The car

The car was not my car. It was left behind for me to use when my parents moved away. It came with the house. I can’t even recall the colour, or the model or make. The car was what I learned to drive at the age of 16, a few years before my parents moved. The stick shift made me feel so powerful, and it was enough years ago that ordinary people like me could figure out how to fix the engine when it wasn’t working quite right, or when I managed to flood the gas.

When I felt like taking the canoe for a dip, the car would take me to the lake. It was small enough that I could easily get the canoe on top and tied on tightly. The car meant freedom. It allowed me to go for drives and it kept me in touch with nature and sometimes with friends.

But, what the car was really helpful for was the weekly trip to a neighbouring town for music lessons. Those 105 kilometres became my personal retreat and the car, my oasis. There was an 8-track player and several 8-track cartridges. The one I listened to most frequently, at least once or twice every trip, was Elton John’s Greatest Hits from 1974.

Okay…..I couldn’t resist listening again, and I have been playing “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” on YouTube. In all those years of loving this song, I have never once until today looked up the lyrics. I wondered why he would write about “can’t plan meeting your penpal”, or “should have stayed on the phone”, and many random words that made no sense, but I trusted that it made sense to someone. (did I make you look up the lyrics?)

My special treat on those trips was to stop at the grocery store and pick up a grapefruit, then the car would take me to a beautiful picnic area beside a creek. Sitting beside the creek, savouring the tang of the grapefruit, and marvelling at the peaceful beauty of the seasons. In winter the ice would reflect the sunshine while evergreens contrasted with the leaf-less birch trees, in the spring the water rushed more swiftly down the creek as shrubs and trees turned green again, in the autumn the changing from green to yellow, red and brown was breath-taking.

The car saw me through my first year of growing up and living alone. The music that I could listen to in the car kept me focused and awake for the journey. The side trips and stops along the way strengthened me for the days ahead.