Coconut Paradise

Series: Almost Nothings

My car isn’t flashy.

It doesn’t turn heads

or pull second glances at red lights.

It’s simple,

steady,

mine.

The kind of car that holds me without show,

carries my groceries,

my friends,

my quiet singing voice,

and never pretends to be anything else.

It’s the place where I have hard talks with my teens,

And myself,

where I’ve gripped the steering wheel with one hand

and wiped mascara tears with the other,

where I’ve muttered pep talks into traffic

and mumbled plans between red lights,

half-formed lists dissolving

into old Matchbox Twenty lyrics.

It’s where I pick up dinners

to feed a family and their appetites,

where I tote home groceries,

school projects,

mail I’ll open tomorrow,

dreams I’ve tucked into the glovebox for later.

And some days,

on a lunch break carved out of a loud day,

I take it,

take me,

to the car wash.

I have a membership now.

It feels like a small rebellion,

to swipe my pass and roll in

whenever I want.

The foam slides down the windshield

like the world pulling its own curtain,

and for two whole minutes,

I vanish.

I sit inside the hush,

watching soap trace slow-moving constellations,

and it feels,

somehow,

like self-care.

After, I pull into the vacuum stalls,

reach under the driver’s seat for the wipes I keep tucked away,

and erase the fingerprints, the dust,

the small evidences of a life

that doesn’t stop moving.

I vacuum up the messes

that prove I was here:

crumbs, sand, the faint outlines

of another rushed day.

Then, always,

I reach into the console

for the coconut-scented spray,

a small ritual,

a breath of sweetness

no one else will notice,

but that feels, to me,

like saying:

this is mine to tend,

mine to keep.

And because I go so often,

the whole thing takes maybe ten minutes.

Maybe a little longer

if I let myself linger,

not in a hurry

to step back in.

My car is not just steel and distance.

It’s a shelter,

a confessional,

a pocket of time

where I am allowed

to be unfinished.

It’s where I am

both carrying

and catching my breath,

where I sing along to old songs

half for comfort,

half to remind myself

I’m still here.

And when I pull away,

the dash wiped clean,

the cabin still holding

that faint trace of sunlight and quiet,

I know the noise is waiting,

the errands,

the inbox,

the next small ask.

But for a few more miles,

it’s just me,

the soft pulse of the tires,

a car that smells like cheap coconut paradise,

steadily carrying me through a life too busy,

letting me, for once,

just enjoy the ride.