My first was a lovely, white, British thing, bought the way one should never buy: in the throes of passion, tinged with nostalgia. Recalling the romance of childhood, watching my dad work on his Triumph Spitfire, hood up, sitting on the fully exposed tire in a white T-shirt to tinker with the engine.
[And, I’ll add later, in typing this up, the memories of sitting sideways in the well behind the back seat, my brother and I touching toes and giggling. The memory of the sound of the engine alerting me that daddy’s home, daddy’s home! Then running out to greet him, and begging to “drive the car” into the garage. He’d pull me up onto his lap and let me steer. For years I believed that touching the steering wheel was what made a car go.]
I paid the full asking price, then sold it, months later, when I moved to England for grad school, for less than half that.
2 out of those 4 months it was in the shop. But oh, the joy of driving with the top down, my red ponytail flapping like a flag behind me.
I’ll take a reliable, boringmobile that will get me from point A to point B with no fuss, over a sexy-but-temperamental convertible any day. But I doubt any other car will stand so brightly in my memory as that Spitfire, barely in my possession long enough to call mine.
Symbol of the foolish impetuousness of my youth.
Process Notes
I couldn’t contain my memories in a single card today, so broke my own rule and spilled over onto a second one. That’s the beauty of rules you make for yourself, though. There are no Self-Imposed-Creative-Prompt-Rule Police. 😉
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PS — Pssst! Know someone who might benefit from seeing this today? Pass it on!
