Well I had a productive afternoon. I backed my Toyota pickup truck into my garage and cleaned it out. It had accumulated a lot of my personal junk in it over the last seven years. It’s all cleared out now, into the dumpster or into the closet in the garage. Many treasures.

Old Blue is going to a happy new home in the mountains this weekend. He’s always been a coastal truck, a beast of the arid shelf of level freeways and clean, salty onshore breezes. I truly hope he enjoys his new job and gives his new driver, my brother, many miles of service. I’ve been good about his oil changes; he should live to 200K, God willing.

It’s funny how we imbue such machines with personality … heart. Old Blue has a good heart. Many times, we’ve climbed hills, like the Grapevine south of Bakersfield. And when we got to the top, I’ve patted his dashboard and said, “good little truck.”

He always starts. Even when his starter was going out recently, he didn’t totally refuse to start. Just tried to get my attention. “No. … No … OK, I’ll start.” In over seven years, that was his only repair, besides a horn. Are you starting to catch on that I’m an extremely sentimental guy? But wait …

What I was thinking about the most as I was cleaning was the opportunities of life in the moment that we passed and drove by. I remember a few times, sitting on Old Blue’s tailgate, backed to the edge of the bluffs, watching the dolphins pass, and feeding bites of my sandwich to the dog. I would’ve had more of times like that, in retrospect. Wish I’d climbed into the back a couple of times, and listened to the rain on his shell. … Don’t it always seem to go?

It’s just a truck you say? No, it’s a metaphor for the way I live my life from day to day, regretting that as the sunset heads for Asia and I crawl into bed, I’ve lost opportunities for clear thoughts, quiet moments and the droplets of awareness that bead on the turtlewaxed skin of a mundane life.

When I left my last car, a Mercury, on the dealers lot after 10 years of hard miles, I didn’t write about her. Didn’t even look back. They probably shipped her to Mexico, since she couldn’t pass smog. And maybe I’m a little slightly wiser man. … Well, now I’ll be driving a white Jeep Cherokee. I’m looking forward to what he has to offer. We will go some places, see some things. I will have to learn his name.