four on the floor, one on the bus?

Today marks the first time I have taken the bus from home to work and then back again at the end of the day. Sometimes it feels like the rain is winning.

Tonight marks the first time I have driven a manual transmission vehicle in quite some time. I thought I was going to get a shot of re-living my early years (read 15.5 to about 28.5) in Iceland, but that rug was pulled out from under me by the rental agency. I had another shot a few weeks ago, but a series of car-borrowing events later put me behind the wheel of yet another automatic transmission machine. Tonight, through the generosity of others, I got my chance.

I will grant that Taylor Swift's song "You belong to me" may have contributed to my sense of nostalgia, but I still felt a ripple when I sat down in the driver's seat, depressed the clutch, put my right hand on the stick shift and was whisked away to another time and place. I felt the heartache of my late teens seep through the transmission and enter my body through my hand. I couldn't find a girlfriend, I wasn't sure of my place in the world, the rain made me sad and lonely. I released the stick and breathed back into my thirties. It's a more confident place, though perhaps not as far removed from those days as I like to pretend. As I maneuvered in and out of parallel parking spots, another wave of nostalgia came over me, this time in a surge of valet-instilled confidence. I was the sort of parking machine that women and men alike adored and under-tipped. I could park your big boat of a Lincoln towncar or pull around your late 90s T-bird, no sweat. I'm versatile that way. Manual, automatic, past, present- it's all here. Baby.