Going to the Car Wash

I washed my car last week.

I didn’t take it through the car wash or pay to have someone wash it for me.

I washed my car myself—at the car wash—with a lot of quarters—and the soapy brush—and the pressure washer.

Many years ago, when I taught in Angier on Tuesdays, I stopped at the car wash with my friend B every other week. We had our system down—how we would wash our cars—and we helped each other get our cars squeaky clean in the quickest way possible.

I didn’t have B with me last week, but I followed our same pattern of cleaning: pressure soap, foamy brush, rinse.

Since my car has been living outside, it acquires a lot of dirt. I could see that she was dirty last week (yes, my car is a girl) and I could see the dirt coming off of her with both the pressure soap and the foamy brush. For a moment, I considered becoming a professional pressure washer because watching the dirt and grime disappear was so satisfying, but then my hand started hurting and I quickly gave up that daydream.

As I rinsed the soap from the car, I started noticing little black pieces of dirt showing up on the newly whitened surface. Confused at first, I kept rinsing until I realized where the dirt was coming from: deep within the grooves and seals around the windows, lights, trunk, and hood.

Until that moment, I hadn’t thought much about these grooves and seals. But as soon as I started paying attention to them, I quickly realized that the pressure soaping and foamy brushing hadn’t cleaned them because the dirt and grime were so embedded. And so I started blasting them. And they started coming clean. And then my time ran out before I properly formulated the thought that I should add more quarters to clean more grooves.

So I went back the next day. And specifically attacked the places that were dirty. And I smiled the whole time because the whole process was so neat—so full of accomplishment—so cleansing…

I wonder if our lives are like this sometimes—covered with dirt and grime that we don’t even realize is there because it’s been building slowly over time.

I spoke with a friend the other night and she made the comment that she didn’t realize just how poorly she was doing until she stepped back from everything and gave herself time and space to breathe—to renew her spirit—to find the spiritual and emotional parts of herself that she had forgotten were there—and to remove all of the junk that had piled on top of them…

I saw a place that I missed on my car yesterday—a seal around a taillight—and I had to stop myself from spending more money just to blast it clean. I think I’ll wait until my car has been outside for a few weeks and then take it to the carwash again—this time knowing that I must pay attention both to the parts that are obviously dirty and to the parts that aren’t so much so—and knowing that I should examine myself and how I’m doing in the process.
Have you been to the carwash lately? Have you found some areas in your life that need some work?