Love - and lust

I’m in love. No, wait, maybe it’s lust?

Has this ever happened to you? I don’t want to call it love at first sight, but it certainly can be called lust at first sight. Ever seen a piece of art, a smooth as silk sweater, the cutest puppy or kitten, the perfect pair of shoes? And you just had to have it?

Of course it has. It happens to all of us and it doesn’t no matter how immune we think ourselves.

I’m a fan of cars. I learned to drive a standard on a 1966 Jaguar coupe a friend owned.

The first car I bought without my dad was a TR6 and I loved that car. I wanted to keep it forever and probably would have except that if you wanted to change the oil you practically had to remove the engine.

So of course I went to the Vancouver Auto Show on Thursday. I went knowing that I would fall in love, knowing that lust would overwhelm me and knowing I’d get over it when I contemplated the state of my bank account.

It was love at first sight for me this year and, oddly, I spent the rest of my visit to the car show trying to figure out a way to buy the Hyundai Equus. First of all, who can resist the name? I like my cars to have names and the Equus makes me think about naked men on stage, makes me think about horses, makes me think about Romans and Latin and history.

The Equus has just arrived in North America though it’s been around for a while elsewhere. It’s a top of the line luxury sedan and it’s gorgeous. Once I saw the Equus, once I sat inside, I was overtaken with lust, with desire, with joy at finding something so perfect.

I guess that’s what car shows are for. And that’s what love at first sight is for. And, to put it into a writer’s perspective, that’s what writing is for – that joy and desire and lust we feel when we read the perfect sentence or paragraph or title, whether we’ve written it or not.

Kate