Driven

Hello, friend. Thank you for joining me here!

I never thought I’d be one of those people with a bunch of cars parked on their lawn. You know: the eyesore house. But, if you’ve been following along with our journey from NYC to MN, you know that since we moved to our ramshackle farmhouse in the fall of 2020, I’ve done a lot of things I never thought I would. We are not only the house partly covered in Tyvek, with the yard that holds random piles of debris for future dumpster rentals, but we now own FOUR vehicles to accent our acreage. If they were shiny sports cars, or gleaming SUVs, perhaps we’d be the envy of the prairiehood. Alas, our cars are a hearty mix of old and semi-new, drivable and broken down, and lately they have been on the forefront of our life, and of my thoughts. Let me introduce you to the lineup.

The leader of the pack is clearly our white Mazda CX-9. It is a shimmering pearl white and drives like a dream. Gratefully, it starts up in the depths of winter and holds our “good” child booster seat with ease. (You know your life has truly changed when you rank your carseats the way you used to rank your shoe collection.) After having our daughter, I adamantly refused to buy a minivan. I mean, carseats were one thing: it’s the law that you need one of those. But minivans felt like a whole other level of giving up. In my previous life in Los Angeles, having a smaller, fuel efficient car was a must—especially one that was also comfortable and able to dart in and out of traffic. Big cars always felt like lumbering longboats to me. So, when David needed to replace his failing Jetta a few years ago and suggested finding a larger, “family car,” I was unenthused. It would be his car, I reasoned, as we test drove 6 seaters. The Mazda we found was a dealer car with low mileage in great shape, and it would even fit David’s teenagers! We bit the bullet and brought it home. And…I almost never drove my beloved Prius again. Ha! The Mazda was gloriously comfortable, with lane assist, automatic emergency braking, rain sensing wipers and blind spot monitoring. I mean, it was about as close to a Tesla as we could get without the charge time and free speech quagmire. I friggin’ loved the thing. And though David had thought it would be his main ride, once we decided to make the move to Minnesota, he shifted gears, too.

After much debate over future farm and renovation hauling needs, David tracked down a used GMC truck in New Jersey. This was before our move. He bought it directly from the owner—something I’d never done before and found a bit uncomfortable. It turned out to be truly inconvenient because he got the title paperwork in March of 2020, the day before Covid shut down the NJ DMV—a completely unexpected and unprecedented occurrence. Before he could even get there, all in-person services closed. They did offer online registration…for renewals and dealership sales. Private car buyers could not transfer titles nor pay for registration online, and the offices were to remain closed indefinitely. His plan to drive that massive truck out to MN to start work on the farmhouse in the spring of 2020 got nixed. Instead, it loomed beside our little NJ house, filling the entire width of the driveway. It took jumping through a lot of hoops before all the paperwork got squared away. I’ll be honest, not just because of the untimely hassle of it all, I never liked the GMC. It sits so high off the ground that in order to get inside, I’ve always had to grab onto the window-adjacent handle and sort of hop/haul myself up in the most ungraceful way. When the engine starts, it is so loud that my bones shake and my teeth chatter. The massive tires are slightly too big for its body, and every time David cuts the wheel sharply, they rub against something or other and make a truly disconcerting, and vaguely rickety, rumble. And speaking of cutting the wheel, my dear husband takes corners quite a bit more robustly than I do. Every single time I ride with him in the GMC, all the items he repeatedly places on the slick-smooth and oddly wide console fly off and under the seats during said corners. Every. Single. Time. You would think he’d either put his phone and wallet somewhere else, or ease through corners to prevent such landslides, but no. Regardless, because of all we are now doing with our farmhouse and land, the truck has been completely necessary and totally appropriate. But, I do not drive it unless there’s some kind of emergency. Talk about a longboat! I understand it’s usefulness, but it was not the kind of pick-up I had in mind when we made our life change.

Here is what I did picture: the “Little Blue Truck.” Do you know those books? It’s a series for kids. There are about six of them now, I think? The illustrations are adorable, especially of the truck itself. He is a cobalt blue, curvy, oldy-timey pickup, with big headlight eyes and an even bigger heart. He is friends with all the nearby farm animals and always ready to be of assistance in their hours of need. He makes me happy. Once we moved to our farm, I noticed a few similar trucks around town, clearly restored and maintained with great love. A couple of them were driven down Main Street in the ridiculously charming 4th of July parade last summer. I waved and smiled as they rolled on by and pictured getting to do the same someday. I began searching used car websites for something similar, and boy did I get a shock—a sticker shock, to be precise. It seemed there was quite a market for truck dreams like mine. Dreams we definitely could not afford. I parked the thought on a mental back lot and told myself it would happen when the time was right.

As we drove to the Renaissance Festival (Huzzah!) in the fall of last year, we rounded a familiar bend and saw an old truck parked in a vacant, corner lot with a FOR SALE sign in the window. You guys, it was adorable. A 1952 Ford F-3—not blue, but anything can be painted, right? The handwritten price was a bit steep, but nowhere near as bad as those online. It was still there on our way home, so I dismounted our gallant white Mazda in my Ren Faire corset and Faerie wings (natch), took a bunch of pictures, and made note of the phone number. The next day, we left a message for the seller. He called back, and after telling us more about the Ford’s history, we asked if we could have our mechanic check it over. He agreed. Well, there were some issues, as was to be expected with a classic car. Two points of interest, however: first, it was a double clutch—which didn’t mean too much to me except that it sounded doubly unlikely that I’d ever actually be in the driver’s seat. Second, it had a dump feature, which also didn’t excite me, but made David much more keen. Dumping things is apparently a farm need. When it came down to it, I wanted the truck for parades and pictures, and David wanted the truck for working on it and working with it. However, after the mechanic’s full report, we realized that a good deal of money would need to be spent to get the truck running right before we could even consider my (already sourced) blue paint chips. The cost of all that necessary work on *top* of the purchase price wasn’t something we could swing. In fact, it was about twice the amount that would have been possible. With regret, we left another message for the seller to let him know it was not going to work. It had been clear in speaking with him during the inspection that the Ford meant a lot to his family. In our final message, we told him we certainly did not want to insult them by offering half of his asking price. We knew what a special place that truck held in their memories, and there was no way that we were going to lowball them. We thought that was that. It was disappointing, but we put the idea to rest. Well, a couple of days later we got a message back. The seller and his family had talked it over, and after meeting us, they felt that the truck would have a good life with our family. Because they cared so much about it, the seller was willing to accept just over half the original number!! Can you believe it? Soon after, we welcomed our very own Little (soon to be) Blue Truck to the farm. It’ll be a while before we can get all of the needed work on it done, but I do see parade routes in our future…

Ok, so that leaves one last auto, my aforementioned West Coast Prius. Some backstory: the Prius was my first really nice, grown-up car. I bought it after my stepmother died and left me a little money. I had never owned such a nice ride before. It had leather seats, a cd changer, and a sunroof. Seriously, it might just as well have been a Mercedes for how fancy I felt as I first drove it off the Toyota dealer’s lot. It was the perfect car for my time in Hollywood. Not only was it an oasis of peace, which mostly counteracted the gnarly freeways, but it transported me to multiple long-distance regional theatre jobs around the country with excellent gas mileage. It only failed me once when the battery died in the Arizona heat while I was rehearsing The Great Gatsby. At 115 degrees, I couldn’t really blame it. That car always made me feel like a grown up, like someone who had their life together. And then, both suddenly and after too long, that LA life fell apart. I left all of it—including my dear Prius. I moved back to New York, settling (though I felt so unsettled) in a quaint Brooklyn neighborhood with scarce parking and plentiful public transportation. All of a sudden, I didn’t need a car. After much thought, I put mine in storage in Los Angeles, not quite able to face the thought of permanently losing it, too. Time passed. Many subway rides were taken. The car waited. And then, life changed again.

A year after leaving Los Angeles, David and I started dating. Then, in the middle of my first Broadway production, I found out I was pregnant. After my utter shock subsided (slightly), all I could think about was how much I did NOT want to raise a child in the city. It was hard enough to hand carry all of my groceries, let alone do the city-mom-stroller-schlep up and down dirty subway stairs. There was no way, no how I was going to bring my child home from the hospital on the F train. We started looking for commutable areas outside of the city immediately. Happily, we found a charming yellow fairytale cottage in Maplewood, New Jersey, and were able to close on it just in time. I was eight months pregnant when moving day arrived and on partial bed rest. An early labor scare meant I wasn’t allowed to lift more than 10 pounds—a hilarious instruction to give a hormonal pregnant woman on a mission to nest. You know what I needed to make things better ASAP? My car. Gratefully, my parents each drove that sweet Toyota part way across the country for me. It would have been near impossible to have done that on my own, considering my condition. They were my knights in Prius armor.  And guess what? It was that car that drove our baby home for the first time. I will never forget leaving the Manhattan hospital where she was born, sitting next to her carseat in the back. As we entered the Holland Tunnel, I shielded her eyes from the bright lights and marveled at her tiny, sleeping form. I was terrified. I don’t think I’ve ever backseat driven so desperately in my life. Go slow!! Go slower!! That turn was too sharp! Watch out! Be careful!!!! So careful. He was. The car, and Daddy, did their jobs well. Our girl was driven safely, and the Prius became the car of her babyhood.

OK, there’s a sort of random detail I need to share. Bear with me! When I first got the Prius—back in LA—my ex put a small quartz crystal pendant into my Christmas stocking. I recognized it right away as being a re-gift, something he’d gotten from someone else that I’d seen in his office. Now, I am not strictly against re-gifting. It can be a wonderful way to reduce waste and find a good home for items better suited to another. However, in this case, I was disappointed. I did not want his cast-offs. I really wanted him to think carefully about who I was and make an effort to find something that was exactly right for me, and only me. (You have to know here that finding the *perfect* present for someone I care about is one of my goals in life. I LOVE putting in time and true consideration to reflect someone back to themselves through my offering. Giving gifts—and having them received with joy—is my love language.) At any rate, in regards to the crystal, I let my letdown show. Uhg. That created conflict. It’s complicated to explain, but in the end, I attached the crystal to a gold cord and hung it from the rearview mirror of my beloved car. I was trying to make amends for my “selfishness” and lack of gratitude. I was trying to make peace. I was trying. But damned if every time I looked at it, despite its natural beauty, I felt a little bit sick.

OK, leave that there a minute. I will circle back, I swear. I just need to fast forward first. Cut to 2020: the Prius went with me, David, and Finley when life changed all over again, and we made our move from the East Coast to our Minnesota farm. Even before the final goodbye, when David couldn’t drive the GMC cross country to start work on the farmhouse because there was no way to get it registered during the initial Covid shutdown, who came to the rescue? That’s right: Little Black Prius. Thank goodness for that car. And yet, how did we repay so many favors? Somehow, once we’d fully relocated, it simply sat parked near the old barn. As our first Northern winter approached, the small hybrid didn’t seem like the best choice on icy roads. A tire got low, and then flat. The battery died. And then, the worst thing happened. In the thaw of our first midwest spring, David discovered that the car actually had been useful during the winter, as a home to MICE. Yuuuuuucccckkkkkkkk!!!!!! Friend, you know my feelings on mice. (For those of you who are new around here, I urge you to scroll back and take a gander at my post, “Mouse House.” If you dare…) It was utterly unacceptable and simply revolting that mice had polluted my beautiful vehicle. I was so mad at us for letting it sit! I mean, did you know that mice dorming in dormant vehicles was a thing?? Add this to my long learning curve list of (un)fun farm facts. The utter overwhelm of adjusting to such a starkly different life in the midst of a Pandemic should not be an excuse, and yet it’s all I’ve got. We truly screwed up. After the rodent reveal, I couldn’t even think about driving it again, but David bravely cleaned out the mouse motel and got it started again. He re-parked it on the grass, and I proceeded to pretend it wasn’t there. In fact, I started talking about getting rid of it—especially in light of the going rates for used cars due to supply chain issues.

All right, so you know how when someone wants something of yours that you didn’t think you liked anymore, you suddenly see it through their eyes and like it again? Yeah, that. Come to find out, our little community actually has, like, this closet Prius fan club. David mentioned casually to someone that we had one we might be selling, and within a couple of days, her husband dropped by out of the blue to take a look. He was so nice and such a fan of the model. He said that if one adds snow tires, a Prius is the perfect car for our area. Huh. We said we’d let him know if we were really serious about selling it as soon as possible. We hemmed and hawed. I had wanted it gone post-mouse infiltration, but the gentleman’s enthusiasm made me re-think my thinking. And then I found out that I would be heading back to the East Coast for a theatre job this spring, and it sure would help to have my own transportation…

We kept the car. It got a new battery, new tires, and a thorough disinfection. To my surprised delight, I found myself really enjoying driving it again. In the weeks leading up to my new job, I switched my allegiance from the Mazda back to the Prius. We fitted it with a backless booster (Rank: a solid 2), and Finley and I zipped around town. She hadn’t been in that car since the summer of 2020. On our way to her bus pick up at the General Store one morning, she relaxed her head against the soft leather of the backseat, and said quietly, “I used to watch that when I was little.” I didn’t know what she meant. “You watched what, Sweetie?” I asked. “That.” She pointed dreamily at the crystal. It was still there, gently swaying with the road. “I liked to watch it from my car seat.” My eyes slid from my girl’s face in the rearview mirror to the stone that hung below. It gleamed in the morning sun. Why had I never taken it down? All those years when it made me feel ‘less than,’ when it symbolized such a time of dysfunction, I could have, and maybe should have, removed it. Yet, there it swung from the gold cord I had used to try to make it feel like mine. Suddenly, in the light of the Minnesota morning, it held no darkness. Suddenly, it was my favorite thing—because it was hers.

Just before I left for my new gig, there was a long stretch of rainy Midwest weather. Finley and I were driving in the Toyota again one wet day, and I called over my shoulder to tell her how much I’d miss her during the weeks that I would be working. She requested my arm at a stop sign. I reached back, and she squeezed it with all her might. “That’s an arm hug. You can save them up for while you’re gone.” I gave her the other arm, stretched awkwardly between seat and door. Another squeeze. The windshield wipers made an arc behind the softly swinging quartz. “I’m gonna miss you sooooooo much,” I said, drawing out the ‘so’ to make her laugh. “Me, tooooooooo,” she replied. As our giggles eased, we got quiet. “That actually sounds like a heart beating,” she said. And I heard it, too. The wipers. Back and forth: thunk tunk, thunk tunk. We listened. Then she said, “If you ever run out of hugs while you’re gone, just take a little drive and listen to the heartbeat.”

So, now I am gone. I had to drive away on Mother’s Day morning to make it to the start of rehearsals on time. I cried for the entire first hour on the road. It took 1,174 miles to arrive. I always, always wanted only one thing in my whole life, and that was to act onstage. I am here to do that, and that is good. It is the thing that has driven the course of my life, in fact. But I have already run out of hugs, Friend, and it hurts. What drives a person changes sometimes. Routes shift. Destinations may remain the same, but there are so many turns you never saw on your life’s map. We just completed our first work week, and I made it through ok, but there was one day that I really struggled as I drove from actor housing to the rehearsal hall. The weight of all I had left at home in order to be here, coupled with the stress of trying to do theatre during Covid—especially with the new variant(s) on the rise in the tristate area—overwhelmed me. I sat at a stoplight, and I realized it would take a miracle for us to actually get to do this play. There are no understudies; if someone gets sick once we open, we close. I knew, as I stared through the windshield before me that I could control none of it. I knew I felt scared and alone and enveloped by anxiety. I knew I could use a hug. I flipped the switch…

Thunk tunk. Thunk tunk.

And I drove on.