There’s a familiar rhythm to it and, if I close my eyes, I can feel what it’s like to pack up my car to head out on a new adventure or to a brand new place to live. After a long day spent outside, returning to find it felt almost as good as an embrace of an old friend. I personified my 2016 mini cooper to a likely extreme degree out of necessity. When traveling, sometimes it was the main object and tool I used day in and day out. It quickly went from a tool to a beloved object to an almost being. Some of my favorite memories are of taking it off roading in Arizona, blasting childhood music with a variety of pals, driving up the California and Oregon coast during my sabbatical, and roadtripping from SLC to WNC. I lazily called the car “Zazu” based on my internet username annezazu. Looking back, it feels right that it would be my other half in that way. If you’ve spent any time with me around my car, you’ll see a smile cross my face when I see my mini. “Look at it! Ah it’s so cute” was and still is a common refrain.
My very first car and mini cooper has officially been retired. It’s technically still in the shop but it’s been a few weeks since I got my new one and I’ve barely begun processing saying goodbye. I nearly teared up when I happened to see it again after I dropped it off at the collision place and they immediately took it over to the dealership down the street. I immediately recognized it as mine and managed to convince a mini staff member to let me back in my car to snag my soccer ball out of it. I managed to do an absurd amount of damage in a few seconds while parking on a hill. My pre-coffee brain has twice betrayed me hitting parked cars. Thankfully, no one was hurt and it was time for a new car anyways.
I got the car on a bit of a whim in 2016, 9 months or so after a bad break up after landing in San Diego. I had been nomading for about a year at that point and had snagged a $1,500/month furnished spot in San Diego. I showed up with two backpacks worth of stuff and stitched together plans from there. I was wicked suicidal at the time, grappling with deep abandonment trauma I couldn’t name that made me feel all the more out of my mind. Buying the mini cooper was a show of hope for myself. A sign that I believed I could adventure, be free, rebuild, take others with me, and have very nice things. My uncle let me use a minicooper of his when I was 16/17 and I fell in love, promising myself that at some point in my little life I’d drive one again. I thought I’d be in my 40s or 50s the first time I owned one yet suddenly I had the funds and life was hard to grasp onto. If nothing felt like it mattered, why not get a mini cooper and see what comes of it?
In the year since, I’ve left it for months at a time, fit all of my stuff in it repeatedly, driven friends, driven strangers, driven coworkers, watched sunsets, blasted music, driven silently, braved snow, soaked up the sun with the windows down, and stumbled back into it after a grueling adventure.
Below are my very first photos back in 2016. I bought it and celebrated alone, not knowing folks in the area, with a trip to Idyllwild, CA:
A photo from that first adventure to Idyllwild:
While there are a lot of more commonly beautiful photos in this post, I have way more of these everyday photos where it’s just a semi crappy photo of my car that still makes me happy. The below are usually taken in a moment of deep gratitude where I want to take a photo but want to spend time feeling the gratitude more.
The worst day of mini’s life after it got smashed in Seattle in a terrible parking garage. The next day, I drove it with my pal who was in town to the mini dealership blasting music and laughing at the absurdity of the situation, while tossing pieces of glass around.
My mini with other mini pals. I loved when I could find ways to park next to another mini cooper and hoped it brought a smile to the other owner too:
I traveled through so many places including California, Utah, Arizona, Colorado, Nebraska, Missouri, South Carolina, Georgia, North Carolina, Florida, Oregon, Washington, etc. I prided myself in keeping just what I could fit in the lil car and eventually started taking photos as my license plates changed. I was most proud when I could successfully fit all of my stuff just in the trunk of the car:
I went through a phase of taking a photo of the mini with the key in epic spots. None of these are edited but with a little bit of editing, I think it has the making of a rad series:
Sometimes when walking back to the car after adventuring, I’d notice a neat angle and reflection. I’m a sucker for a reflection shot and loved how many options the mini gave:
I’ve witness so many beautiful views across the country looking out of the car that I have too many of these kinds of photos to even dig up. The one of the person getting out is when I dropped off a childhood friend at the start of the Pacific Crest Trial at the border of Mexico to see her off on her hike:
I have an entire series that I could share of various dogs I know and don’t know in my car:
Then of course I have the beautiful photos that I carefully took on big adventures:
This was definitely the dumbest/most adventurous trip I went on it with. I had to turn the music up as I could hear the bottom of my car scrapping against the dusty, rocky road. When we reached the trial head, the few folks who made it in clearly marked 4WD/AWD vehicles asked how the hell we got that far.
Whoever owns you next, zazu, please assure them that you’ve been very well loved and are up for anything that comes your way.
agm 
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