"There was a ship"

While sitting outside reading in the sun, "and smale fowles maken melodye,," I got a call from Duma:.

It is an ancient Mariner,
And he stoppeth one of three.
'By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,
Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?

The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide,
And I am next of kin;
The guests are met, the feast is set:
May'st hear the merry din.'

He holds him with his skinny hand,
'There was a ship,' quoth he.

Actually it was a Prius. Duma and her daughter-in-law had driven down to Washington from Connecticut for a few days, Pika for a conference, Duma to visit her sister. The car ran like a top, economizing like crazy, and everybody had a good time until... The car wouldn't start after a few days of idleness. What gives? Tow to the dealership: :"Leave it here; we'll get to when we can; if it's the transmission, it could run you...," and all the other comfortable words mechanics and managers use to soothe people feeling distress

Finally, three days later, the diagnosis: not a tranny but something gnawed the wires bare, shorting out the entire systems. What? Squirrels? Rats? Washington squirrels or rats? Anyway, wires replaced, long after they'd hoped to be home, the two got on the road...only to find stop and go traffic all the way to the Jersey Turnpike. The cherry trees had been in bloom around the Jefferson Memorial and all America had come to see, and now all America was on it's way home. Aaaaaah!

In northern Jersey, just before the George Washington Bridge over the Hudson, late at night, snow! Big, flabby flakes flopping down on the Saw Mill Parkway obscuring the lane markings. "I couldn't do anything--Pika was driving and she's an excellent driver--but I was peering as hard as she was at the road. It was awful. You couldn't see anything." Well after midnight the exhausted pair rolled in.

I love such stories. You want to tell; I want to hear. I feel I live in stories, some piping hot from the oven of experience; others smooth, cool, satisfying over and over. Like a bell tolling and resonating through me, your stories live your life in mine.

Some advice from a master:

How to Tell a Story

Take your time. 
Tell it slowly.
There is nothing to be gained
By huddling words, by watching me to see
If I grow inattentive; which I shall, 
I swear, if you believe I should, 
If you have doubts yourself, if you race on
When all I want to have time do is stop
Dead still
So I can be there with you, feeling, seeing.
Start over then and tell your tale
As the clock ticks: Grandfather's clock,
That listens to itself and grins
When we forget to do so; as I would
This hour; which waste for me.
You understand? I want it wasted--
All of it, and not this little bit, my friend,
That in our hurry you already have.

--Mark Van Doren