written by Raulla S. Mitchell

If you feel as if you’ve been hibernating most of the winter, the last thing you may want to think about is making sure to get enough sleep now that spring is here.  You’re ready to burst forth and enjoy, greet your neighbors, catch up with friends over outdoor lunches, and spend evenings out after bitter chills and early sunsets have kept you indoors for too long.

I dream of taking my beloved ’98 S70 lipstick red Volvo out for a spin, give her a turbo thrill anywhere but 30 mph Valley View Road (and I don’t mean 32 or 35 mph which is pushing a speeding ticket).

This I can no longer do.  She was forced into retirement last May when one of her cylinders unexpectedly went down.  I was in deNile, in part because everything else about her was perfect.  I don’t want to believe she’s gone.  Even now, I sometimes look for her in parking lots, wondering who might have brought her home, fixed her up, and now takes her out for a spin.

I wanted her back the moment I felt with little choice but to replace her with a computerized black Volvo S60 that has a bazillion features (of which I still have minimal comprehension), and lacks her colorful personality.  Without my Mimi magnets, I feel a little guilty saying this, but she’d be just another black car in a sea of black cars, undistinguished from all the others.

She’d been huffing and puffing (running rough they call it) for about a week before I took her in to Borton, thinking she might need new spark plugs. Don’t all of us older gals need new sparks from time to time?  Made sense.  Unfortunately, the problem lay deeper.  When we’re not on all cylinders, it’s a serious problem, one I wasn’t prepared to face.

Dan at Borton Volvo service told me to have a stiff drink and say goodbye.  She was no longer safe.  She could blow at any moment.  What does that even mean I remember wondering.  Would she just stop without warning on the freeway?  Would she blow up?  I didn’t feel she’d betray me in that way.  She’d give me a few signs.  Dan continued to impress upon me the severity of the safety risk.  It could be a day, a week, a month, maybe a year.  I didn’t want to let her go, but I couldn’t continue to hold on.  I drive my daughter around town.  Safety’s a big deal.

So, I took photos.  I stood next to her.  Wherever she went from the Borton Volvo lot, she remains ever in my heart.  I’ve not yet had the stiff drink, and don’t really think it would have worked anyway.  She was bigger than that.  She grows more special in her physical absence from my life.

I’ll never feel the same about another car.  She was my first Volvo, my signature red, a boxy handmade Swedish girl who developed a distinct personality with age, and carried on even after I blew out her ignition one winter, and someone pushed her gently in a parking lot, leaving a subtle barely remarkable dent in her otherwise perfect frame.  She proudly wore my kissing Mimi magnets till the end.

One never knows, but I can’t imagine ever feeling quite the same about my new (to me) Volvo S60 on whom Mimi blowing her kiss to passersby seemed sadly faded.  My new Volvo demanded new magnets. That’s the thing about changing one thing – other things seem suddenly old.  And who I am to judge.  I’m getting older too.  My parts will wear out.  Where will I go?  She deserved better.  I acted in haste.  I wished she were back.  It was too late.

I digress.  Besides, if I count out the years, I’ll have a few more Volvos enter my life.  Or I’ll leap into a hybrid.  Just must remind myself to get ready and prepare for it emotionally next time.

Back to our theme of beauty sleep.  Cherie, now is when you need your sleep more than ever, to handle the ups and downs of life, hopefully more ups…

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