Another transition

I owned a car briefly when I lived in Connecticut. I was thrilled to move to Seattle, a city with decent public transportation, so I wouldn't need to own a car here. And I didn't own a car from late 1989 until late 2000. By then, I'd literally forgotten how to drive.

It's not quite accurate to say that I didn't have a car my first eleven years in Seattle. Sandy and I got together in late 1995, and she happily ferried me to the hardware store, the garden store, the vet (with cats in tow) long before she moved in. I didn't own a car, per se, but I had my own car and driver offering personal and generous service.

When Sandy's car, a Toyota Tercel with over 200,000 miles on it, ran into the kinds of problems that are not cost-effective to repair in an old car, she knew that she'd replace it. And she was very clear that I would own the car with her. I was less clear about that. Not owning a car was a strong part of my identity. I didn't believe in cars; I couldn't even drive anymore. But she'd have none of it. We were partners and if there was to be a car, we needed to own it together.

I eventually gave in, but I named a few conditions. It had to be small. It needed to get good mileage. And it needed to be able to haul several bags of compost. She was fine with all of that, especially the mileage. So we went shopping. For days, long days. In 2000, it was difficult to get used car dealers to understand our concern with gas mileage. I was baffled by what the salespeople considered acceptable mpg.  

Neither Sandy nor I had ever owned anything close to a modern car. We were enchanted by key fobs, which we called "zappers." Sandy paid for the car with a check for $12,000. During our time together, we paid for everything up front, never taking out a loan or leaving a balance on a credit card for more than a month. That is something I'm proud of.

Having a car was handy for hauling bikes around.

I relearned how to drive, and there were plenty of times that I found it mighty handy to have a car: getting a cat to the emergency vet; going places when I was forbidden to bicycle or recovering from surgery; getting Sandy to appointments when she was fatigued from chemo or unable to breathe.

But the car was never our default mode of transportation. I tend to walk everywhere, and if that's not possible, I look to my bicycle, and then to a bus or carpool. If all other options prove impractical, I'm willing to drive. Sandy's order was a little different; because of foot problems and later her arthritic hip, she opted for the bicycle first and walking second, but driving was always the last option for her, too.

A couple of years ago, when we thought we were healthy and had weathered all the crises, we talked seriously about getting rid of the car. It's become more challenging to park in our neighborhood every year, with construction almost constant and new destination restaurants open within several blocks of us. Sandy looked into Zipcar then, and we decided to pay attention and see how much we actually used the car. In fact, at the beginning of 2010, we set a goal to put more miles on the bikes than we did on the car that year.

In May 2010, I was glad we hadn't given up the car. Throughout her metastatic cancer ordeal, the car proved very useful, convenient, and familiar.

And then she died. I've used the car fewer than twenty times in the past five months, and many of those trips were related to her memorial in September. I'd been getting closer to giving it up. And then it flooded, apparently from a clog in the sunroof drain. And the battery died. I finally got the title transferred to my sole ownership, and have been waiting for four weeks for the new title to come. It did today. I called and arranged to donate the car half an hour after the mail arrived. The car will be towed away within the next couple of days (battery's still dead), and I will no longer have to worry about where to park it, how to maintain it, or whether I've driven it enough to keep it going.

Since I'm feeling sentimental, here's a picture of our little VW Golf.
I'm sure Sandy took this photo for the false forsythia in bloom,
but it'll serve as a car memorial, too.

I'm relieved to have it taken away, and I'm sad to see yet another piece of the life we shared disappear. We never meant to own this car forever. When we bought it, we said it needed to last until the house was paid off. It did. We said we wouldn't buy anything more expensive until we had off-street parking (apparently we thought we might move someday). And two years ago, we were hoping to prove to ourselves that we didn't need it. It was a good little car, but it wasn't part of our identity as a couple, or of either of our separate identities. I'm a stronger cyclist than I used to be, and Zipcar has several cars within a few blocks of me. If Sandy had lived and been healthy, we'd probably have made the same decision. At least, that's what I keep telling myself when I realize I'm feeling sentimental about a car.