Kathleen McCall:
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2001-11-05 - 1:15 p.m.

Vehicular Fantasies

I have been eyeing cars on the road these past few days. I'm not giving up; it's just that a new corner of awareness has been opened, that life may change again, and that I may want to consider being in the driver's seat when it does. Colt, if you are reading this, I have not given up the fight. We will prevail. But in the meantime, I have developed this thoughtfully predatory way of looking at cars on the road around me. Hmmm.

I'm remembering my Mazda RX7, the only new car I've ever had. Brand spankin' new, with something like 160 miles on it when I took possession. I picked it up on a rainy day, in my skin-tight jeans and knee-high fringed boots, and I was all that, I was. Higher than a kite. I paid cash for that car and I was proud of it. That car was independence and youth and the wild edge and all about getting something I wanted all by myself. For a long time that car made me smile when I got in it. I was a happy driver. Eventually it got impractical; I drove it for two years with a child's carseat riding shotgun, but I couldn't fit TWO carseats in it, and it had to go. I sold it to a young man who was just as happy as I had been, although he didn't have fringed boots like me so he wasn't all that, but he drove away smiling. I cried.

So now I'm in midlife. Is this midlife? It is, isn't it? Well then, I am entitled to my crisis. I think I ought to have it soon and get it out of the way, too - not put it off forever like I do everything else. I know for men the crisis usually involves something small and fast, possibly an RX7, but I've already done that, so it won't work. I think I know what WILL work, though.

I want a '68 VW Microbus.

I never got to own one before, when everybody else did. I had the little VW convertible bug - cried over that when I sold it, too - but not the bus. Yep, I want the bus. I want to sit way up there with the flat steering wheel like a bus driver, and I want a peace sign on the front, and I want Indian-print curtains and a patchouli air freshener. Well, I don't like patchouli because it smells like dope smoke and unwashed bodies to me, but you know what I mean. Clove cigarettes, maybe. Dr. Bronner's peppermint soap. Lace-up sandals. A dreamcatcher to hang from the rearview. Beanbag cushions for the back.

Seventeen miles an hour up the hills, no synchromesh, better pull over to the side to put it in first before it stalls.

I know what this is. I know that if I bought the bus, and made the curtains and smoked the clove cigarettes, that it would not help. I will not take off and drive around the US with my kids, because I can't get written permission from the ex to take them out of state. I can't leave my job and still pay my property taxes. Indian print fabric is now $10 a yard. I know, I know. I would use the van to drive myself to the school Site Council meetings and to Wal-Mart to pick up light bulbs, and the back will gradually fill up with Burger King toys and Beanie Babies and Pokemon cards. I think my fringed boots wound up in the dress-up drawer a few years back, and I own more brassieres than I owned total articles of clothing back in the hippie bus years. I have a feeling those VW's have a force field that will not let you enter them wearing polarfleece, or Lycra.

Still, though...

The lure of recaptured youth is a strong one. I don't want to be anybody different than I am - I like me. I just want to have a short vacation, a personal time warp. I want to shove some Van Morrison into the 8-track.

I won't poke fun at middle aged men in red sports cars any more; I am coming to understand that they're not fools. They're just taking a mental break from selling insurance policies and filling out Schedule G and getting their prostates rudely examined. I understand.

I'll flash them a peace sign as they go by.

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