ode to ZF

The new car is coming today.

My infant brother is driving it.

Deep breathing.

So, the new car is coming today. It's a Subaru Legacy Outback.

BAM.

Obviously this car is completely superior to ZF, the lovely loser '89 Honda Accord I've been driving for about the last 6 years. In the new car I can fit guitars, kayaks, surfboards, BODIES. I can also drive on the beach and attempt logging trails. ZF barely clears the 8th street hill on a good day.

I love my ZF car. I recognize the need to move on when I have the money and inspiration to do so...you know, before ZF really starts breaking down and I have to start investing in a complete piece of junk. She's on the cusp right now. She could go either way in the next 6 months. A new car is necessary and, like I said...got the money for it right now. Although, now that the darn thing's purchased, I don't have the money any more. I'd better not get hit by a truck or blackmailed next week.

But, yes, totally love my car. She's taken me all over the place in various states of emotional highs and lows. To and fro from college, on adventures, on hikes, all over this new town. She has brought people to me. She has been broken into...one..two...at least four times, and stolen once for one truly awful week. Got her back. She has absolutely nothing of value inside of her anymore except for a Eugene public library Bach CD that's still stuck in the CD player and will stay there until they rip the thing out because during one break-in, someone stole the CD player faceplate.

For a while in order to listen to music, I used these itty bitty iPod speakers that I got when I opened my checking account at the bank. I'd set it up on my dash. Then someone stole that. So I stuck to singing to myself which has led to this habit I can't shake of singing softly to myself whenever I'm in a car...not just my car, any car. Every once in a while, I'd purchase those huge batteries (D batteries?) and haul along an old boom box so I could play tapes or CDs. I had to create this special throne for it, though, because the jolting of my car would make the CDs skip.

Things that have never happened to ZF:
- Never had a blowout
- Never just stopped running for no reason

That's a lot to be thankful for, I think.

Her only real troubles were an old radiator (the thing lasted from '89 to '08, though, how much can we complain, really?) and a bad starter (ultimately cost me less than $100 to fix). ZF has amazing gas mileage too. Did I mention that? This is a good car. A really good car. And now I'm casting her away for something shiny that will probably crush my heart with its cold allwheeldrive heart.

down the highway

I saw hot air balloons, two, red and yellow, blue and orange, rising along I-5 above a skirt of mist at the foot of hills and from the curves of these hills I always know I am 40 miles away from my other home. Along the strip that cuts the interstate in to two running sides, a hawk stooped on something small and frightened. And all along, the fields played out in tree lines and wet grass.

(as you can see, I have absolutely nothing to say right now)

No music on the empty roads thanks to thievery and other nefarious acts that have ripped radios from my car, but there is an Irish song on repeat in my head. Like all Irish songs it bewails time and women, friends now dead and all those dead days no one else remembers. Oddly, I was the happiest I've been in weeks, not because I was leaving or arriving but because all was well and all manner, T.S.Eliot, of thing(s) were well.

Now imagine this at a lilt, slightly mournful because those whom the gods smile upon they also destroy:

"Oft, in the stilly night,
Ere Slumber's chain has bound me,
Fond Memory brings the light
Of other days around me;
The smiles, the tears,
Of boyhood's years,
The words of love then spoken;
The eyes that shone,
Now dimm'd and gone,
The cheerful hearts now broken!
Thus, in the stilly night,
Ere Slumber's chain hath bound me,
Sad Memory brings the light
Of other days around me.

"When I remember all
The friends, so link'd together,
I've seen around me fall
Like leaves in wintry weather;
I feel like one,
Who treads alone
Some banquet-hall deserted,
Whose lights are fled,
Whose garlands dead,
And all but he departed!
Thus, in the stilly night,
Ere Slumber's chain hath bound me,
Sad Memory brings the light
Of other days around me."

Potato famine. The end.