Your car is a mirror.

I think my cars are the easiest way to get to know me. Hear me out.

Where are you at your most pure? When you’re hanging out with your buddies watching a game or a reality show? What, you’re really going to reveal your true self over some beer and nachos? Man, that play sucked, Bob. Sure did, Joe, but hey - did you know I’m secretly afraid of my mortality and the inevitable decay of time?

That kind of talk takes all of the crunch out of your chips.

No, you’re at your most pure when you’re not talking at all. You most clearly express your dark inner fantasies of power and failure, of desire and loathing, when you’re simply sitting in your car. I know it’s true for me. The cars that I’ve chosen to buy over the years tell you everything. (And that’s key - it’s the ones I’ve chosen to buy that are the telling ones. The cars purchased under the influence of my much more mature and practical wife don’t let you peer into my soul.) Let me take you on a little tour.

One of my first cars, a beat up old Volkswagen Jetta, was a perfect funky counterpoint to my ramshackle high school years. Volkswagen sure knows what it thinks it is - a car company of the people. Sure, the people might occasionally be Nazis, especially near the beginning, but hey now that’s all behind us did you see how cute that new Beetle is? Cute cancels genocide, apparently. Worst math equation ever.

The Jetta was a real cluster of intestinal waste. The sickly green paint make old women think about their dead husbands and weep in shame. The tan “leather” seats caused grown men to suddenly find themselves 500 miles away from where they were, with several days lost forever to the darkness of sudden amnesia. Children would simply stare into the clouded windows and forever change, only capable of rocking back and forth and chanting strange Incan prayers. The acceleration was fine

But the worst part about it was that it was accurate. People knew who I was, inside and out after one quick glance. Could I have had a more reliable car for around the same price? Sure, but I wouldn’t be coooooool. Did I need a car that had a sunroof? No, but it made me feel riiiiich. Did I need a four door sedan, which at the time was considered pretty legit in terms of sporting credentials? No, but I felt grown up.

In the end, I sold it to a friend, and it promptly vomited its brakes all over a hill, nearly resulting in a nice crispy fireball. I had no idea this was going to happen. I swear. But does it reduce my sense of guilt that I almost unknowingly made him the star dish of a Jetta-themed luau? No. I was a superficial teenager more concerned with the way I looked then the way I took care of anything.

My next car shows something a bit sadder: an already growing desire for the past, even though I had accrued just 21 years. People shouldn’t develop nostalgia that young. It’s like wearing cardigans in high school - sure, you might be cold, but it’s just not a way to tell your peers that you understand what’s cool. Actually, now that I think about it, cardigans are always cool, and if you’re a high schooler and wearing one, good for you. You clearly value warmth and comfort. If they’re making fun of you for that, tell them I have a Jetta to sell them. It’s cheap. And loves hills.

Back to the car. Here’s the frame in which it sits, and it just goes to prove my thesis about these chariots being the truest mirrors to the soul: the island on which I grew up really belonged in the 60’s. Like, forever. Being called a hippie was not something that registered as an insult to me until I encountered the outer world, man. Why would making your own peanut butter and dressing in natural fibers be a bad thing? And that ubiquitous skunky smell (thankfully never emanating from my parents)? That’s just the normal background incense, dude. Don’t be such a square. People are just mellow.

Yeah, I bet you can guess which car I bought when I was missing all of this.

A Volkswagen Bug.

I know, I’m ashamed too. Slow, unsafe, no fun to drive (at least in the commonly accepted sense), cold when it was cold and hot when it was hot. But it was cool! And just like being home! Man, I missed home. I missed the fields and the time spent just lounging on the beach. I missed Bosco, the bearded ever-shoeless musician and just generally good-time dude who lived on a boat. I missed Neal - a true local hero if I’ve ever seen one, also long of facial hair and responsible for keeping our beloved garbage-dump and used-stuff-exchange running. I missed barn dances in the early summer evening, lit by a few campfires and the joyful glow of a community that hadn’t learned to hate itself, not yet.

Damn, that’s pretty sad. And hell if a little blue rust bucket Bug was going to cure those lonely feelings. There are a lot more cars to work through (and I’m sure I’ll come back to them later in another piece), but let’s end on one that I didn’t choose at all, that I didn’t even buy: my Miata.

Yes, sure, my parents gave me life and raised me and prevented the wolves from gnawing on my body, but the nicest thing they ever did for me was give me my Miata. Forget a college fund: if you really want to show your kids you love them, just buy them a car that is slightly less dangerous than the deathtrap that is a motorcycle. And what’s more, the Miata is exactly right for me.

I was recovering from my fairly messy motorcycle crash when my mother called me up and gave my my little red wanna-be vroom vroom. In the time since my ignonomous smearing of pavement I had found what I thought was my dream car, a 1985 Mercedes 300D. And it was awesome - diesel and therefore as clanky as a high school’s front doors, and with about the same acceleration ability. But I suppose my wife was right when she refused to ride in it, citing its ability in a crash to quickly turn her and my daughter’s bodies into a pâté-like paste.

The Miata, being quite a bit more modern (like, maybe from this century), wouldn’t do that. Oh, and it’s more reliable, while still giving me a bit more road-feel through the leather-wrapped steering wheel than the “I’m stirring paint with a yardstick” attitude of the Mercedes’ steering. And it can actually reach 60 mph, and 40 mpg. And it’s sexxxxxxxxxy.

And all of this is well and good, and makes me very happy. But it says so much about me, the me that’s been around since the birth of my daughter. I’ve gotten older and grayer and don’t like breaking down on the side of the road of life as much anymore. I’m more sensible than that. At the same time, I’m more capable than I used to be. I go around corners really well. Not sure if the metaphor is still holding up, but you get what I’m saying.

But I’m not in love with the car yet. It’s good, too good. Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe I need to take it on a few more adventures, get lost a bit more, yell at it and make up with it on the side of a road that doesn’t know me. A road in a place where the forest is strange and the trees seem unfamiliar, and there are snakes that can actually bite you slithering in the grass just out of reach.

We tend to take the same roads over and over as we get older. That’s something that scares me more than death - to have passed through half of my life only looking back on the other half.

Maybe it’s time to go for a drive.