Shifting Gears
The next Santa Barbara Writers Conference begins tomorrow, and to celebrate I’m starting this blog with my non-fiction essay that placed first in the non-fiction category. The prompt was “One thing I wish…”
The one thing I wish is that I’d bought that old red Jeep.
Twenty-eight years old, I was recently widowed, the mother of a toddler. I was making big decisions on my own for the first time in my life. Alone in the world, I had no one to talk to other than my two-year-old son. And he was all in on the Jeep because it looked like one of his toys.
That Jeep had done some living. I walked slowly around it, running my hands lovingly across every scratch in the red paint, every dent in the metal, imagining the adventures it had seen.
The long scratch on the passenger side was probably made when she drove through the jungle on the way to the rain forest while on safari. The adventures didn’t have to make sense, but they were vivid and exhilarating in my imagination.
The back seat had been removed to make a larger cargo area. I imagined filling that space with sleeping bags and handmade quilts, and burrowing under them with a sweet lover. We remove the hard top and watch as the stars slowly move across the clear night sky above Kalispell, Montana. When the night turns cold, we both try to climb into the same sleeping bag, until our fits of giggles change to kisses and soft caresses, and the chilly night air is forgotten.
The Jeep had a standard transmission with the shifter between the front seats. I close my eyes and picture myself driving across the country, feeling in control of the car and my destiny as I shift gears. With the hard top removed, the engine is loud, and the wind whips my hair around my face as I head east on the highway. The radio blares my favorite road songs: “Go Your Own Way,” “Life in the Fast Lane,” and “Born to Be Wild.”
I arrive on Cape Cod just before dawn. I drive the red Jeep onto the sand in time to see the sun rise over the Atlantic. The horizon transforms from indigo to gold, and then the sun floats in a sky of brilliant blue. It feels so real to me that I can taste the salt water of the sea blowing on the wind. It takes a few moments for me to understand that I am tasting my own tears, shed as much from the beauty of the imagined sunrise as from the heartache of knowing that my road doesn’t lead in that direction.
Because Moms don’t drive Jeeps. They don’t drive red cars at all. Their cars are beige or white, and the only scratches on the passenger side are the dings left by errant shopping carts in the grocery store parking lot. Moms drive sensible cars with an approved safety harness for the car seat. And as far as stargazing through the open roof over the cargo area with a sweet lover, well, that part of my life appeared to be over.
I turned to the salesman and asked him to show me a sensible car with an automatic transmission, something safe, with good gas mileage.
I drove away that day in a beige Toyota Corolla, my boy safely buckled into his car seat. I drove that car for years — to and from my son’s school, to Little League games, and on adventures to museums and picnics. It took us to the emergency room in the dark of the night when my boy cried with a high fever. Eight years later, I drove that car up into the snowy mountains where I found my new love.
To this day, I know in my heart that the Corolla was the right choice. I also know deep in my heart that it’s time to roll down the windows, crank up “Born to Be Wild” and take a drive to the Jeep dealership.