Daisy or Matthias

The road to Tofino begins to curl westward to Ucluelet, Highway 4 launching as a turn after Nanoose Bay. The branch on the road takes place thirty minutes into the road trip.

It’s 2:36am.

My silver car rumbles us over the asphalt, we four occupants giggly with sleeplessness and anticipation of the morning ahead. Videos taken at the time are dark and wiggly, with scraps of streetlight heat and dashboard glow visible. Wide grins, comfy clothes, blankets, pillows squished into the back seats.

Someone mentions the time, refers to the snacks we’re eating – sourdough bread straight from the plastic bag, soft pears, apples, beef jerky, licorice and chunks of cheese. They update the viewer on how we’re doing, a group of sisters road-tripping to watch the sun rise over Tofino’s beaches. It’s mid-June.

We zoom into the dark, into adventure.

Two years earlier, I have my first buyer’s remorse cry in the car I bought, sitting in the parking lot of the airport I work in. It’s my first vehicle. It cost more money than I’ve spent in my entire little life. It feels like a stranger to me. It smells like other people; kind people who let a trembling kid ask for $500 less than asking price in exchange for letting them keep the car one more week. They’re moving out East to be with their grandkids.

Two weeks later, the vehicle and I are becoming friends. He and I. She and I? People have names for their cars, right? Or is that just a specific group of people? People put eyelashes on their headlights, I can name my car.

I pull into the driveway at home and park amongst tall-stemmed daisies. Daisy.

There’s a strength to the car, a friendliness, the aura of a hero. I think fondly of a book written by Brian Jacques, it tells the story of a young, orphaned mouse who ventures to save his red-bricked abbey home from the threat of evil. Matthias.

Both work for me.

What the future ends up cementing is the absolute faith and trust that regardless of what I call it, it is My Car.

I cry in the warmth of my car for days, weeks, months, after a relationship ends. I am cradled in the driver’s seat. My car takes me safely from home to work to home to work to parks and trails and new adventures.

Three years later, Dad warns me to fill up at Revelstoke while I pack boxes into the trunk. The next place to fuel up is in Golden, just under two hours away. I pay heed to his warning.

It’s 4:01am. I’m parked in the line at the ferry terminal, sitting in the driver’s seat sobbing into my sleeves. I’ve never driven off island, let alone moved. The next province over is a far way to go. A new job and rented room await. I miss the family I left waving in the rear-view mirror at almost-dawn. I’m not even off the island yet.

Six hours later I’m halfway to my new home. I’ve never driven such tight corners in places, seen the towns and cities I see now. I’ve never seen train tracks splitting through giant, golden fields, never noticed the new biome I’m slipping into. I come across great hills, mountains, and my car kicks into gear to crest them. It never complains.

I find I’m safe, safe within my silver friend. We roll onto the Prairies and land stretches out further than I can see, further into forever.

I buy my first pair of winter tires when the temperatures plummet below freezing. I buy the wrong size and the pop-up tire change guy is kind about it. Embarrassed, I slump back into the tire store and exchange them. It feels like it takes six months off my life. Tire-change guy is kind when I return. I store my summers in a crawlspace downstairs and forget about them.

My winters carry Daisy/Matthias and I from work to home and vice versa in all sorts of horrid weather for the remainder of the winter.

When spring is in sight, a literal pandemic begins. The furloughs begin in flutters, feathers, falling. Crushing.

I warn myself to get gas in Golden, while I’m packing my car to return home. I snack on snow peas in a bag and take pictures of the countryside I drive through, remembering small details from my trip in the opposite direction. I recognize places. I memorize landmarks. I’ll probably never seen them again. Spring is coming and the snow-squashed grass is starting to rise a little, starting to live a little. Starting to grow again.

My car gives a pleasant sigh as we drive onto the ferry. Almost back where we started. Safe and sound and terribly, terribly sad.

A few months later, I’m driving to meet my sisters at a lake in town to swim in a place where we can socially distance appropriately. I’m approaching an intersection when sounds of an ambulance catch my attention. The light turns yellow. I decide to floor it and then change my mind.

The driver behind is focusing on the ambulance. BANG! His bumper smacks against mine. My neck hurts. We pull over into a gas station parking lot. It’s summer, the heat is blisteringly hot, the other driver isn’t wearing shoes and he tiptoes over to me. “I was looking at the ambulance, I thought you were going to drive through!”

We exchange information.

There are two tiny scratches on my back bumper. Tiny.

I bawl. It’s my first accident. Nothing hurts but I fear yellow lights for years.

I get a new job. My car takes me back, forth, back, forth. Oil changes, more tire changes, more life changes. Life passes as a trickle during a time when the world has paused.

Months later, my old job is calling. I’m not listening. What if it happens again? What if I go back and have to uproot again?

More months happen. The old job is calling to me again. My resistance has dwindled some. Still, I must stay with this job for at least a year.

Close to a year later, the world starts to… start up again.

The road to Tofino begins to curl westward to Ucluelet, Highway 4 launching as a turn after Nanoose Bay. The branch on the road takes place thirty minutes into the road trip.

It’s 2:36am. The sisters and the silver car are back on the road again to watch the sunrise in Tofino like we did several years before. The videos are made, the photos taken, we’re laughing, we’re cranky, we’re tired, we’re happy. We’re together for what may be the last time for a few years.

I feel the old job calling AGAIN. I look out the window while I prepare for the interview. Daisy Matthias Car is parked in the gravel driveway, washed by a gentle, summer shower. I look at my proud, dear, silver friend.

You have shared in my woes, my happiness, my worries, caught more tears than any friend could have. You know me deeper than any human being good. What do you think? Could we really do it again?

I think back to the past. Would it be safe? What if the worst comes to pass again? Somehow, suddenly, I am filled with faith and I know without a doubt:

It’s time to hit the road again.