guadalupe, the san francisco treat

lupe has been my very first own car. she's all mine, in her periwinkle glory. and i think she's on her last legs.

*sigh*

when i think about my car i think about so many things. seeing it for the first time, driving it back and forth to bemidji and st cloud, sitting in traffic, blaring rod zombie on the way to breckenridge sd that one fourth of july, seeing the car all painted up as a going-away gift from my friends at lueken's. so many things. i love my car.

dan asked me today why on earth i got so attached to cars. i can throw away clothing and other household stuff at will, but cars make me cry.

i think it's based greatly on my childhood, and my dad. dad loves cars. dad knows a lot about cars. he treats his with great care and concern, and even a sense of respect--that he's honored to have the car. can you give that to an inanimate object?

for some reason i don't consider my car inanimate. i named her before i bought her.

i guess it's been a tough year--things that aren't considered a big loss by the majority of the world, i feel i'm losing--touch with my friends up north, my girls whom i consider sisters. serena moving to colorado. my dear quinn. and now my lupe. i feel like things are being amputated.

at the same time, the only way for growth to happen is via change, or loss, whatever you want to call it. i always think about driving through yellowstone national park after the fires out there--miles and miles of blackened ground, the green of grass and new little trees standing out so brightly. i think about walking through bemidji state park in the spring--when all the leaves that are falling now are a damp carpet, flattened by all the snow, rotting softly, little spots pushed up where sprouts are unfurling. if i think hard i can smell it, rich and deep.

i think about those things and it's not all awful.

but if i do lose my lupe, i know there'll be tears. i love my car. i tried to explain to dan that to really get a sense of my attachment you have to imagine that my car is a horse. maybe a better explanation would be to reference captain jack sparrow--it's not just a ship, it's freedom.

and it's probably not good bye quite yet. i hope. props to lupe--you've been a good little mazda 626.