Beautiful Mr. Blue

Mr. Blue and I were first acquainted when I was a fairly young girl. He was with my grandmother at that time  and I remember thinking that he was very pretty for a car with his deep sparkly blue paint and attractive contours. On occasion I would drive with my grandma to the store or to the park when she was babysitting me and the seats were always satisfactorily soft. But it smelled like my grandma's garage, musty and stale. And his glove box was always overflowing with expired coupons for the various fast food restaurants in town. Years later my grandmother decided to put down the keys for good although it was more of a doctors order, but she would never admit to it. And so Mr. Blue was passed on to me, just in time for my first year of university. It was a jolt for him, leaving the parking spot at the old folks home and moving into a world of fast paced academia. Rappers strewn along the once scrupulously clean floors and a constant stream of loud passengers. His speakers were suddenly channeling out loud melodies and his tires spun and turned lively and tirelessly. I am tempted, against what rationality says, that Mr. Blue feels thankful for the new breath of life. He shows it by being very enduring and causing me very little strife. Indeed him and I are a team.
This past month has been an exceptional  trial of our strength as a team. The road to Vermilion Field Station is the Valley of Death for a car of Mr. Blue's age and stature, but he has yet to let me down. I think sometimes there is a moment between a car and it's driver when real love and fondness strikes. And there is a moment when one realizes that they spend too much time living alone in the forest and perhaps have begun to slip off into the deep end and for me both of these moments came at the same time. It was a hot summer day and I was on my  way to pick up a local birder in town to come help me out in the field. I loaded up Mr. Blue and headed down the sandy drive. Because it was so nice out there were quite a few people around the establishment for a day of swimming and rock hunting, however I was determined to make it out without talking to any of them because who wants to talk to people milling around their front yard? It's very invasive. But because of the heavy traffic the drive had become a sand pit and Mr. Blue sunk up to his front bumper. We were stuck fast and the tourists were all watching. Imagine a crowd of people watching you get stuck in your own drive way! Go to a local beach, sheesh!
I grabbed a shovel and rake from the garage and began to shovel with fierce determination. It was an act of pure self reliance; I was in a situation and there were no phone lines, cell service or WiFi and I was determined prove myself capable of complete Independence. I dug for more than a half an hour, on hands and knees, shoveling out piles of sand with my hands and coaxing on Mr. Blue the whole time. Finally I reversed out of the pit, grinding the gears of Mr. Blue to a point of near destruction I'm sure, but he never let me down. No sir, he was as determined as I was. Next I had to maneuver him up and around the pit which took a considerable amount of speed and gave his old, rusty shocks a run for their money. Once we were home free I knew that Mr. Blue was a very special car and that he and I could get through anything after that episode. Oh Mr. Blue, you are the world's greatest car. 

Bushman

Hot, humid and lonely describes the main events of my life out at 300 Nowhere St. but there are moments that don't exactly make it all worth it but definitely are nice perks. Like sitting in a busted lawn chair with a panoramic view of a swampy beach underneath a sky filled with heavy looking clouds. That's a nice feeling. Kind of like what it must feel like to be a monk sitting up on a high mountain feeling all empty of the pollution of civilization, wallowing in inner peace. And then a family of deer runs by, their hoofs actually thundering on the wet, spam coloured ground. It's a show that mother nature puts on, she does it in a way that you don't really catch the plot and meaning unless you stop and look. No technology, no where to go, no one to talk to about whatever seems important in that moment. Just open sky and wide open space. She is a very demanding director but you get the point, it slaps you around a bit. And gets way to personal. I don't really want to reflect on what my purpose is in life but she really forces you to once she displays a million different species to you, showing you in detail what their purposes are. Get over yourself Mothernature. Most of the rest of the world has. In fact, we are slowly removing you! But you do make a beautiful movie.

My Unthinkable Love

It's moments like these that I feel inspired to write. I am sitting in a McDonalds and it's around 9:30, just about to start into some homework. And I find myself wondering at the mystery that is McDonalds. This is the institution that has been the example of horror for nearly every documentary and book on food industry disasters, capitalistic greed and health issues that I have read, yet I find my self relentlessly drawn to this place. Granted my menu opportunities have shrank drastically (the only food I feel inclined to order is a black coffee without a plastic lid) but I still can’t help to feel love toward this place. Tonight I am sitting on the barstool chairs near the windows. The table directly in front of me is hosting two teenager boys engaged in a pokemon match, the table next to them has a happy family sharing a moment over some McFlueries and go one more over I find a man covered in tattoos sitting with his wife, munching on a cheeseburger.  The diversity is amazing, no one sub culture has claimed McDonalds which is what makes it so approachable. It’s a flourishing ecosystem, the rain forest of restaurants. And the available WiFi and coffee house feel calls deeply to my nature and appeases my short budget. I am perhaps a sorry excuse for an animal enthusiast but I just can’t shake the feelings. McDonalds seems to nearly have a soul in my opinion. Ask me what I think of McDonalds and I will say, without blinking, that it is an oil consuming black hole turning unthinkable trash into edible crap that is making North America a place full of fat pigs and they do this by standing on the backs of poor farmers, desolate immigrants and horrifically abused animals. But remove the logic and the facts and boil it down to the feelings that I really can’t help and I will tell you that McDonalds is a haven. Full of memories of my mother watching me from outside the playroom window, an orange juice moustache, a great new toy in a smiling happy meal box, a gathering place for my high school friends and most recently: a warm building and a place to sit and write, read and plunge into academia. McDonalds, I hate you; mostly because I love you.