Every heart is Much the Same The Same Chambers Fed By Veins

photo by sally mann

Dear Sarah,

There are so many stories and sunbeams bottled up on your insides. You may have held even as many as my childhood. Sliding through snow packed side streets, inching along and collecting friends and mittens along your way. Loaded up to your top with wood, canvas, and staple guns and coming home months later with oil paintings the size of tables. I think you prefered the slick black or bumpy concrete tickling your toes and giving you purpose. To the grocery. To work with those ferocious and forgotten children. To philadelphia and davidson and asheville and back again. You knew me at my best and at my freest. in the dark driving away or in my bikini with boxes in your trunk and coming out the windows. and you also knew me when I was fragile. when I feared the most. Shaking against the wheel and feverishly talking to myself.

you had your share of bangs and scraps i couldn't afford to mend. levers and lightbulbs. a rusty door hinge and superglued windshield wiper. i would sigh to myself and apologize for not repairing them sooner. then, months later, look them over lovingly and remind you they gave you a story. like a keepsake or a photo album.

How silly of me, and how true to my character…covering you with my favorite things. Orange smelling bubbles and Finger puppets and a valetines day card with red and blue dots, the card that blocked the dashboard so I couldn’t see you didn’t have any oil. Now there it was, a hole blown in your motor the size of a flashlight and you sputtering and refusing to go.

I don’t blame you.

So I sold you south to guatamala, to someone who I think will bring you culture and undoubted adventure.

And though I must admit you looked quite finished, covered in pollen and cardboard shoved in your sides, I was sorry to see you go. Blurting out to him at the final minute that you had a name and so many stories. And though he couldn’t fit the syllables smoothly between his teeth he said you ahd a soul, so I trusted him with you.

I know most people (and even me sometimes) think its absurb to name inanimate objects. Reminds me of knitting sweaters for your dog or a guy who pops his polos shirt collars and listens to an ipod. its weird. Quirky. Materialistic. But I do think when we do name things, its because they have given us something in return. Some companionship or hint of humanity at its best.

So I will say goodbye and tell you, what I would hope to tell anyone who was my close companion. my favorite. My reminder of the best of humanity.

You heard the secrets I wouldn’t have told anyone else….and didn’t flinch.

You were so strong and said the scars only helped to tell the story.

You brought me to where I needed to be.

mayo, la carretera se levantan

ashley

Don't wear sandals Try to avoid the scandals Don't follow leaders Watch the parkin' meters

music by sylvie wibaut

Dear Car Buyer,

After several hours of second guessing and silly questions, phone calls and fears that you would not come, I sold you my car in a gravel driveway auto shop. witnessed by some old storage units and a tow truck. I tried to look tough, holding my words quick and tight against my lips. I felt it much like a card game or stand off, not wanting you to make a sudden move or shift your hands too much. And now I am sorry for thinking you would try and cheat. It is how I was raised. It is what I was told. And it was only after the lines had been marked and dollars exchanged that I loosened my grasp, of my chest and all those ideas of you. I had not thought before that you must think the same of me. Or that you must be tired after driving down from virginia. I wanted to tell you I was sorry my upbringing had made me skeptical, that I couldn’t help myself. or at least to try and step across some gap that had been preemptively placed in our paths. And all I could muster was a muttered question in spanish about mexico. but even so, i watched your back change shape to something more porud and I think my question must have offered some agreed sense of relief or perhaps a movement most like a string, being suddenly pulled from my life to yours. I think you must have understood. and my words began slowly stretching their syllables supriselingly painlessly across that lovely language. and we decided to stay and talk. you with your rusty wheelbarrow car tow and plaid shirt and I with my rough past tense verb usage. I was glad we talked about sandino and costa rican farms and your children. I laughed when I told you my car had a name. you said it had a soul and made a motion with your hands to the sky. Even your slightly codling and blatantly flirtaous reminders of how dangerous it was for such a beautiful lady to be walking rather than driving and the bold blunt exclamations of how linda and hermosa my name and hair and self were, were not troublesome or threatening, (as comments like those often are for me.) They only seemed to harmlessly settle you into your character.

Thank you for talking and for talking with me.

It was a rest from all those boxes I had been checking and buildings filled with paled faced people and paperwork. It was the book I stuffed in my closet with pictures from Nicaragua. Panama. Mexico. It was a truthful chance to say something and take my time saying it.

It was something with space. something better.

Ashley