car and tunnel sydrome (or more musings on the power of objects).

3151445km by the misanthrope specialty co.

driving back from austria yesterday, i was really focused on the cars on the highway - checking out every station wagon that passed us. i am wracked with nerves and guilt over finding a new car and disposing of my old one (that latter deed is done). i feel like i let boris down and am having a really confused time figuring out my feelings towards what amounts to a bunch of metal. i think some of this examination speaks to a greater relationship with stuff. it's a field of exploration that i often find myself in. after all, i am in the business of making things. i hope they are things that will last, be useful and/or enrich the psychic space of those around them, but they are still objects, material. i do know deal in transcendental awakenings. well, not that i know of, anyway.

my friend sarah recently mentioned me in a post she wrote about similar issues of stuff, repair and quality. i am happy to find compatriots in this material-based confusion. i don't feel much closer to any awakening, but it is nice to know that other people are plumbing these same murky depths.

but back to boris, i still cry whenever i think of him. like now. i cry like he was a friend i have lost. worse, still, i had to made the call to terminate our relationship. it feels obscene to spend time embroiled in such angst over a material object when the world is filled with people struggling through real life and death challenges daily.

still, when i told mike (a dear friend and car enthusiast who helped me retire boris while i was in europe) about my shameful weeping, he had this to say:

I'm glad Boris spent the night at our place and that I had the solemn charge of making sure he went away with dignity.

When the man picked him up he parked out front and asked me to drive it out from the back. I rolled the window down to let him know that he'd have to get in through the passenger side and he stopped me when I went to roll it back up saying no to worry about it.

It was raining that day. I did not leave it down.

thank you, mike, for understanding my feelings possibly more than i do and for being unapologetic about them. none of it is making me less of a materialist, i guess, but it sure makes me feel better.

feel free to call me opulent or share your own feelings about material emotions below.