despedida

i lost my most faithful companion this afternoon.

my parents ran an ad to sell my old car earlier in the week. last night, a couple of women rang our doorbell wanting to see the car. within ten minutes they made my dad an offer for the car. it was reasonable. so i took my old car out this morning to run errands. picked its pink slip up from our safety deposit box; hit a coffeeshop; got a haircut; had the car smogged. i felt myself becoming irrationally sad thinking that i was driving my car for the last time.

my new car is wonderful. it rides smoothly. it starts every time. it has a six CD changer! it is a safe, reliable new car. but my old car has history. my history. i drove that car around in high school. my friends and i would leave campus in it for "donut runs" in the morning, deli sandwiches at lunch. drama festivals, debate tournaments, friends' houses.

i took that car to stanford my sophomore year. it learned my favorite haunts on the peninsula. the girls i mentored in east palo alto marveled over its sunroof, calling it a "sick" car, which actually turned out to be a good thing. :) i left the bay in that car.

i drove it nearly two thousand miles to texas where we battled it out with enormous trucks on I-35 in austin. my car was an accomplice for a halloween prank that went very awry; fortunately, my friends and i escaped prosecution!

this car helped me to explore the texas/mexico border, where my mom was born and raised. transported me from south padre island to la feria, to mcallen countless times for field work and fun. i remember playing tic-tac-toe one humid evening on the inner sunroof of that car with a boy i kind of loved.

i drove it all around santa barbara last year, where it paled in comparison to newer model cars, but transported me to all the beautiful spots around town nonetheless.

i cleaned it out this afternoon. i tried to peal the stanford sticker off the back window, which i attached - crooked - almost ten years ago. the once red letters outlined in black have now faded so that only the outline of the word "stanford" remains. the sticker wouldn't budge.

though the sticker hung on, i emptied the car's compartments of maintenance receipts, a couple of water bottles, hair clips, some old mix tapes, an almanac. none of these remaining items were remarkable.

but the stories were.