First
Day Essay
Mrs.
McAllister
Some people are good at keeping their cars clean. Not me. Some people have cars free of the
detritus and debris of their lives. The interior, scrubbed with some kind of
cleaner that I don’t know the name of because I never use it, always smells
like new car. My dad once joked that, if
I ever had the terrible misfortune of rolling my car, it would be like being
enclosed in a dumpster. Clean car people leave no clues to their identity
except that they are neat. My car contains evidence of a life. So, if you take
a look at the inside of my car and utilize basic deductive reasoning, you will
begin to know me.
As
the poet,T.S. Eliot, once wrote in one of my favorite poems,
“Let
us go then, you and I,
When
the evening is spread out against the sky,
Like
a patient etherized on a table…..”
to
my car and let me explain how what you see can tell you who I am.
Go ahead and attribute the thin
film of grime that covers everything to sheer neglect. I am a busy woman with a
career that I love, but which also places huge demands on my time leaving
little for wiping down a dashboard and steering wheel. Student essays and notes
from my second job, which is teaching group fitness, carpet the floor. Every day except Friday, I spend at least two
hours at one of the three gyms where I work helping people get stronger. At the
end of the day, I can barely get myself out of the car and into the house, and
so I let it all lay where it is. Multiple pairs and styles of shoes, a laptop, hair ties,
lesson plans, a resistance band, and various colored pens indicate a life in
which sitting at a desk, but also, regularly reaching maximum heart rate
matter.
Besides my own personal items, my
youngest child, age ten, regularly leaves hers in the car. My other children,
ages 25 and 19, drive their own lives around in their own cars. The baby and I
spend a lot of time in mine. Her clothing, her schoolwork and a Happy Meal toy
or two litter the front and back seats, and traces of meals hastily eaten on
the way to her gymnastic practices are often left in the console or on the
floor. More than once I have spilled my morning cup of coffee in that same
console. I always say I’ll clean it up later.
I never get to it.
Sadly, there is no evidence to
show that I am happily married to a man who would do anything for me. Note to self: throw something of his in the
car.
Smashed between the seats, an
old veterinarian bill documents the time I tried to take up dog grooming. Poor Olive.
I’m sorry, sweet 3 lb. Yorkie.
A rosary hangs from the rear
view mirror. It was a gift from my
mother, and the last thing that my grandmother held before passing away from complications
from Alzheimer’s the day after our last presidential election. You might conclude here that I am religious.
I don’t think so. But, I have to pray
when I pass semi-trucks on the expressway. Because it is scary, and I fear I
might die every time I have to do it.
The pink ribbon on my license
plate indicates that I am a grateful survivor of breast cancer. Early detection saved my life.
Yeah. My car is a
sloppy, shameful mess. But, my life is
anything but that. It is full of
teaching and learning. It is full of
movement and magic. My
mission is to every day leave in my wake stronger readers, stronger writers,
stronger people. Sometimes there is
laughter. Sometimes there are tears. Always,
I am grateful.
