Old Cars, Old Shoes, Old Friends

I have a great car, a 2003 Nissan Altima that's loaded with absolutely everything. I had to play the Bose sound system at high volume to make sure it was truly awesome before I'd even consider test driving the car. It was. I did. I bought it.

But even as wonderful as it is, as cushy and smooth and well equipped as it is, I'm not in love with it. I appreciate it but don't feel an emotional attachment.

It's like a rock-hard, very manly-handsome guy I went out with a hundred years ago. He looked great on the outside, my friends would have thought I was so lucky, and I *should* have been wild about him, but I didn't feel any chemistry. I only went out with him once.

The two cars I've owned that I loved wholeheartedly were both red but otherwise very different from each other. My 1980 Nissan 280ZX was fabulous. Power, looks, handling, luxury -- I felt like I was driving a cloud. I loved that car every moment I owned it.

And my 1993 Dodge Intrepid with rich-looking gold-edged wheel covers I loved also, even though it didn't have a sun or moon roof or a Star-Wars-looking interior dash set-up or an impressive sound system. But I loved the look and the feel and, most of all, the memories that went with the car. My dad and I picked it out together -- for him -- just a few months before he died. A few years later, after my mom had put all of maybe 2,000 miles on it, I got the car and loved it every moment I had it until I sold it about a year and a half ago. I passed up the opportunity to sell it to a neighbor who had 2 little kids who trashed and threw up in their car -- I couldn't do that to my Intrepid. I kept it way longer than I'd ever kept any other car because I felt it held a little piece of my dad and I didn't want to give it up. But I couldn't stand to see it deterioriate either so I sold it when it was still looking good and performing well. It was a good find for the guy who bought it. He passed muster with me so I let him buy it.

Both cars I had an affinity with, a chemistry. And we made memories together. We survived things. I was married when I owned the Z, and my husband and I zipped around town in our Zs -- he bought one shortly after I bought mine. One day he tried to run me in my Z off the road with his Z. Imagine what that phone call to our insurance agent would have been like. Not long after that, amazingly enough, I moved out. But I have good memories of us, too, earlier, with our almost-matching Zs.

As for shoes, if I like a shoe, I'll buy it in a couple of colors and I'll buy spares. I hate it when they discontinue a style I have adopted as mine. If I have enough back-ups, I'll wear them long after they're no longer available to buy. Okay, so I'm not a fashion trendsetter. But I bond with my shoes. I'd never be like the women who have 300 pairs of shoes...unless it was 30 pairs each of 10 styles.

And then there are friends. I haven't lived in Maryland very long and I didn't know anyone when I moved here. Slowly I'm meeting people. We're all friendly, cordial and happy to see each other. We laugh, we trade stories, we banter, we empathize and we sympathize. But we're still polite with each other. Not very real with each other.

I miss my old friends. The ones who call me on my bullshit and I call them on theirs. The ones who roll their eyes and know that I'm not like that, or that I am. The ones with whom I have history -- it only takes one look and we remember whole long, complicated stories about each other. The ones who know my foibles and love me anyway. The ones who've grown so fond of me that by now they see only a tiny fine line between my strengths and my weaknesses. The ones I can call in the middle of the night if I need to, and they me, even though we rarely do. The ones I'd want near me if anything bad happened to someone I love. The ones who know me, who fit me like my favorite shoes and thrill me -- every time we talk -- like the first time I drove my Z.

Eventually I'll have history with friends here. They'll fit like my well-worn Ecco sandals that I kick and scream at the thought of not wearing as fall arrives. They'll understand my passions, my quirks, my resistances, my moods, my dreams. They'll know the characters, past and present, in my life. And they'll become one of them, two of them, hopefully more. We'll have that rare and beautiful friend-shorthand that only comes with time. Even in this MTV-fast, quick-cut, instant-gratification world...some things still take time.