reverse threading

the path back is the path forward

Tag Archives: car troubles


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the vote for together. [kerri’s blog on not-so-flawed wednesday]

we planned on being home to write this post. but littlebabyscion had different plans. so we are up-north and biding time to leave and journey home – a little later than we expected – so that we may be reassured by our friends’ presence following on the road behind us. we feel fortunate to have this support system. in the way i personify littlebabyscion, i’m guessing littlebabyscion feels slightly less stressed, a little less pressure knowing we won’t be alone. and we feel a little less stressed, a little less pressure with the gift of needed extra time from our 20, watching our home and our beloved dogga.

last night was the beginning of the democratic national convention in chicago. we all gathered in the cabin to watch it on tv together. the energy was palpable, the hope surging. we passed the tissue box around…each of us having emotional moments during the first night speeches.

freedom. democracy.

we’re not going back.

for the people.

USA.

together.

it’s the same messages as having your friends follow behind you as you limp home. only it’s on a national level. your brother’s/sister’s keeper…for one another…working together…

there is not anything i can imagine that would be better than an entire nation of people caring for one another, working together, solicitous, generous, kind.

i would hope that each person – responsible for their own vote – their own “prayer for the world we desire for ourselves and for our children” (sen. raphael warnock) would immerse themselves in real information, in the real character and integrity of what they wish for the future.

our lives are finite. we get this one go-around. to be surrounded by family and friends, a community, a country of people who care about the quality of that life, who lift each other up, who lead with kindness would seem to be infinitely more desirable than to be dragged down in ugly negativity, in a country divided, in a place where freedom-for-all has been decimated.

my prayer – as you are considering your vote – is to consider all the people.

do you want to be buoyed, to be held and cared about in this one life by a support system – people you know and people you don’t know – and to buoy others, to care and share with those who have less, to live in a nation that values each and every person?

if littlebabyscion – this tiny vehicle which has safely carried me 276,000 miles – this little xb that will require us to stop every hour or less on the many-hours drive home to add coolant – this gigantic piece in my own story – could vote? i would bet it would vote for together.

because, really, everything takes a village. even getting home.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this NOT-SO-FLAWED WEDNESDAY

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hearts in kansas. [d.r. thursday]

we broke down just past hays, kansas. big red just didn’t want to go uphill or accelerate without some violent shuddering and, as i drove, i worried it – in the middle of nothing-around-this-part-of-kansas or nothing-around-this-part-of-colorado – would refuse to go on. we turned around and slowly went back to hays.

the ford dealer service department was swamped. the manager talked to us for a few minutes and then he pointed us onward – to a privately owned service center on the other end of town, the one to which he assured me he would send his mother (who he likes) or his sister.

we limped over there, middle-afternoon turning to later-afternoon, crossing fingers, and dallas and casey listened to us describe, naturally in purely automotively-correct-terms or maybe some jibberish with automotive sound effects, what was happening with our old truck. we told them our plight so they knew time was of the essence and we needed to be across their fine state and to denver by early thursday, the very next day.

a short diagnostic and dallas told us that a couple of the cylinders weren’t firing and that they were both on the same coil; he suspected that coil was the culprit. because hays, one of the few towns in that neck of the woods, is big enough to have a few auto part stores, they were able to get our new coil and install it right away. dallas said we should give it a go on the highway, though he wished he were able to do a more overall diagnostic to determine if there were other problems.

a few hours after it all started, we were back on the road, with every appendage crossed. we held hands on the first hill we encountered, climbing elevation not far from the hays exit. i literally held my breath. big red was a champ on that hill. we cheered – aloud – and waited for the next one and the next.

the first couple hours post-coil-replacement went like that. waiting and then climbing and then breathing. and repeat. big red accelerated with no problems across the rest of kansas, through a weather front with 50mph winds into colorado and in front of a threatening thunderstorm from the south. a few challenges today in roadtripland.

and so, though i would have suspected that this post would have been about something different because of the prompting photograph we had chosen, i have found that it actually prompted me to write that the people we encountered today in kansas had heart. i – no, we – really appreciated it. ever so much.

and so did big red.

***

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