love.minus.limits

Everything Good

In my memories of this place, we were always driving. It seemed we were always far from everything, and that part still holds true. Driving out here as fast as I could made it clear it really is the corner of nowhere and around where Jesus lost his sandals. In my nostalgic mind it’s a view from the jump seat of a pistachio green seventy- something Ford, rough Navajo bench seat chafing my summertime bare legs as my feet dangled halfway to the floorboard. But it was the shifter, watching my grandfather move the car through its gears in a seemingly endless array of movements coordinated between clutch, pedals, and gearshift. Even the alien mechanism itself impressed me, tall and strong right out of the floor, making self important sounds and causing the truck to jump quickly into gear or come to a shuddering stop. It made my grandfather chuckle, but for a child of the automatic car generation, that manual transmission truck was downright magic.