The Chariot

It was 1998.  My husband had retired from the military and we had returned home to start our new life.  I enrolled my son in his new school and busied myself building my arts and crafts business.  My husband was reunited with an old army buddy who encouraged him to join the Knights of Columbus.  It was at one of the meetings that he was introduced to Tom, their life insurance representative.  With a mortgage over our heads and a child still at home we thought it was a good thing to talk about and agreed to meet with him.

As the appointed hour to meet came close I put my used paint brushes in water and cleared the table so we would have a place to sit and talk.  I made my way to the front windows to pull back the curtains so that I could watch the street and Tom’s arrival.  And there, in all its glory, parked in front of my house was a 1979 Cadillac Sedan Deville.  In spite of its age it looked like it had just been driven off the showroom floor.  Its vinyl top was pristine and its white paint and chrome trim was so shiny it was blinding.  The white wall tires and wire hubcaps just shouted “class”; the size and plush interior answered “luxury”.  I fell in love.

We spent a little time visiting, getting to know our new friend Tom, concluded our business and I escorted him to the door.  I stood and watched the Caddie as it moved slowly and elegantly down the street admiring it one last time as it rounded the corner and was gone from my sight.  As I came back inside I told my husband, “I would love to have a car like that.”

As time went by Tom, our friend and agent, came and went in our life.  He would stop by to buy one of my creations as a gift for a friend or we would meet to update our insurance needs.  But he was never driving the Cadillac.  Tom would call on my husband to fix a plumbing problem or to have him do small repairs on the small cabin he had in the mountains not far away.  Once, when my husband returned from a trip to the cabin he remarked, “Tom sure has a lot of cars at his cabin.”  And I asked, “Does he still have that Cadillac?”  “I don’t think so”, he said, “I haven’t seen it.”  The picture of the Cadillac was stored away in my inner album of pleasant memories.  I never saw the car again.

Then came 2007 and the collapse of the construction industry.  My husband lost the job he had for seven years and there were no more plumbing jobs to be had.  We took money we had set aside for retirement and sent him to truck driving school, gambling that it would bring him work.  I gingerly doled out the rest of our savings so that we could get by until he had an income again.  It was a hard time and a financial drain.  While I was sitting at a traffic light waiting for the light to turn green, a huge Dodge Ram truck plowed into the back of my 1985 Chevy Celebrity and totaled it.  It wasn’t worth much to the insurance company but it was a necessity to me.  There I was.  No car, very little money to buy much of a replacement, and my husband gone, over the road.  I was devastated as I lay in bed in a Percocet haze wondering what I was going to do.

I remembered when my husband said that Tom sure had lot of cars by his cabin.  So I called him.  “Well”, he said, “I do have one car that I’d be willing to sell, but I don’t know if I’d be doing you any favors.”

“What kind of car is it?” I asked.

“I have an old Cadillac.”

“The white one?” I asked, “Yes.” he said.

“How much?”

“What did the insurance company give you for your car?” and I told him.

“Sold” he said and the Cadillac, the car of my dreams, was mine.

My son calls the car “Delilah”; my husband calls it “My Wife’s Car”.  I laugh and call it the “Jew Canoe”.  Its hood ornament and its mate embedded in the steering wheel look like Menorahs in a GM kind of way.  I threaten to have the Shema in Hebrew script stenciled on the car just like the one in the movie “the Hebrew Hammer”.  But joking aside, I have a very special name for my much loved car that I carry in my heart.  I call her the Merkavah, Hebrew for chariot, named after the chariot in Ezekiel’s mystical vision because my Chariot is no less amazing.  How she came to me tells a story of heart’s desires fulfilled and the blessing of having a good friend.  And last but not least, it is a daily reminder of the Divine Conductor who orchestrates my life and answers prayers at the right time.  My Chariot, a gift, that transports me physically and spiritually, in style

DOWNSIZED

Yesterday during a quiet moment while I relaxed in my recliner, I happened to glance out my window to my backyard at my flower beds. Where there used to be an explosion of color, plants of all kinds, each one chosen for its own special character and its meaning to me, there was mulch covering the ground to discourage a crop of weeds.  It looked nice neat, barren and sad.  It used to be my pride and joy, a pet project to show my gardening skills to the world.  It was an easy place to rest my eyes and soak up the beauty of nature.  It was my very own “Gan Eden”, Garden of Eden, paradise.  Age and illness have taken that portion of my life away leaving me with two oak barrel containers where I grow Morning Glories.  There are no weeds to pull, no plants to plant, they just seed themselves.  I add water and they grow.  They are a testament to my flower gardens of days past and a small spot of color to enjoy these days.  My garden, like my life, like me, has been “downsized”.

My eyes focused on the place where I tried to grow a plant I had always wanted in my garden.  I could see its blue and lavender blossoms, the lush green of its leaves and stems and its shape.  I could remember consulting my neighbor, the renowned local green thumb, about using coffee grounds to get the most color from it, but I could not remember the name of my previously coveted plant.  My memory isn’t what it used to be.  I took a deep breath and scanned my internal “files”, looking for the name.  Four names down the list I hit upon the one I was searching for.  Hydrangeas, I always wanted to have Hydrangeas in my yard.  They just don’t grow well in our climate and my efforts were for naught.  I could not keep them alive.  Now the space is bare.  There is nothing but brown fence, brown mulch, and brown landscape timbers; a monochrome shrine of dreams unrealized and what used to be.  I miss the things I used to love to do.  I no longer have the stamina to pull out brushes, paints, palette, and easel to paint a picture.  It would be a project to big for me.  My instruments gather dust, and like my voice that was once so pitch perfect, they are silent.  My body has betrayed me.  I cannot play my instruments or sing anymore.

Between my oak barrel gardens I have bench where I will sit when the mornings are warm enough.  As soon as I am sure that the night temperatures will no longer dip below freezing I will tend to my planters.  Instead of shovel and hoe, I will turn over the earth with a hand trowel.  I will carry my watering can from plant to plant, no longer chasing hoses and adjusting sprinklers.  The task is much smaller now but the satisfaction IS still great.  Then I will sit on my bench sipping on my coffee and taking notes while I watch the world go by, gathering ideas for the pictures I now paint with my words.  In time the Morning Glories will twine themselves up the trellises.  Blossoms of red, blue, violet, and white on a background of green will surround me on both sides.  I will listen to the bees as they buzz from flower to flower, an industrious drone to accompany the music in my heart, while I write new lyrics to its tune.  Soft breezes will caress me.  And there, I will find peace, knowing that all is not lost.  The beauty in my “downsized” world is still there, just smaller and easier to see.