So I bought the
Duster. I’ve kinda made a thing about it
over Facebook and in real life too, so it’s not likely new information for you
if you’ve clicked on my link to check this out.
That said, there’s a story to tell.
So I flew up to
Hartford, CT this Monday where my dear sister met me and we ventured deep into
the wilds of Worcester County, Massachusetts.
It was an area of New England that I’ve never been to and was very
picturesque. It reminded me of parts of
Salem County in South Jersey, and other parts of that area on the way to
shore. The people I worked with when I
was at PG used to call it “God’s Country” and I can see what they meant:
beautiful and quiet and peaceful and full of promise. It was nice.
We drove to the seller’s house and got the grand tour of the property
and met his three-legged dog. He showed
us the garage where his cars are-he had some other amazing cars too, including
a mid-fifties De Soto that seems to be his passion. All the other cars were awesome, but my eyes
were looking for the unassuming hunter green number I’d seen in the
pictures. When I saw it, in person for
the first time, I was equal parts excited and nervous as, while it was pretty
serious when I booked a plane ticket and equally serious when I went to the
bank, standing in front of the actual car was pretty much “go time” as
Mandelbaum might have said. It was time
to make a choice, but of course, it’s never simple.
I had consulted friends
and family and experts far and wide. I had
the support of all of these people. I
was standing in front of a really gorgeous classic car in amazing condition and
while I could feel the excitement in my gut, I found myself, for a moment,
falling back into a pattern I don’t like.
In the course of several minutes I vacillated between “This is a great
car” and “Kugs, are you out of your mind?” and “Look dude, it’s hunter green
which is like your favorite color and not that far off of the Eagles color” and
“Is this a responsible thing to do?” and “Why not model making a fun choice for
your kids in a way that is meaningful” and then “Where are the seatbelts? Will anyone be able to help me with doing the
work it needs? Why doesn’t the AC or Radio work?” but then, I thought, “It’s
really a nicer looking car than the one I had back in the day…”
I went back and forth
like this in my head for a minute, but then, I had a moment of clear and cogent
anxiety where I wondered, and not for the first time, “what if buying this car
is a life-alteringly bad choice and I still make it and I choose to invest time
and money in it and the car blows up on the way home and I die and everyone
wonders what the hell you were thinking?”
And in that moment,
being an experienced person with occasional outrageously silly yet powerful
anxiety, in knew that I was seeking a reason to walk away instead of really
looking at the situation, measuring that facts and making a rational
decision. I was building to a panic to
give myself an excuse to run away. It’s
something I did a lot of after Dad got sick and later died. Anytime someone got close to me, either as a
friend or as more than that, I got overwhelmed and ran away or pushed them
away. I was unkind to a lot of very kind
people in those days until the Wife essentially smacked me upside the
metaphorical (and actual) head and said “enough” and helped me heal from that
stuff. I’ve talked about those days here
before, but I found it interesting that that same sort of impulse crept up in
me with this situation. It hadn’t when
we bought the Beach House and it hadn’t in other difficult times since. So, why did it happen here and how did I deal
with it?
The “why” is not that
difficult to understand now that I have had a few days to think about it. Despite my penchant for taking the family out
or making a special meal at home or embracing the awesome power of YES in
Wildwood with the kids, I generally don’t spend money in a big way, ever. So, I’m not used to doing it when it’s not
related to real estate and my wife’s not telling me where to sign. So, it was a lot of money to part with. I wondered if I was being selfish, frivolous,
insane, mid-life-crisis-laden…all of that.
More than that, I think
there was some aspect of standing in front of that car that brought me back in
time to 1990. To that time before Dad was
sick and when all I had to worry about was my girlfriend, my friends, my
grades, and that I couldn’t wait to turn seventeen and get my license and drive
my Duster all over Mercer County, maybe even take it down the shore when my
folks thought we were just going to the movies because they didn’t want us
driving that dark crazy road to Seaside.
Those spring months before Dad was diagnosed were so full of promise,
that’s really the only word. I was
sixteen and junior year had had its moments that I won’t get into here, but as spring
came around, Dad and I had started to really understand one another and have
some things in common. We’d gone to the
driving range and planned to golf together.
He’d helped me develop a workout program and we did some things together
at a local gym. The big thing was that we
made a plan to build a deck off the back porch over the summer. We’d done some sketches of how it would
look. He was going to put part of his summer
painting money with Mr. D, and I was going to chip in some of my summer job
money too. I didn’t know how to build
anything that wasn’t a theater set, so I was looking forward to learning and
doing something “Manish” with my dad. As
the spring moved on, I had a steady girlfriend of over a year who was away at
school, I had good friends, I was doing well in some of my classes, I was in a
really cool musical that was winning awards, I went to Prom with a good friend,
I went to my sisters college graduation and most of the family (21 people) came
and no one fought at all, not even a little!
Everyone got along-that was pretty awesome. I remember driving home from that graduation
feeling really positive about our family-everyone, all the Uncles and cousins
and Gram had come and everyone had seemed to have a good time. I think Mom and Dad even let me drive a
little on the trip since I had my permit.
Everything seemed so positive coming out of that weekend and I remember
getting home and seeing my original Duster in the driveway and feeling like it
was only a matter of weeks until I’d get my license and we’d be free to be. Pretty sure I washed and waxed ‘ol Monstro
that weekend after we got home.
What I didn’t know was
that Dad hadn’t been feeling well for some weeks. He faked it good but finally Mom dragged him
into the old MET place up on 130, our version of the “Minute Clinic” I
suppose. Soon after pretty much
everything changed. My life went from
trying to get off of work to see my friend off to the Prom or to hang out with
my girlfriend all the time, or performing at theater competitions to navigating
the parking garage at Princeton Hospital and having my smart friends explain to
me what the hell platelets were.
I reviewed my old
journals for this section and it is glaringly clear when the change
occurs. It goes from an entry on the
Surflight Theater Festival “It was such a beautiful day-we went to the beach-I
love the beach! There is always a
special place in my life for the beach.
I practically grew up there. I think
I will always need that in my life” to “Ohhhh-well, I knew it seemed funny when
my dad was so tired…” in the course of days.
Most of the entries after that deal with hospital visits. Some mention of All State Chorus and a
breakup and friends and stuff. There are
several entries I’m embarrassed by, but I was a kid going through a difficult
time. I forgive myself. Some relationships ended and others were
strained and it was a difficult time, as we’ve discussed. It was a shit time.
So why was I ever so
slightly brought back towards this mindset and these memories as I looked at
the Duster? Probably because I have
always been a person that attaches meaning to things-to people-to places-to
events. My friends used to call me
“overly sentimental” but I think it’s not that exactly. I think it’s more that my mind connects
things when emotions are involved and for better or worse, when things happen I
have not only the feelings and the memories, but also things to connect them
to, people and writings and music and the like.
Connections.
Earlier this week when
I stood in front of the Duster, there was clearly a moment where I flashed back
in time and it was not the sixteen year old kid looking at an exciting future,
but rather the seventeen year old kid who was watching his world fall apart
inhabiting my headspace. Neither of them
were particularly welcome, but less so that seventeen year old dope.
I was grateful in that
moment that my sister was there as the cars’ owner seemed quite content to chat
with her while I asked for a minute to “make a call.” (What did we do before smartphones?) I took out my phone and just walked out
towards the tree line. It was a very
pretty area and I only needed to go fifty yards or so to be out of earshot
which was where I wanted to be.
As I look back on it
now, I know that I was scared. I was afraid
to buy the car because I wasn’t sure it would be able to drive me home. I wasn’t sure it was in as good condition as
it seemed. I worried that I’d have an
accident. I worried that it was too much
work or that it was selfish of me or that it was narcissistic to even want
something like this. I was approaching panic
attack levels of stress. I messaged with
Uncle C and my wife and talked with a Classic Car repair place down here in
NoVA and everyone had great answers for all of my concerns. Everyone said that it’s ok. Go for it.
But I was still
anxious. My sister made a great point
saying “Don’t think about the money.
That’s not the issue. Is this the
car that’s going to fulfill that dream you have?” It was a great question. I wasn’t sure. Then I took it for a drive.
I drove down the street
in Oakham, past their library and an old cemetery and some nice houses on a
long road before turning back and returning the same way. I liked the way the car felt and
sounded. The radio didn’t work and I
didn’t put something on my phone as I just wanted to drive. It was quiet.
The lack of power steering and brakes made me have to work harder and
pay attention differently than when I drive the Odyssey. I liked the quiet and it reminded me of the
first time I had driven my old Duster at sixteen, around the school parking
lot, the deep and sonorous sound of the engine and the feeling of magnificent
control that the lack of power steering provided-I felt like a ship
captain.
By the time I parked
the car back at the sellers’ house I knew I was going to take it home. I had some negotiations to make but I felt
like some sort of change had already occurred on that short test drive. We made a deal and I drove it away for the
short ride back to Connecticut.
The next day I woke up
early to drive it to Virginia. With no
working radio and wanting to preserve my phone battery, I drove in silence
quite a bit. With no AC and the windows open,
I had plenty of noise but found a great deal of pleasure in the silence, the
natural audio haze of the road. It gave
me ample time to think and reflect and pray and sometimes I did those things.
Sometimes I didn’t and
it was in those moments that I felt something like an exhale happen within
me. Something like a release-like
letting something go and it all being ok.
I don’t know that I’m certain exactly what that is just yet but I know
that it would not have happened without going through this process and being
forced out of my comfort zone once again.
None of this happens without the advice of friends all over the world
nor does it happen without the kindness of friends of friends who are willing
to help just because the friend of a friend asked. It never happens if one is stuck in the
past. It doesn’t happen without the
support and enthusiasm of one’s household, to be certain, but it most assuredly
doesn’t happen if I didn’t really want it to and finally got out of my own way
to do so.
Whatever becomes of
this Duster, (still working on a name) it was a choice to be made and I made
it. Those moments of silence on the road
bringing her home were transcendent in a way.
I won’t go so far as Thoreau about it, but I felt very early on in my
360 mile drive home that something had changed.
I was peaceful. I felt like
things were going to be alright and that I needed to continue to have faith and
work hard. It made me feel like I had
moved on from something to something even better and that everything was going
to be fine.
Whether that’s the case
of course remains to be seen. I like how
I feel owning this car now though and I think I’ve grown into not only the man
I am now, for better and worse, but have grown into the guy that owns this
car. I hope it’s a good car and that I’m
a good man. I feel like bringing this
car into my life is giving me the opportunity to bring some level of closure to
the past. I think I like thinking of it
that way, though I’m tempted to wonder, “What would have become of me had my
dad not gotten sick and my life were different and I never got stuck on a
1970’s Duster?”
I don’t know the answer
to that any more than the other “What if” scenarios I used to torture myself
with all the time as a kid and young adult and adult and maybe last week. I don’t know anything about that but I do
know that I love this new car. I know
that I love and appreciate my family. I
know that I’ve been very blessed in my life.
I know that my past has often held more weight over my present and
future than I would like at times, but I also know that that fact may have just
changed for me. There’s a calmness here
that works for me and I hope it’s not fleeting.
I know that something
changed on the ride home. I hope that
whatever it is helps me be a better father, a better husband, a better brother,
a better son, and better friend, and better man, a better person. I hope that very much.
Can a dream fulfilled
do all that? Can a car? I don’t know honestly, but in the end, I
think the image of the kids running out to see the Duster and sit in it and
taking pictures of themselves, and the image of picking up the wife at the bus
stop and driving her home the other night are amazing starts.
I was told to step out
on faith during this process. I
did. The promise that my original car
held is very much part of the past. I’m
ok with that. Letting go of that might
have been a vital part of all this as now I find myself looking more to the
future and at our present.
Perhaps that’s the most
important change. Perhaps it is time to
look forward instead of backwards. What
could be better for that process than a 1970’s Duster?
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