Volume IIII, Issue 37 September 14, 2015 Dear ,
My husband -- gasp! -- has a French mistress. Here he is
with the two of us: I am in the middle, between him and Monique, a siren of 1968 Citroen, complete with a dual-note horn, self-leveling, hydropneumatic suspension, turning headlights, seats as comfy as a sofa, and many other lovely attributes Richard would love to wax rhapsodic about should you be interested.
You may wonder how I can equate a classic car -- even a French one -- with a mistress. Well, let me tell you, Monique demands (and receives) a whole lot of my husband's time, money, and affection -- he has actually used the word "curvaceous" to describe her! This photo was taken this past Saturday at The Autolawn Party, an auto event in Hickory, North Carolina, just a little over an hour from where we live.
It doesn't do Monique justice, so here is another photo of her in all her curvaceous beauty. (At least she has the decency to be Carolina blue, a bit of consolation for me, since our daughter is a UNC graduate.) Richard and I had a great time at The Autolawn Party -- cool cars, nice folks, good music. And the location couldn't be beat. It was on
grounds surrounded by a library, a science center, and an art museum, which happened to be hosting a free exhibit of photographs entitled "Unexpected Beauty" by the internationally renowned Steve McCurry, whose iconic 1984 photographic portrait "Afghan Girl" is arguably the most famous National Geographic cover ever. (Shhh, don't tell Richard, but I enjoyed the photographs
more than the classic cars. The exhibition is worth a trip to Hickory to see, and will be at the Hickory Museum of Art through May 8th, 2016.)
I had actually chosen "car" as the word of the week last Thursday, because of a great exercise in What It Is,
an inspirational book on writing by Lynda Barry. It was a nice synchronicity, I thought, that I would come across it in conjunction with going to The Autolawn Party. But what happened on our way home, after Monique won us a "Best in Class" award, ended up giving me a "car moment" I want to write about, which I will do below, using the prompt I'm giving you. Sounds fair, don't you think?
I hope you'll enjoy telling a car story of your own, whether it really happened to you (or someone you know) or if you'd rather invent one for a character in something you're writing. Scroll on down...
Love and light, Upcoming WordPlay
FALL WRITING RETREAT
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(Writing as Renewal / Creating New Writing
Tools for a Writing Life)
Renew and delight yourself. The Fall Writing Retreat is an opportunity to create new pieces of writing and/or new possibilities for our lives. Enjoy various seasonal prompts; they elicit beautiful material that can be shaped into essays, poems, stories, or articles. After a communal lunch, you’ll have private time which can be used to collage, work with a piece of writing from the morning, or play with a number of other writing prompts and methods. You’ll take home
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WHERE: South Charlotte area. Details will be provided upon registration.
WHEN: Saturday, October 3rd, 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
TO REGISTER: To pay with a check via mail, email info@wordplaynow.com for instructions. To pay online, please click this secure
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More WordPlay opportunities here. WordPlay Featured Writing
Broken Down But Not Stranded
I am riding in the passenger seat of the car my husband and I call his French mistress, a 1968 Carolina blue Citroen with a white roof that we call Monique, which happens to be the name my French teacher gave me in 9th grade. I have loved
all things French ever since. My husband has not. Until May of 2009, when his long-held dream of owning a car like the ones he became enamored of way back in the late 1960's when he was in the Army and stationed in Germany.
I won't write now about how and when he
let me know he wanted a car I had never heard of -- that's another story. I will tell you that, the minute he bought the car, I called up Triple A and upped our membership to the Gold level, so we could get 100 miles of free towing instead of 3, a decision that has paid for itself many times over in the past six years.
I'll be honest -- I've done a lot of complaining about the money and trouble Monique has cost us. But I do like how happy she makes my husband. We've had a great day together, and I've been promised dinner at the Greek Festival. So I'm in a great mood as we roll on down
I-85.
And much to my surprise, I stay in a good mood when, just as we begin to cross the South Fork River Bridge into Mecklenburg County, we hear an explosive noise, and the car shimmies and shakes as my husband maneuvers it over the bridge and onto the
shoulder.
I know right where my AAA card is, and even though the traffic noise is deafening, I am able to communicate where we are to a nice dispatcher, who asks if I'm in a safe location and tells me help will be there within the hour.
My husband doesn't think we're safe in the car, so we stand in the grass a few feet away from the shoulder. I remember the thought I had in my Gift of Memoir class last Thursday, when one of my students shared a story about her car breaking down. "Do you remember," I ask Richard, "how you came to rescue me
when that tire came off an eighteen-wheeler and bounced onto the hood of my car? How you got up that morning after you'd worked all night long and drove me to work in Gastonia? And how you drove all the way to Lincolnton to help me when I locked my keys in the car?" He nods. And I go on. "And both times, how you said, 'The good part of this is that I get a chance to see you when I wasn't going to'?" He nods again, and pats my left side, where his arm is wrapped around to. Who knew, after
31 years, it could be romantic to be broken down at the side of the road with your husband?
The wait doesn't seem long at all. At
first. And just when maybe it would have, an old Chevrolet pulls off the road in front of us. It's a soft-spoken gentleman with an accent I can't place, stopping to see if we need help. I tell him Triple A is on its way, and then, when he doesn't seem to understand, tell him we've called for assistance and someone is on the way. "You are sure?" he asks with a smile before he pulls away.
And it's not long at all until the loudest car we've ever heard roars on down 85. "That car has no muffler at all," my husband says, and we laugh, thinking of our son who likes loud cars. Not ten minutes later, that same car, an old red Honda, pulls off the shoulder right behind the Citroen. He's clearly turned around on the
Interstate to come to our aid. "I like your car," he says, and when he finds out Triple A is coming, he invites my husband to bring his car to an auto gathering held at UNC-C. My husband gives him his card, which sports a photo of Monique at her best angle.
Next, a car pulls up behind Monique, and a dark-haired young woman leaps out from the driver's seat. "I knew it was you," she shouts, and she and my husband are hugging. "There's only one car like that." Richard turns to introduce her to me -- Ashley, an ex-coworker, who, yes, is really liking her new job, and fondly recalls driving to lunch in the Citroen to celebrate her last day at her old job. She introduces us to her friend in the car, and we are all chatting it up right there on the side of I-85.
Some ten or fifteen minutes later, another car pulls off the road, and out jump a woman and her daughter, both dressed in saris, to offer us a ride to wherever we may need to go. "I like your car," the daughter says. It's beginning to feel like Monique is holding court.
Then there's a lull. A long lull. A lull during which 5:15, our promised time of delivery, comes and goes. When I call Triple A, a man shouts at me (I asked him to, the traffic noise is really terrible) that a tow truck should arrive at 5:43; the driver will call.
A driver does call, but not until 5:55, and he is 25 minutes away. I'm about to get cranky. I am. And then I remember the Duolingo app on my phone. Richard has asked me if I will take a French class with him -- my husband, the newest Francophile -- and while we're waiting for life to slow down (ha ha!), I have downloaded this language app and have
been practicing a bit of French most days. Richard, despite my "gentle suggestions," has not. What better to do as we wait with his French car for roadside assistance?
So there we are, passing my cellphone back and forth, translating French to
English and back again, matching up word pairs, Richard making me laugh as he pretends "l'homme mange la femme" is the right answer, when another car pulls up. It's a family of three who recognized our car because they just saw it -- and talked with us -- at The Autolawn Party, and we all get a laugh out of our car breaking down after winning "best of class." We have a lovely conversation, with a few French phrases tossed in for effect. The adolescent son finds it hilarious that
we are learning French next to our broken-down French car.
I myself think it shows a certain joie de vivre, a dash of élan. We wave adieu with only a few minutes to go before the driver said he would arrive. And he
does.
I sit in the back seat of the truck with his wife, Amber, whose adoration of her husband is adorable, and admire photos of her also-adorable children, Wyatt and Chloe, while the men crank Monique onto the flatbed and she is diagnosed with
a busted CV joint.
Poor Monique is deposited safely in our driveway in due time, not too late for
us to get our Greek dinner, baklava and all.
There should be a better end to this story, if not a moral. But I have been typing for way more than the requisite ten minutes, so I'll leave this a cliff-hanger, and let you draw your own conclusions:
Will this 47-year-old mistress be restored to her former (running) glory? And will the other woman, AKA the long-suffering wife, maintain her jaunty good spirits when the full extent of the damage is known and the quotes for parts and labor come rolling in?
~ Maureen Ryan Griffin, September 14, 2015
WordPlay Now! Writing Prompt This is WordPlay -- so why not revel in the power and potential of one good word after another? This week, it's
"car."
PROMPT:
If you don't have a specific car memory to write about, then try this exercise modified from Lynda Barry's book What It Is:
- Spend 3 minutes making a list of 10 or so cars that you (or a character) have spent time in at some point in your life.
- Visualize yourself (or your character) in
the car. Locate yourself in pace and time. Picture exactly where you are, and when -- day or night, time of year, age you are. Who are you with? What is happening?
- Take in everything around you that you see, hear, touch, smell, and, if applicable, taste.
- Now, set a timer for 10 minutes, begin with
the words, "I am..." and keep your pen (or fingers) moving until the timer goes off.
- If you care to, polish up what you wrote, and add to it.
MAUREEN RYAN GRIFFIN, an award-winning poetry and nonfiction writer, is the author of Spinning Words into Gold, a Hands-On Guide to the Craft of Writing, a grief workbook entitled I Will Never Forget You, and two collections of poetry, This Scatter of Blossoms and When the Leaves Are in the Water. She believes, as author Julia Cameron says, "We are meant to midwife dreams for one another."
Maureen also believes that serious "word
work" requires serious WordPlay, as play is how we humans best learn -- and perform. What she loves best is witnessing all the other dreams that come true for her clients along the way. Language, when used with intentionality and focus, is, after all, serious fuel for joy. Here's to yours! |
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