Northern Animist

A poem about the souls of things, plus a tribute to the best car ever

Family photo, Martha’s Vineyard, 2017

My husband and I went car shopping this week. More accurately, we returned to car shopping this week after pausing the search process several months ago. We’d started looking for a new vehicle last spring following a few issues with my seventeen year-old car. (“A few issues?” my husband says in my head.) But once the kids were home from college I reasoned that we didn’t really need to go anywhere far away, and if we did, we could take one of their cars, neither of which was purchased new, but have significantly less, shall we say, life experience than my old girl.

I am intensely loyal to the objects in my life that have served me well. I apologize to worn out shoes before I discard them. I have sweaters nearly as old as my children. It’s hard for me to let go of something I’ve come to trust and rely upon, something so familiar that it feels like an extension of myself. Can you imagine Han Solo replacing the Millennium Falcon?

I’ve had my car since my kids were ages six and three. My daughter has no memory of me driving anything else. She has taken us all safely over almost 200,000 miles of road. I’ve napped in her back seat while I waited for my children at practices and rehearsals, I’ve scribbled the beginnings of poems on napkins from her glove box. Both of my kids learned to drive in this car. She helped me take my mom to countless doctor’s appointments and home from the E.R. more times than I want to remember. She waited for us in longterm parking at Logan Airport, welcoming us home from every family adventure. I’m not just imagining the collective sigh of relief we would exhale when, jet lagged and exhausted, we would crawl into her seats for the last leg of our journey home. She is a rock star of a car, a super hero, a legend.

We have a family phrase, coined initially by our son, I think. It is deployed when, despite reasonable arguments against a course of action, one of us decides to persist along a potentially risky path. You may tell me all the reasons why I should not do something, but once I say, “I think it’s fine,” I am signaling to you that you are wasting your breath. One by one, all my family members have suggested that maybe it was time to retire my trusty car.

“Ma,” my son and resident car expert said, “We all love her. But she’s not as reliable as she used to be.”

“I think it’s fine,” I replied.

After the need for a major repair stranded us an extra two days in my daughter’s university town last year she said, “Mom, it may be time.”

“I think it’s fine,” I said.

But as the summer came to a close, and we sent the kids back off to school I thought to myself, “What if one of them needs me and I can’t trust my car to make that two or three hour drive safely?” And that was when I knew that it wasn’t fine anymore.

We found a new car yesterday. She’s used, but only very gently. She’s got everything we need, and then some. (The fancy new parking sensors had a serious case of the vapors when we parked her in my narrow bay of the barn. I could do without that.) I’m sad, but also relieved. My husband is relieved, too. Because, dear reader, his car is even older than mine, and our reliable new vehicle means he gets to keep his baby a while longer.

You might tell me that cars don’t have souls. You might say they are just a collection of parts and systems, devoid of spirit. You could try. But you’d be wrong. We imbue them with our fondness, with the trust we feel in them, with the power they give us to show up, help out, come home. Like plants, perhaps they are just “differently ensouled.”

The poem below was from The February Poetry Adventure. The prompt was “toothbrush.” It’s not about a car, but it fits my mood today.

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Northern Animist

I’m scrubbing at
hard water stains
around the faucet
with an old toothbrush,
feeling good about giving 
a used item a second life. 
I feel thrifty, like a proper
New Englander, no-nonsense, 
making do with a worn-out
toothbrush when I could
have bought one of those 
fancy little brushes made
for the purpose. 
But then I think 
what if the toothbrush
is sad. What if it feels 
like it has been demoted, 
consigned to a life 
of hard labor now that 
it is past its prime?
Which is when I realize that,
despite the circumstances
of my birth, I am no thrifty,
no-nonsense New Englander
if I am feeling sad for 
a toothbrush. I will forever
be that strange girl
whose dreamy stare
caused her grief at school.
Who struggled with guilt 
after discarding an empty pen 
in the classroom trash, 
wondering if that pen 
felt sadness
at the end of its life.

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What about you? Did you have a special car or bike or boat that came to embody and represent a whole phase of your life? Is there a seemingly mundane object you will never part with?

Thanks for being here, everyone. Thanks for reading.