Yesterday I bought a new car. New to me, as we often say.
Her name is Rhonda. It just came to me. Actually, Hilda came to me. I need to discern whether or not Hilda was the car I was trading in, finally revealing herself to me, or the new car.
Why yes, I name my cars. It’s an inherited trait – my father, the born-in-the-bones mechanical engineer – taught me to name cars.
I also thanked the car I traded in. She had belonged to my mother, serving her well for six years before my mother’s dementia stopped her driving. She gifted the car to me and I then gifted my almost 20-year-old but still working car to another. That car had supported me since around 2010, and deserved thanks. Since she still works, I pray that she goes on to help someone else.
But, naming cars?
Why not?
I believe everything in the universe is intimately connected by the original act of creation.
As I type this, I notice the language I just used – ‘act of creation’. The way the word act is used in this phrase connotes purpose in doing something. Which begs the question who or what acted?
I don’t know. Current Physics says that Before the creation nothing we know or understand about what exists After. Seriously. That’s science thinking there, folks.
I could go on but now it’s time to loop back to naming cars. (I also named my house – it’s Dragonfly House.)
Naming changes our relationship with the named. A dog turns into a unique being – our dear Tobey. A cat turns into a unique being – our dear Roscoe.
Cars aren’t beings; the aren’t living. Okay, I’ll grant that. At least not living the way We – most of us together – define living.
But right now, Rhonda is a large, complex creation – made entirely of parts of our universe – sitting in my driveway. And now she’s part of my small constellation. I will pay for her, keep her safe, fueled and oiled, replace parts that wear down.
We will work together. And I am grateful for every connection – whether at the atomic or mechanical or retail – that brought us together. For all the bits of our universe, mineral or vegetal or human that coordinated to form this car.
So I name her.
Oh, yeah, and my dad also said all machines are female. That’s just him being – well – him.
