Inner Workings discussion
Streaming/rambling
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Turn Signals
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Thank you. In rereading this I feel like I can get back into writing mode today. :-)
Tick-tick. Tick-tick. It’s the turn signal I hear. The first time, the second, the third… as I drift in and out to my parents’ quiet voices, the turn signal clicks on more often, the car slowing down more and more. We stop. My dad opens my door, takes my seatbelt off, lifts me out of the car and carries me to bed. Usually I am still partly awake when he does this. He knows I’m awake and perfectly capable of walking but he also knows I like it when he carries me. My head rests on his shoulder - the smell of Brut drifts into my nose and his long hair tickles my forehead as he walks up the stairs with me in his arms, my arms wrapped around his neck, my legs dangling, whispering to me that I’m getting too big for this.
We had so many different cars when I was a kid. The first one I remember is the Pinto, with the dark red interior, that got its hubcaps stolen and was keyed within the first week we lived overseas. In that car you could hear the little arm as my dad snapped it into place, up or down, grinding into the tick-tick sound. After that, the Renault, a little white car with an alarmingly loud turn signal, as if to tell the driver, remember, you’re turning! My dad drove a Camry, which had neat, tight little click of a turn signal. Later, my mother would switch to Saabs and has driven them for the last 20 years. Saabs have a specific turn signal sound, almost like a pock instead of a tick.
I mention all of this to my son the other day as we drive home, how the sound of a turn signal is like a lullaby for me, because it means we’re almost home. That’s why I always use mine, even when there is no one on our deserted little roads near my house.
He said that what makes him feel like he’s home is when I hold him and he can “put his head in my neck.”