromised; traffic laws are seldom enforced. Buses negotiate hairpin curves at the extreme left side of the road, cabbies weave artfully through traffic at uncomfortable speeds never using turn signals; most drivers are expert at dancing with transgressors of the line. My initial resistance to the Italian driving paradigm was severe and I ventured out doped on Dramamine. On recent trip to several small cities in Umbria, I determined to quit pampering and medicating my issue; for the first time, I rode the curves with no adverse consequence. Learning to live with the dissonance—it’s a gift I will take back home.