Second Attempt

The car did not always start on the first attempt.

Some mornings it needed two tries. Sometimes three.

I learned not to be surprised.

Turn the key. Listen. Nothing useful. Try again.

Eventually the engine would wake up.

There were other problems too. Once in a while, while going downhill, the car could stall. After that happened, I started keeping my hand near the handbrake.

This was not a good quality.

Still, I loved driving it.

That is difficult to explain if you believe affection follows specifications. It was not the safest, quietest, most refined, or most reliable car I had known. It had faults large enough to become part of every trip.

Maybe that was why it never disappeared into the background.

A reliable machine allows you to forget it. This one required participation.

You listened.

You waited.

You learned its moods.

Someone else might get in and say, “This car is terrible.”

You would answer, “No, you just have to know it.”

That sentence is dangerous. It is also how attachment begins.

The car was cheap enough that I did not worry constantly about scratches or small damage. That gave it another kind of freedom. I could use it without serving it.

Years later, I do not remember every trip.

I remember the starting ritual.

First attempt.

Second attempt.

Then the engine.

The car was bad in several perfectly measurable ways.

It was also fun in a way no measurement could explain.

Second attempts are quieter than first attempts. The first one has drama. The second one has information.

You return knowing where you failed, which makes hope less innocent but more useful. There is less romance in trying again, and maybe more dignity.

The second attempt rarely feels like a new beginning.

It feels like beginning with evidence.

After Second Attempt

The useful part is not a lesson so much as a texture. The object or phrase works like a handle on a drawer I did not know was still there.

The smallness is not a weakness. It is the reason the memory can remain exact. I think the truth of the memory lives exactly in that uneven size.