Taking Guidance - Reprise

This is the color and the Plymouth Arrow that I bought new, but it had an arrow on the hood and was considered a luxury model. I forget what year make it was, '78, I think.

Here's a picture of a 1980 LC Lancer, an Australian version. The decal is very similar to mine. The color of the car not too far away. The striping on the low side panels, I believe I had a version of that too.They quit making the Arrow in 1981.

Interdependence....there is no way I can be me without your presence in my life, whoever you may be. This is not to say that your presence is always pleasant. Life is difficult. Right now my work load is spilling over and stealing from the rest of my life. Right now I choose to support that work process as best I can and that includes quite a bit of extra time and energy. This cuts me off from friends.

Right now an old and crowned tooth has broken off at the root. This happened less than a half hour ago as I wrote that last sentence. I had that tooth root canaled decades ago. It has been failing for a long time. The failure is catastrophic. There is no pain. I need a dentist, perhaps an oral surgeon. I suspect it would have broken anyway had someone tried to pull it out. I do not seek sympathy. This is just a situation. I have been living with this failing tooth aware that perhaps I should do something and chose not to. It is my bed to make and then lie down upon.

There is reality here. I have done with my gold crowned tooth exactly what I tend to do with cars. I keep them until they are worth 25 bucks because someone wants the seats. That was a real offer in my life and I took the money happily. It was that Plymouth Arrow, the only car I ever bought brand new. I drove it until it blew up in old age at 148,000 miles, all of them mine. I had it painted by a trusted friend at the three quarter point. It went from the standard dingy yellowish green with white arrow stripe on the hood to a light brown with gold metal flake. Near the end my mechanic wrapped differently the timing chain which was stretching and changed the cylinder firing timing to suit the new wrap. I lost power but my timing chain didn't snap and kill the car as sometimes happened with Arrows. Instead I finally had to get a new radiator. The increased water pressure blew the cylinder head apart. The timing chain or the thin aluminum cylinder head were the two weak items in the Mitsubishi made Plymouth Arrow. My tooth just cracked like that old cylinder head blew.

Taking Guidance

That you stretch the lines
Is one reason - I never
Color well between
Lines myself. I watch
What others do and decide
What my life will be,
How I should cherish
Your heart, how to say this thing,
How to love this world.

January 9, 2009 7:31 AM
Poem originally posted May 29, 2009