Rearview Mirror.
My first car was a 1973 Chevy Nova. I have used it before in certain analogies because, well, it was a monumental piece of shit when I first purchased it, therefore requiring an inordinate amount of time, labor, and learning on my part. Luckily, that makes for an intriguing segue into some topics I discuss. As of this moment I have only ever spoken about more intricate workings of the vehicle, repairs, rebuilds, and the mechanics of such, but today I am going to focus on one thing that anyone can grasp: the rear view-mirror. That little piece of reflective material, framed in plastic, and hanging right smack dab in the middle of my field of view through the front windshield.
One of the first actions I had to carry out on this vehicle was to get a new front windshield. The current one had been cracked in places, probably by myself and my trusty pellet gun, and therefore was too obstructive to my view to ever pass an inspection. I purchased and had a new one installed and began my journey of an automobile rebuild. I won’t go into all the operational mechanics and part rebuilds, I would prefer for this moment in time to focus on that rear-view mirror.
It lay there, right in the front seat, waiting to be re-adhered to the freshly installed windshield. I hopped in my dads’ truck and cruised on up to Western Auto, which probably doesn’t exist anymore, and bought a tube of rear view mirror adhesive. I separated the rear view mirror from the mounting base, glued the base back on, and attached the mirror. It sat there for months while we rebuilt the rest of the vehicle and never budged. Then one day, we got the vehicle running. I was finally able to take it out on the road. I cranked the engine, put it in drive, adjusted my mirror and smack! It fell right off and onto the already sun cracked dashboard, adding another crack for good measure. I didn’t care. My car was running, and I was taking it out. I ran that thing down Jefferson bridge in Oak Cliff and got her up to 120 mph before it started shaking so uncontrollably that I damn near pissed my pants and ran off the bridge into the trinity river. I may have actually peed a little, I can’t remember.
But I didn’t need that mirror for any of the primary functions needed to operate that vehicle at such a ridiculously unsafe speed. Not one thing sputtered or backfired without that rear view mirror on the windshield. My fuel consumption didn’t spike, my air filter didn’t allow excess dirt into the intake. Everything worked fine and I didn’t feel like I needed it. For months, I left it off, until it came time to get an inspection to make it legal, because I had been driving it without an inspection sticker for months.
I glued it back on, ran the car up to the shop, paid the guy $50 under the table for a fake inspection sticker and was on my way. You could do that back then. Don’t rat me out.
Then, it fell off again. I re-glued, and it fell off again. Re-glue, fall off, repeat. It did this the entire time I had the vehicle and as much as I would have loved to leave it off, I knew that I would eventually get pulled over. Plus, it’s there for a reason, as I am sure you know. Such a small piece of the puzzle, but an integral one, to say the least.
The rear-view mirror in a vehicle serves one purpose, and one alone: to allow you a view of what is behind you. That’s it. There’s nothing more to it. There’s no mechanical acumen needed when it comes to vehicle operation. It just lets you see what is either coming up, or what you have left behind.
And off we go….
Much like the rear-view mirror in my old Chevy Nova, I also posses one, and so do you. And like its automotive counterpart it is only meant to be seen from a lens of retrospection. When is the last time, aside from backing out of your driveway, that you threw the vehicle in reverse and jumped onto the freeway? You wouldn’t, my God I hope you wouldn’t. Why? It’s too small. The field of view is only about 8 to 12 inches and it’s not meant for forward motion. Just like the one in our often-underused gray matter, you don’t use it to move towards your current destination, rather to navigate away from what you have left behind. That’s why it is so small. It’s just a subtle reminder of what you have passed and a way to visibly keep it behind you.
The old cliché says that this is why the rear-view mirror is so small and the front windshield is so big. Where you are heading is more important than where you have been. No question about the validity of that statement. Another note to consider though is that sometimes there are things you see in your rearview that you may not want to lose sight of. You ever lose a tire doing 75 down the freeway? I have. I saw that sucker shooting down the shoulder of highway 67 right after I put on my brand-new Cragar mag rims. I needed that vision to know that not everything I leave behind is meant to stay behind, but still, I didn’t need an entire windshield worth of view to know that. It’s why we have cute little sayings like “don’t burn that bridge unless you have to”. Some bridges need to be burned, Yes, but some need to be roped off and left in the GPS memory, just in case you need to cross that way again.
Some people live in the rear-view mirror. There are people who can drive 2,000 miles and that place they left is still seemingly just over that hill right behind them. Conversely, there are people who can round the corner a block away and not see any remnant of their previous location anywhere in sight. One suggests an inability to move on and the other suggests and ease of abandonment that just doesn’t seem healthy to me. You need some semblance of your past to usher you into your new way of being, but not so much as to control your decision-making processes. Know your history, so as not to repeat it. Don’t allow your history to control your future, but rather to help you rebuild and learn from your past mistakes.
Do we need some reflection into the past? Absolutely. We always will. Do we need it to be our primary focus and our determining factor of forward motion? My vehicle is in drive, and I am facing forward. It’s my choice, and it’s your choice, to decide if we want to waste our time and scream and yell at every turn made, or if we want to sit back and continue the journey, offering positive advice on how to get to the destination ahead.
All this to say; give the new path a chance before you take that fork in the road. Don’t ascribe the worst possible outcome to a situation that hasn’t even begun to unfold. Your rear-view mirror is simply a reminder of where you were, of where we were. Understand that not everyone investigates that mirror and see the same reflection you do. Maybe your mirror is foggy and theirs is clear? Perhaps they have seen things in that mirror that you have willfully ignored? Either way, keep the mirror in its place and use it as its meant to be used, and nothing more.
I hope that in the months and years to come you look through the windshield more than the rear-view mirror. Above all, I hope that you can go back and pick up some of those you left on the side of the road simply because they dared to have a different perception of that reflection than you.
Don’t live solely in the rear-view, but don’t abandon it completely. There may be some things there you’ll need back one day. If you see my Tire, grab it for me. I never did find it.
Keep Rockin \m/
Jeremy
