Where I Live 5.0

Racing down the one straight-stretch road of any distance in these mountains, racing against the school-bus schedule to get my friend home in time to greet her daughter, my friend noted the smell and smoke coming from my car.

Overheated.

Sigh.

I had just put in a quart of transmission fluid that morning, hoping against hope somehow that I could continue to limp along.

Alas, it was not to be.

We bought some time cranking up the heat and slowing down – but not much.

Get to the corner of 84! Melissa cried.

We’re not going to make it! I've got to pull over now!  I responded.

But just then we crested a small rise and there was the corner of 84.  I put the car in neutral and we coasted in to the parking space in front of the house there.  Without a word, Melissa hopped out of the car, ran into the house and came back 2 seconds later with keys to the van in hand.  Off we flew to get Maggie, arrange for a tow, pick up Melissa’s car and drive back to the house at the corner of 220 and 84 and sit down for a visit with Carlton & Patsy, owners of the van.

Where I live, when your car starts to go, you do all you can to get to the house of someone you know – so that you can run into their house unannounced, say “car keys” with no further explanation and without remark be given the keys.  Because where I live, you see, the one being asked knows all they need to because they know the one asking.  A stranger would get a ride, but a neighbor gets the keys.

***

The more car-astute among you will correctly note that I said I put transmission fluid in the car.  What I didn’t say is that I put it in the radiator.  Sigh.  That’s right: I put transmission fluid in the radiator.  Poor car, you deserved better.

The In-Between Silence

I love the in between silence
in the mornings when the birds
and the passing cars compete
to bring wakefulness into the
recesses of the time and space
I occupy – of course I like the
birds the best – nature’s alarm
clock is hard to beat . . .

but best of all I like the two-count
of the in-between – the silent
moment that stands alone
beckoning me into a new day
until another bird, another car
decides it’s been long enough
this silence of the in-betweenness
of things and the chorus begins
again

The Joy of Driving

I was always the last or near to last kid to be picked when it came to sports – even by my own family, even by my own dad.  I just wasn’t that good at any of it.  Now if there had been a team for best Nancy Drew mystery readers, I would have been in the running.  But baseball?  Forget it!

In college, I dropped the swimming class in favor of archery to fulfill the physical education requirement at my college.  I wasn’t great at archery either, but it was much easier for me to participate in a sport that required that I stand still.

Any personal sense of competency that I have ever had has more to do with the mind than the body.  And most of my memories about physical endeavors, highly embarrassing and painful at the time, are, in hindsight, filled with humor. . .like the time I took a baseball to the stomach when my dad was pitching to me because I froze when the ball came at me (now you know why my dad didn’t pick me to be on his team after that – he really felt bad about the bruise) . . . or the time I knocked myself unconscious by trying to imitate a sledding trick of racing towards a parked car only to veer sharply left at the last minute to get past the teasing boys blocking our way – yep, I froze again and ran right into the bumper of the car . . . or the time as a young adult that I got on skis in the slightly slanted driveway of a friend and was so terrified of the incline that I cried and sat down in the snow . . . or the time my cousins and I (well me, really) broke my Aunt Bonnie’s window pitching ball in the house when I missed the ball that sailed past my ducking frame and shattered the glass . . .

I could go on, but what would be the point?  There’s only so much of these laughing memories one woman can take, after all.

Thus it was with perhaps understandable, if inappropriate, pride that I received the left-handed compliment of a local police officer giving me my third speeding ticket from his own hand.

It was Easter Sunday.  And folks around these parts will know how silly it was for me to be speeding . . . right past his house.  My only defense is that my mind was elsewhere (hardly any comfort to my fellow motorists, I know).

Pulling me over at the top of Jack Mountain and going through our by-now usual ritual – “Beth,” he sighs.  “I know,”I respond.  “Didn’t you see me?” he asks.  “No.”  But it’s Easter and so there’s a new wrinkle: “I can’t believe you’re making me do this!  It’s Easter Sunday and you’re a preacher!”  “I know,” I sigh.  “Don’t feel bad.  It’s not your fault.  It’s mine.”  (Who knew pastoral duties extended to comforting the police officer who feels bad for having to give you a ticket?)

After all the ritual of paper exchange and ticket writing and explaining is completed comes the real surprise for me: “Have you had any driving training?”  “Not other than driver’s ed when I was a kid,” I respond.  “Well, I will say this: you take those curves like a pro.”

Like I said before, the pride I feel is inappropriate to the situation.  But it is real.

James-Bond blue BMW Z3 drop top -
the object of my affection

I love to drive a car, especially in the mountains.  And I drive too fast.  Before I left my previous life to go to seminary, I leased a sports car.  It’s the only physical thing that I have ever loved.  And I did love that car.

Sitting atop Jack Mountain on Easter Sunday with my ticket in hand, I pondered this thing about me and was pleased.  When it comes to driving, I am competent, able, deft.

I don’t know why this gives me such pleasure.  Maybe it’s simply the little girl inside who was never picked first for the team knowing that she’s good at something.