My Heavy Clutch

I'm watching Jeremy Clarkson drive a Model "T" and complain of the great pain in his thigh from having to depress the lead accelerator, likening it to the effort needed to work a heavy clutch.

I know these heavy clutches.

A few years back, after a morning spent stocking up on pastries in Cannaregio, we rented a car in Venice and drove it around the Gulf of Venice, through the bumpy strip of Slovenia (with its tree-lined one-lane highways and fairy tale cow pastures) to the Istrian Peninsula of Croatia. Our little silver Volkswagen was feisty; she beeped at us when we went over 130kmph, and received plenty of beeps back from the impatient Italians on the A4.

When we stopped to ask directions on a steeply curving road just past Opatija, Croatia, the man spoke to us in French. Bonjour. Ca va? To which we wrinkled our noses and said Dobra dan. And why are we speaking French? Turns out our little Volkswagen that beeped, shocked by speed, happened to have French plates. (And suddenly the Italians honking at us on the A4 no longer seemed impatient, just a bit soccer obsessed. And for a moment, I was pleased to be confused for a Frenchwoman at the wheel.)

It was on these hills of Croatia where I first encountered the heavy clutch, spending too much time in second and third. But it wasn't until the drive back, when traffic got heavy near Trieste, and I spent a good hour or two with my foot on and off the clutch that I felt the pain that Jeremy Clarkson is talking about.

And I am coming to the point. The application of this grand, rambling metaphor.

The point is that sometimes I feel as if maintaining focus, maintaining theme (in my life, on the blog, any way you want to paint it), is like keeping my foot pressed down on a heavy clutch. Or the slow ache that grows in the muscle from constantly shifting gears.

There are books to be read (not only is Wide Open great, but it's killing me that I didn't read The World Without Us sooner; also great, Ralph Gamelli's spoof of it: A World Without Me). There are several Latvian stories on my hard drive that need polishing even as my own stories sit untouched, growing mold on a disk somewhere. There are events to attend, photographs to be taken. There are countless pictures to be scanned, and the first world problem of an apartment festering beneath a fine layer of dust and the weight of things we don't need. And did I mention I have a day job?

Direction must be found. Goals must be set. And completed. Deadlines. Obligations. All seemingly plucked from the ether, but existing nonetheless. The pressure. To. Create. And all other sorts of made-up stress.

And each time I shift gears between these tasks, I can feel the weight of that clutch.

There's a great pain in my thigh. I'm in my own personal Trieste, and once I get past it, I think I might just have to spend some time coasting in neutral.

© Zan McQuade. All rights reserved.