WordSisters

Category: Personal Growth

  • My New Rocket

    I recently bought an electric vehicle, which we’ll use as our around town car. After much research, we settled on a Hyundai Ioniq 5 because it’s highly rated and has AWD. Owning an EV launched me into a whole new mode of transport. Not exactly a jet pack, but definitely a different way of thinking about getting around.

    Some mind shift was inevitable. My RAV4 was 15 years old. Any modern car would have been a shock to my system. But it was time for some upgrades. To use the phone handsfree, I relied on an aftermarket media center we’d installed. Sometimes the tiny microphone and speakers worked. Often the system hissed during calls and wasn’t worth the trouble. I didn’t have a backup camera. In parking lots, I’d learned to swivel my head like a horror movie villain to spot any oblivious people walking behind my car.

    The Ioniq 5 is a beauty! Gray green with light gray interior. Sleek and modern looking. It has good pickup and handles well. It also has a million systems and functions I’m only beginning to understand.

    Fob + push button start. Keys were easy to remember. They were integral to unlocking and starting the RAV, but now there’s no reason for the fob to leave my purse. After decades of obsessively managing keys, this is a disconnect—one of many. 

    My phone can open the car. Until my husband (thank goodness I’m married to a very patient tech genius!) reconfigured it, the car unlocked whenever I walked by with my phone in my pocket. That’s OK in my garage. Not OK in parking lots. Eventually it would lock up again, but the uncertainty made me uneasy. Now I touch a magic spot on the door handle to lock and unlock the car.

    My car knows me (and likes me, I’m sure). When I open the door, it adjusts the seat and mirrors to my exact preferences. It greets me when my phone syncs. Nice, but a bit of overkill. My RAV never spoke to me (it was more of a humble workhorse), and adjusting the seat wasn’t an issue since no one else drove it. 

    Finding good driving tunes can be a lot. Now I have AM/FM plus Apple Tunes and Sirius. And way too many ways to change from an annoying song to something better. Toggle controls on the steering wheel up and down. Or press Star for Favorites. Or slide through 3-4 screens on the electronic control panel and push buttons. Whoa! Maybe I’d better pull over to do that. Thanks to the Tech Genius, I now can get from the local NPR station to Bluesville on Sirius and back. One day I may even figure out how to play a podcast. What I don’t hear is road noise. Only the EV hum. 

    There are endless ways to fuss with the temperature. The car is engineered so my comfort and the front seat passenger’s are paramount. Each of us can specify our preferences. Probably there are ways to enhance backseat passengers’ comfort (one day I’ll figure that out). 

    I can choose AC, fan/no fan, or I could even open the windows. The car also has air-cooled seats. (Wh a a a t?? Crazy, but good.) If I mindlessly set my temp at 71, the car will do everything in its power to keep it there including turning on AC without asking. If I turn off the AC, the fan will come on full blast in attempt to maintain 71 degrees. Wait, I didn’t mean it! 73 degrees with the window open a little is fine.

    Let’s not overlook the obvious—battery instead of gas tank. In the olden days, when the RAV was down to a quarter tank, I refilled. I got approximately 22 mpg, and a tank lasted about two weeks, since I just drove around town. Fill-ups ranged from $36 to $48.

    When I get in, the battery may be at 80%. Or 61%. The question remains: how much battery do I need for my ordinary trips? I. Do. Not. Want. To. Run. Out. That’s not likely since I’m only putting on 70 – 90 miles per week and the car has a range of 280 miles. 

    How often to recharge is a different learning curve. Before we had a high-speed plugin installed, we charged the slow way, which added about 10% to the battery overnight. I didn’t let the battery get too far down. 

    Now the high-speed system adds 25% in about 1-1.5 hours and costs $1.06 or $5.25 to charge the battery from 20% to 80% (car batteries last longer if they’re not charged to 100%). Hmmm. $5.25 for electricity every two weeks vs. an average of $42 for a tank of gas. Even I can do that math, and I love reducing the role of fossil fuels in my life.

    No more oil changes. It took a minute to register maintenance will be very different. No engine, so no lube and oil. No exhaust, so no muffler system. Now maintenance is the mothership computer talking to my computer on wheels. I’ll still need tire rotations and a filter or two. (Wait, how will I get my car washed if I never go to the gas station?)

    Although the technology surprises and baffles me sometimes, eventually I’ll master the major systems. I’m brave. I’m fierce. I’m doing this . . . with help from the Tech Genius. Most days I really enjoy this brave new world of transport.

  • The Mirror

    What a twelve-year-old learns to survive sometimes becomes the skill she uses decades later at a poker table.

    Lying didn’t come naturally to me. I was twelve when I realized, quite suddenly, that I wouldn’t survive my family’s chaos if I didn’t learn how.

    I stood in front of the assistant principal, heat climbing up my neck and into my face. I could feel the redness spreading across my cheeks. The corners of my mouth twitched. My eyes kept sliding away from his.

    He asked the question again.

    I tried to answer, but the truth was written all over me. My breathing had changed. My hands shifted at my sides. My face burned like a signal light.

    I remember thinking: This is a problem.

    That afternoon, when I got home, I went straight into the bathroom and closed the door behind me. I turned on the light and stood in front of the mirror. I shut the household noise off and stared at my reflection.

    I knew exactly what to do.

    I looked into my own eyes and said the words out loud.

    “I didn’t do it.
    I wasn’t there.
    It wasn’t me.
    I don’t know how that happened.”

    My face flushed immediately. My mouth tightened. My eyes shifted away.

    So I tried again.

    And again.

    I practiced until the red stopped rising in my face. Until my breathing stayed steady. Until I could hold my own gaze without flinching. I practiced until my shoulders relaxed and my voice sounded ordinary.

    I practiced until my body stopped betraying me.

    That was the day I learned that unless someone actually saw me do something, I could lie convincingly.

    When I was nineteen, I had a different realization.

    I was mowing the lawn on a nice summer day. I paused, looked to the sky, and watched the clouds drift.

    And it hit me.

    I was exactly where I had said I would be.

    No excuses.
    No stories.
    No explanations.

    Just the truth.

    There was freedom in that.

    A lightness.

    I remember thinking: This is better. I have no reason to lie anymore. I’m safe.

    I went back to the mirror. I stood there looking at myself and said, quietly at first, “I love me.”

    My eyes slid away from my own reflection.

    So I said it again.

    “I love me.”

    I stayed there repeating it until I could look myself straight in the eyes without my gaze moving off the mirror.

    “I love me.
    I love me.
    I love me.”

    It felt strange. Uncomfortable.

    Slowly the words settled.

    I believed me.

    Today, I still practice with a mirror.

    Before a poker tournament starts, I give myself the same quiet talk.

    “I love me.
    I’ve beaten everyone at this table before.
    I can beat them today.
    Play my cards.
    Trust myself.”

    Poker is about many things—math, probability, timing—but there is another part of it people don’t always talk about.

    Control.

    At the poker table, I can keep my emotions exactly the same whether I’m holding a seven and a two or a pair of aces. My breathing stays steady. My hands rest in the same place. My face doesn’t give anything away.

    No tells.

    Sometimes I think about that twelve-year-old girl standing in the bathroom mirror, practicing how not to show the truth on her face. She didn’t know it then, but she was learning something about herself, about discipline, about control, about surviving difficult moments without falling apart.

    Poker uses those same muscles.

    But it also asks for something more.

    It asks me to stay present.

    Every hand is a surprise. Every card an unknown. Sometimes the deck gives you everything. Sometimes it gives you nothing.

    And when it gives me nothing, that’s okay too.

    I can push my chair back, smile across the table, and say,

    “Nice game, ladies.”

    Because the real victory happened long before the cards were dealt.

    It happened the day I learned to look at myself in the mirror and tell the truth.

  • Write Anyway

    Every birthday I consider what the past year has brought and what I hope the upcoming year will bring. This year as I entered a new decade, my focus was also tempered by the awareness that my time isn’t unlimited, and I want to use it well. What will the coming days and years consist of? Family and friends, health upkeep, travel, fun and for me, writing. 

    At first, asking what role writing will play in my life seems silly. Creative writing isn’t something you have to retire from. I can write as long as the words and ideas come. But the deeper question is—What are my expectations about publication?

    Widely published authors like Stephen King and Joyce Carol Oates can continue publishing as long as they care to. It’s a different matter for the writers I know, who have a modest number of publications. Like it or not, the marketplace may decide for them. Because it’s a personal and potentially painful decision, writers don’t always discuss the dilemma.

    In the past 20 years, I’ve written two book-length memoirs, but I’m not seeking publication for either of them. I learned what I could about writing books, but it wasn’t enough. The real gift is what I discovered about myself through the writing process. I’m proud of myself for doing the work. I’m at peace with the idea the books won’t be out in the big world. 

    Instead, I’m focusing on writing short memoirs, essays and blogs. My talents and skills are better suited to short pieces. Most years I publish one or two. Not a breath-taking record, but enough for me. Knowing my words and ideas find an audience in an anthology, literary journal or blog is plenty. 

    Publication plays a small part in my commitment to writing. I write because it helps me make sense of my world.

    Two quotes sum up my outlook. The first comes from a blog by Amy Grier who was struggling with her writing and the state of the world in November 2020. Her thoughts are still relevant:

    “Writing tethers me to the world in a way nothing else does . . . I don’t know who will be president, what’s happening to my country, even what will happen to me. But I’m going to write anyway. It’s my remedy for despair. It’s how I will survive.”

    The next comes from an interview with Margaret Atwood, who offered a few rules for writers. After making practical writerly suggestions, she also said this:

    “Nobody is making you do this: you chose it, so don’t whine.”

    For as long as it pleases me I will honor my creative nature and write anyway.