CarTroubled Musings

Baby-love,

I want to tell you about strange, momentary connections. And how they come from every-which-way.

Last night my truck wouldn't start. I'd left the house for school at 7:30am and walked out of my last class at 9:30pm. I crossed the street to the Starbucks parking lot where I'd stashed it, being pushed along by the drizzling winds of a welcome storm. I crawl in through the passenger door, soaking and feeling high after a night of talking International Women's Movement in my Human Rights Advocacy class, scoot over behind the wheel and turn the key. Chicka-chicka-cough-cough-whirrrrrrr.

For the next three hours I encountered all types: nice Asian men willing to try their hand at jumper cables; a sweet, all-out-fix-it guy that helped diagnose, pop-the-clutch, and push; and wonderful fathers able to scroll through the list of every mechanical possibility not-taking-place. Alas, all to no avail. Finally, my merciful roommates saved the day by driving a 60-mile round-trip out to me, just to sign the silly AAA papers that the tow-truck-driver brought to offer. And closing in on 2am, I finally found myself home--still reeling from the depth of conversation just had in the toasty cab of a flat-bed, as it carried me and mine through the wind & roaring rain falling reckless on Highway 17.

I can't believe I don't remember his name. Why does the mind block out such crucial details? Nonetheless, Mr. NorteƱo-Tow-Truck-Driver and I somehow got around to talking about drugs (something about the last time he towed to Santa Cruz--a 50-year-old woman in an M-Benz exclaiming from nowhere: "I don't even care--I love weed!"), which somehow lead him to tell me about his older sister who had overdosed on methamphetamines two years ago.

She was five years older than he was, and his only sister--like I'm five years older than you and your only sister. He told me that he and his wife were pregnant with their second child when he found out, and how they took in her five kids after she died. Five kids; three birthdays--two sets of twins flanking the middle child. 4s-10-14s when it happened; 6s-12-16s nowadays. How their father had up and split after their mother died, somewhere in Washington state perhaps, and hadn't written one Christmas/Birthday/Howdy card since. The profound anger at this. Knowing it should have been that useless fucker instead, were the world a decent place.

Of course I told him about you after he disclosed these god-awful things to me. It made me a teensy-weensy bit grateful, because at least we're not riddled with a tortured knowledge that you did it to yourself. Because you didn't; it was unjustly done to you--and this is a bitter yet righteous place to occupy. At the same time, at least he still gets to live in a world that makes sense--that people's actions may come with tragic consequences, but they still have a say in whichever brutal direction life takes them...

I've yet to decide which is preferable. Frankly, neither hold much of a candle to the world we thought we inhabited 130 days ago. And when it comes right down to it, I think Ani says it best: "I envy you your ignorance. I hear that it's bliss." Though I know you'd just roll your eyes and smirk to hear it.

-L (2/16/11)

Four months. And Sugar says...

"Most things will be okay eventually, but not everything will be. Sometimes you’ll put up a good fight and lose. Sometimes you’ll hold on really hard and realize there is no choice but to let go. Acceptance is a small, quiet room."

http://therumpus.net/2011/02/dear-sugar-the-rumpus-advice-column-64/

(Thanks J.)

-L (2/10/11)