How a Heart Brakes

Last week, I decided that what my car really needed was a good old-fashioned brake flushing. Cars do need this done semi-routinely; every 25,000 miles or two years, the experts say. When was the last time mine were flushed? Hard to say, really. Jupiter was made in 2000, so probably... never.

Here's a quick how-to guide of flushing your brakes:

• Take off the tire.
• Locate your bleeder valve.
• When the brake is pressed in, open the valve, letting the air and nastiness out.
• Close the valve before the brake is released.
• Repeat until you get clear fluid.

I mean, there's a little more to it than that, but there's your basic process. "But Cass," you say, "How can you open the bleeder valve and press the brakes at the same time?" Ahh, clever reader, you've caught me! It does, in fact, take two people! And guess who I roped into helping me? No, guess! Yeah, it was the muse.

To be truthful, I didn't even ask him as some strange ploy to show off my mechanical skills, or as a cute date idea. I asked because he is my friend, aside from any other emotions I may have regarding him. So, we planned to meet at the shop on Sunday.

A fun part of working in the maintenance department of a large college with a motorpool is that I have a professional-grade garage for all my car-fixin' needs. Of course, as someone who is not a mechanic, I don't have a key, which meant I had to show up bright and early to meet our on-call guy and get him to open it for me. Dude is nice, we had some light work conversation, and he taught me how to use the lift. It was fun.

Now, having not established a time, I had no idea when the muse would be free in the day. When he texted me to establish a 3:30 start time, I was slightly less than elated. I mean, it was noon and my tires were off. So what's a girl to do? Get some filing done, that's what! Seriously. I can get more work done in an hour on a weekend when no one is there than I ever have during the week. Ringing phones, people in and out, bleh.

And while I worked, I watched the live stream from the International Space Station(while playing the classic rock Pandora station in the background). It was soothing. And at last, the moment arrived, and so did he.

So I explained, in the best terms I could, how this thing worked. To be fair, I was nervous, and maybe didn't do as concise a job as I may have otherwise, but it was ok. It was just... all ok. We did the thing(as best as we could-my rear two bleeder valves were rusted shut beyond help, so we could only flush the front two brake lines. Still an improvement), making fun conversation the entire time.

The thing about being around him is that I'm nervous the whole time leading up to the encounter. If I know I'm going to spend time with him, my stomach churns and my heart pounds and I just cannot find anything to do with my hands and do I look ok? God my hair is a mess and everything is wrong and... Then he's there. And I feel calm. Talking to him is so easy. I never feel like I need to lie to him or impress him. He said much the same thing, that he was glad he could say anything that popped into his head.

There was a point where I was telling him what really depressed me so much about moving was that most of the things I own are tied with specific events and memories, and that it felt like all that I am and was can be packaged into a finite amount of boxes. That it was all there, all of my self, sandwiched between a few slabs of cardboard. And, in a voice about half the volume we used for the vast majority of conversation at that point, he says "I don't think that's true." Which isn't necessarily a statement that only he would make, but the gentle sincerity of it makes me smile.

It just feels so great to have someone that gets me, that listens, that cares, that my soul feels good just being around.