Living in California, we spend most of our time in our cars, stuck in traffic, wandering streets avoiding stalls or highways, and some of us, antsy and uneasy in the idle moments in days, just go for a drive, looking out to the roads, passersby, just letting time pass. It’s a bad habit, driving with no point but one that I do love. To watch the world move around me while I, sitting, see it quietly pass. And for the last four years, the car that has taken me around, letting me indulge in my sentimental silent drives, has been a 1997 Ford Ranger, manual, sans power steering, that was slowly falling apart.

My friend Alyssa saw it once and said my truck looked something like a mastiff puppy — blacked out wheels, sandy brown paint, black bumpers, and a black shell. It had a dent on its left side from being side swiped with the last owner. And I loved that truck. But, the other week, a car turned into me as I turned left at a traffic light, smashing the side and destroying the passenger side door. No one was hurt, but my trusty rusted-out beauty was damaged badly on its side.

The mechanic said it was likely to cost more than the truck’s value. He was right. So, now, I’ve taken off Mastiff’s shell, and the pieces I’d miss, and have had it towed away, having said goodbye to this small truck that took me across the coast, to the beach twice a week, and into that odd and nebulous, at times timeless state of presence, spacing out on the road.

I already have a new Ranger now. It’s in better condition. But I’ll miss that dinky little mastiff.

buy me a coffee :)

Also! My sister, Cass, and I have a new piece out for our native species column! READ IT HERE! This one is about humpback whales :)