I took the curves near Middlebury Gap at a good speed and as I came into a straight stretch, my spirits were high, and it felt like the Blue Car was effortlessly flying. It’s what I would call a golden moment.
It was Saturday, and I was in the middle of a group of cars, with four Porsches in front of me and six in my sideview mirror. I say sideview because the night before, preparing to back into a hotel parking space, I adjusted the rearview mirror and it came off in my hands. It spent the weekend on the passenger side floor, useless, a reminder that the Blue Car is old and things happen. It could have been worse.
But all was good this past weekend in Stowe, Vermont as I joined almost 300 other Porsche Club members and 150+ Porsches for the annual Spring Ramble. Enjoying clear weather and a view of distant mountains, I drove past newly plowed fields on winding country roads and along the main streets of small villages. Then, I was on Scenic Route 125 winding up and down, through the forest, and past Middlebury Snow Bowl and I had that “flying” moment. I had a smile on my face and one thought on my mind: my Spring Fever was cured.
I am not sure I have ever before uttered those two words: Spring Fever. But now, this year, for the first time, I had the Fever and I had it bad. It caught me by surprise: I am the person who wants winter to last forever. My friends and family know that I LOVE snow. When fierce storms are predicted they text me screenshots of the weather forecast, knowing it will make me blissfully happy. One of my earliest memories is of standing with my chin on the window sill of my childhood home in the early morning, happily looking out at a fairy tale scene blanketed in white in anticipation of snow forts and sledding. In later years, snowy winter nights were quiet places to walk with my teen crush and hold hands in the beautiful and magical glistening world that seem to exist just for us. During Boston’s record-breaking snowy winter of 2015, I spent hours and hours snow blowing and shoveling over the course of weeks, smiling all the time. Keep it coming!
This year? I started getting antsy for spring by the end of February, looking at weather reports, and calculating. When would the weather change? When would the rains come to wash the streets clean of salt?
The Blue Car was waiting. I was too.
I am a bit embarrassed to admit this, but I have felt not quite like my whole self these past four months, ever since I returned in mid-December from my 14,000-mile road trip and put the Blue Car in the garage. I felt incomplete. I trace this new feeling back to the early days of my fall road trip; I stopped worrying about how the car would handle on a tight curve, or thinking about when to shift on a steep hill. I even stopped thinking about how best to get in and out of the driver’s seat in the most elegant and lady-like way possible (no easy feat). I have no better way to describe this new feeling than to say I became one with the car. It was a bit like the Vulcan mind meld…a gestalt sharing of consciousness between human and machine. A bit like tapping two iPhones to exchange contact information, effortlessly air dropping pertinent data between entities. At some point in September, the Susan-car meld happened and the data exchange was complete. I just KNEW how the car would handle the road. I thought it, and it happened. On Scenic Route 125 this past weekend, the Susan-car meld made for some pretty awesome driving.
Funny how a road trip can change things. How it can bring on Spring Fever for the first time ever. This new affliction of mine has made me more understanding of people who spend northern winters lamenting enforced garage time, lost driving time. I know there are many drivers out there who have their Porsches on the road year-round, and if I lived in Germany, the Blue Car might have a ski rack on the back and be my ride to the slopes. But the car is 54 years old, and I don’t live in Germany, and I plan on driving this car for a long, long time. Which means keeping it away from road salt.
Speaking of road salt, in late March, the weather was warm, the snow melted, and the roads clear. I had plans to wake the Blue Car from its winter slumber. Believing the snow had finished for the Vermont season, I blocked out some time to start this beauty up and at least give it a wash and a quick ride, eager to hear the engine roar to life. I should have known better: the weather forecast changed overnight and told me 24” of snow was coming. And yes, Vermont gave its springtime gift, as it often does, and things were blanketed. The Blue Car remained where it was, silent in the dark and cold garage.
Oh, I was frustrated for a minute, but the beauty of the storm and the lovely walks in all that snow made it hard to be anything other than happy. I do love the snow. Did I tell you that? That was a month ago and I have had time since then to ponder my Spring Fever. I had all that driving time during the Ramble last weekend to enjoy the road, and the views, and to think about these new feelings of mine.
Truth be told, I like that the Blue Car was tucked away in the garage for a few months. As much as I missed driving the car, there was the anticipation of springtime joy hovering in the background all winter. The sense of delayed gratification and good things to come. And I am the queen of delayed gratification; I find magic in wanting something and waiting. And that’s what it was like with my Spring Fever this year; thinking about driving the Blue Car again, of getting back on the road, had its own kind of joy. How lovely, in this age of “instant everything”– when my order from Amazon sometimes shows up the same day, when I am lucky enough and privileged enough to have many of the things I want and need — how lovely that I had this yearning for something yet to come.
I don’t think my yearning for spring and for clear roads prevented me from enjoying the cold and snowy days but it is a delicate balance…anticipating something while being fully in the present, enjoying the “now” of life while looking to the future. It sounds like some Zen magic trick, well worth mastering. And I think I did a good job of it this winter—enjoying the cold and the snow while eyeing the Blue Car in the garage and anticipating.
As I write this, sitting here at a café in Stowe, the Ramble completed, it occurs to me that it may seem like the car has taken a role of outsize importance in my life. Maybe “Vulcan mind meld” isn’t the best way to describe what happened last fall because after all, I want to be clear that the car is still a car. Not the equivalent of another human. Not as important as the people in my life. My priorities are still straight. Maybe “trust” is a better way to describe it…this relationship I have with the Blue Car. I trust myself and I trust the car, trust earned for both of us over many miles and many years. And it seems to me that trust is what a good relationship is all about. It’s pretty easy to be flying on that winding country road when you trust yourself and your car.
My bout of Spring Fever offered another benefit. I love that life still throws surprises my way, that this yearning for clear roads and springtime driving was new and unexpected. I love surprises even more than I love snow. I never could have guessed last year at this time that I would have experienced that Susan-car meld, that established trust of myself and of the Blue Car. I didn’t even know it was needed, or that it was possible. I do know that it is damn awesome that this surprise happened and it makes me wonder what other surprises might lie ahead, Blue Car-related and otherwise (not that I am greedy or anything like that).
I guess there’s only one way to know.
…Hello spring, glad to see you again. Hi there Blue Car, wanna go for a ride?
Susan Silberberg
