A week earlier, my car was totaled when I was hit-and-runned on the freeway driving home from a ski trip, and my "new" car was acting weirdly, so I dropped it off at a mechanic before school the following Friday morning. The news when I called them at lunch was not good. When the shop removed one of the tires, the bearings crumbled into their hands. Further inspection revealed that my baby had, at one point, been submerged. Don't drive it another five feet, they said. We are surprised you haven't crashed yet, they said.
Shit.
So I called a tow truck and rental car. I couldn't afford either, but I figured I would have the tow truck driver take the car back to the lot and make a big deal about unloading it. I would need the rental car to get home; I had just moved 20 minutes south of the city.
Shit.
So I grabbed all of my personal possessions out of the car and sat down on the curb to wait. It was February, but it was one of those freak winter days in Seattle, sunny and 65. I was dressed for another ski trip, scheduled for that evening but now canceled, and I had a bag full of gear. I sat in front of the auto repair shop, sweating in my thermal underwear and boots, stressed about money and trying to figure out what I was going to do.
The tow truck drove by and turned in to the back of the shop. I sat for another couple minutes, then turned around and looked into the shop. There was a guy leaning on the counter, waiting. I stood up, opened the door, and said, "You lookin' for me?"
He said, "I guess I am."
Dane had a cast on one arm (broken wrist from snowboarding) and blond hair that stood straight up. He had a goatee and an easy smile and there was a little dog named Murray riding around in that tow truck with him.
I canceled the rental car and got in the tow truck. He said he fell in love when I played with the little dog; I waited a whole four days to fall in love with him. More on that in the coming days.
(Dane in one of his natural habitats)
“To live in this world
you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.”
you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.”
—
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Mary Oliver
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Awesome. The older I am the more I become acutely aware of just how rare and precious love is. It should always be celebrated as such when it is discovered.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, I had no idea. It's a huge cliché, I know, but it is utterly true. I am not trying to over romanticize anything here; we had some serious issues in our time together. But the way we met, the things we shared, the person he was: these things are magical. I will never forget the look on his face when he looked at me the first time and said, "I guess I am."
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