Week 28 - Celebrating Being On the Road Again

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Week 28  - Celebrating Being On the Road Again!

You can read this and more on my blog -
⁠barbarafaison.com/blog⁠

Remember the song On the Road Again by Willie Nelson? If you don’t Google it. lol

That’s how I felt on Saturday. A few of the lyrics are:

I can't wait to get on the road again

On the road again

Goin' places that I've never been

Seein' things that I may never see again

And I can't wait to get on the road again.

For a few weeks or longer, my car has been making some weird sounds, and well, I’ve been acting like I didn’t hear them. Lol. You know the minor inconveniences of life that require your attention, oftentimes we/or I may avoid them, because I just don’t wanna deal with it.

I have lived long enough to know that that doesn’t usually work out so well. Avoidance btw is not a good strategy.

I would get in the car, and ask for guidance and protection, and it was working out pretty good. Until this happened…

Last Tuesday as I was about to leave to go to the store my car began squealing when I started it. I cringed as my husband came over to look at the car, he diagnosed it as possibly something related to belts or the AC. Ugh. Drats, I knew I was about to get off the road.

You see, this car was my mother’s car. It’s a 2007 Lexus SUV with over 200K miles. I told my husband I had been hearing strange noises for a few weeks so we knew it wasn't safe to drive. I began cleaning out the car so it could be towed.

As I began the process I started feeling very melancholy. I remembered the times I would drive my mother around, you see when she moved in with me in 2012 this was the car we used. My 2007 Solara was not as comfortable as her car was, so hers became our main car. My mother wasn’t into “things” so her buying this car was huge. This is not just a car, it is a mobile memory capsule. It’s filled with vivid memories including when my brother, Tony, my mom and I drove to Philly to her last living brother’s funeral. It happened to be in 2008 when Barack Obama won the election and we got caught up in the DC traffic. Mom and I traveled around laughing about stories of my childhood and her life in this car.

The car is 17 years old so a decision would have to be made about what to do based on the diagnosis. I decided I would put on salsa music and celebrate whatever would be next for the car and I went down memory lane while taking stuff out. Yeah, I had a lot in my car.

Music is great for shifting your mindset. You know when you hear a certain song you are transported to that time and sometimes it takes you back to when you first heard this song? I put in my Juan Luis Guerra’s 440 cd (yes, I said cd) and began dancing and singing as I cleaned out the car. I really fell in love with salsa music after hearing his song, Quisiera, while I was out dancing. The song roughly translates to I would like to. I cleaned out car and moved from melancholy to gratitude thinking over the memories I shared with my family and friends in this car.

I love how music can shift your state of mind so quickly. Next I wanted to have ease with the towing and the conversation about the car repairs. On Wednesday morning AAA came quickly to tow the car. Justin, the driver, asked a few questions and was courteous and professional and there was a picture of Tigger and Winnie the Pooh on the side of his tow truck. That totally made me laugh. The funny thing is I have miniature stuffed Pooh and Tigger hanging via carabiners on my rearview window. All I could do was smile and give thanks for the ease and grace with the pickup.

You can read this and more on my blog -
⁠⁠barbarafaison.com/blog⁠

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