Oh, I’m just blue today.

I am grateful for a great many things, but at the end of the day, I sometimes feel like my hands are empty. I have nothing to show for myself. It’s ridiculous of course; it’s just a mood, and it will pass eventually. All things must pass.

I still play that little game, though, of finding small, normally inconsequential things, and holding them to the light. If I magnify all the many mundane things, they begin to sparkle in the light of my attention, and it’s not quite so gloomy in my head.

So, today, I realized as I was driving home that when I take that left turn from the middle turn lane into my apartment complex, the car’s not squeaking like crazy. Back when I first lived here in NC, I had this Grand Prix that was already a decade old, and had not exactly weathered being towed behind my Penske truck when my friend Dave and I drove down from Chicago.

It was an alright car, with its share of problems: no air conditioning to speak of, and an incredibly messed up driver’s side window. (And then, after the vents stopped working once I got the car to L.A.? Oh, it was murder in the summer). But somehow, towing it all four wheels up on a dolly, chained in place, taking our time, it still pulled the whole frame just enough out of wack that the car began squeaking. It also occasionally thunked and made a grindy noise as well, but I am still in denial about that, so let us draw a veil over it.

But now I have this ridiculously-pristine Saturn that I bought off my friend Nova in Durham, and it’s probably the nicest car (overall) that I’ve ever owned. It doesn’t have the V6 get-up-and-go that the Pontiac had, and it’s a bit longer than the parking dream the Geo Metro was, but all the windows work, and it’s got air conditioning, and every time I drive home from work and make that left-hand turn into the complex, I don’t have to slow down nearly so much from the bumped incline of the entrance drive. I don’t need to ease the steering wheel back around so that the tire doesn’t thunk.

So even though I am a little blue today, I still laughed as I swung the car smoothly into the turn, remembering the ridiculous squeaking and thunking of that poor old Grand Prix.