I’m driving—well, not driving, I’m parked—but a minute ago, I was driving the brightest, yellowish vehicle I had ever seen outside of sports cars. Every inch of this vehicle is screaming yellow. I feel that I’m glowing as I drive down the road.
I just dropped off my champagne-colored Ford Fusion to have a solenoid replaced, and they gave me this loaner car. Bless those people. I love that this company offers loaner cars, and they are probably the greenest (environmentally) repair company in Eugene, Oregon. “The car’s out front,” they said, “the key is in it. “That yellow one!” I exclaimed. It’s great, I was just surprised.
I bought coffee, grateful I had transportation, and drove to the park in Eugene, Oregon, to talk to you guys.
The park runs alongside the Willamette River. It’s gorgeous. Two Maple trees in front of me are providing shade, and behind them acres of green lawn spread out before me. A cement path is beyond the green, and a line of trees frames the North side of the path. I can see a bit of blue that is the river, river peeking through the trees.
So, what do you want to talk about?
This calm, tranquil place with only an occasional biker cruising down the cement path is not a setting to get into world politics—Oh, rats, someone parked beside me, but then, we will share the shade: two maples, two cars.
What I have been into the last few days, besides physical therapists coming to the house for my husband who broke his hip, contractors coming, nurses coming, dogs out for the nurses and therapists, in for the contractors. Dirty dishes into the sink, clean dishes out. It’s like the children’s book “Big Dog Out, Little Dog In.” “Little dog out, big dog in.”
I’ve been thinking about my old analogy about how one’s life perspective depends on which window we look through.
I hit a window the other day—on the computer—and saw a picture of bloody fighters having a cage fight on the white house lawn. Now, how can you unsee a picture such as that?! First, the gladiators. Will we have lions next?
What are we willing to put up with?
With my window analogy, looking through one window will show you wars, bombings, and chaos in the world. But then another window will show you that the trees are leafed out and delicate in their spring newness. The flowers were dressed in their Sunday best—looking like Easter with flashy, fuchsias, golden yellows, yummy oranges, pinks, reds, and all of them basking in glorious sunshine.
And here I’m outside, well, no, I’m not. I’m sitting in a car looking through a window.
Incidentally, as I mentioned, the car repair shop I just left is green. It used to be for foreign cars only, then a couple of doors down the strip, they added another shop for domestic vehicles. We can now use them again. And they said a third shop was coming—I don’t know its specialty.
I was reading a newspaper clipping on the wall while waiting for my loaner car, about how the owner bought the property, renovated it, did the right thing from the beginning, insulated the structure, placed solar panels on the roof, buried tanks in the ground for various fluids so that they would reduce the amount of deliveries and trucks, and the amount of plastic bottles. I don’t know what else my car loner arrived, but I remember that we used to be greeted by a Standard Poodle, and they had a loaner bike.
