The Phrase “Bored to Tears” Might Be Handy

You know that feeling, the one where you have something you know you need to do or say, it’s right there on the tip of your tongue, just beyond your grasp, but… alas, nothing.

I feel that way about writing.  I feel like I have something to say, something important, something voluminous, something that rhymes with Shmu Nork Shmest Teller, but … alas, nothing.

Saturday morning, when I couldn’t get my Internet connection to work, I opened up Pages on my Mac and stared at the screen.  Fortuitously, I had a book that I had purchased in high school sitting right next to my laptop, simply titled, “Ideas.”  It’s one of those books with writing exercises in it, published long before the time when a million writing sites would occupy every recess of the Internet.

And bang.  It hit me.  Writing is exercise.  You don’t sit down and just write a novel, do you?

I’m not going to just wake up one morning being a great writer.  Well, as great as I want to be, anyway.

It takes practice.  So, I opened up the book to the first page and saw this:

Turn into your favorite car.  Are you a Jaguar?  A Jeep? What does it feel like?

Ugh.  Lame-o.

I looked at the time, and thought, “Okay, I’ll do this for forty five minutes and then I’ll stop.  What’s forty five minutes?”  This, by the way, is exactly what I do with physical exercise.

I’m going to post my exercise here, and I want to apologize in advance for any boredom inflicted as a result.  Because, really?  What kind of car would I be smacks loudly of an annoying Facebook quiz I once took.

At the same time, I have to put myself out there… er, out here.  So, please enjoy.  Or, move on.  That’s fine, too.

(By the way, my favorite car happens to be my husband’s silver BMW 328i SE.  From the very first moment I drove that car, I understood the full meaning of the phrase “pure poetry.”)

The sun is filtering into my dusty room, thin, narrow bands of light pushing through the tattered blinds covering the window.  They hit my bumper first, and slowly make their way up, up, up to my top and then, in an instant, the bands become a wave of sunlight and the whole garage warms from their rays.

It’s morning, my favorite time, because I know that soon I’ll be free.  Just me and my driver peeling through a quiet suburb, then onto the highway, free and fast.  This is what I dream of, feeling the warmth of the road beneath my tires, of singing a humming sound with my gears as we propel to our next destination.  My destiny is to move.

But, for now, I wait.

It could be hours, it could be minutes, I don’t know, but he finally comes in.  I watch him carefully as he quickly opens the door, throws his work bag on the passenger seat and sets his coffee mug on the top of me.  I feel the weight of his black bag on the seat.  A bag filled with papers, a computer, and numerous other articles, it will no doubt help him make his way through the day.  Its weight wakens me further.  Where he is going is important.  Important to him, to the other people in the house, and important to me.  It’s my job to get him there and I will.

He closes the door, grabs the coffee and begins to walk around to the driver’s side, to his side.  I am giddy, the anticipation of being used, of being useful.  It thrills me, I want to go, I want to move.  It’s almost too much.

As he opens his door and places his hand at the top part of the door, the little girl’s footsteps echo loudly as she runs to the door of the garage.  “Daddy, wait,” she pleads, “I want to wave to you.”  He stops and walks back.  This morning ritual is a regular occurrence and, as always, I watch patiently as it unfolds.

I watch him hug her tightly, and whisper to her about him coming home soon, before she even knows it.  I watch her ask him why he has to leave.  I watch them carefully, as I do every Monday through Friday, as they negotiate absence and return.

I watch them and I know what it is to be loved.  I watch them and I know that my job is important and that I am critical in helping this man fulfill his promise to return.

I do not take my task lightly, I will keep my promise so that he can keep his.

The negotiation is interrupted by the mother, she’s holding a small baby in one arm and carefully places her free hand on the little girl’s shoulder.  “Honey, he’ll be home at 5, that’s just a few hours away and we have lots of fun things to do today…”

I glance to my left and look at the mother’s SUV.  We two, we never talk, but we are kindred in our purpose.  I will take the father where he needs to go and the SUV will take the mother and kids where they need to go.  We sit silent and united next to each other every night, each waiting and knowing that our jobs are done best when our purpose is not even considered by the ones we carry.

My thoughts are interrupted by the grating cacophony of the garage door creeping up, and the filtered warmth of the sun transforms into a radiant burst of freedom and potential.  I feel the warmth of my passenger, his hand on the gear, his foot on the brake, and I’m moving.

As the gentle pressing of the accelerator activates the internal parts of my body that define me in the most basic and complete way, I… move.

Where we’re going matters as little to me as does how we get there.  My job in it’s purest form is to move… With the wind rushing past, other cars on each side of me, in front and behind… the steady building warmth caused  by my tires scraping against the gravel, my body surges with the sense of a clear and defined destiny.  I was born to feel the wind rush past, the heat of the road beneath me and the weight of all of their expectations.

This moment, right here, this is what I was made for.

The Facebook quiz said I’m a BMW, too.