A Nissan Moment
There was a full moon this past weekend and the moon seemed tinted pink, likely due to the lingering cloud cover over the ocean. The moon was pale pink, the color of a salamander’s tongue and it seemed auspicious, especially because we’d just had an uncommonly good day. We’d been able to put together a purchase of a charming older Nissan compact Versa that had just been marked down on the car lot. There was an interested couple ahead of us, and, as luck would have it, neither that couple or two others that followed snapped it up with cash while we did paper work. So we ended up signing a contract first. We got the car and thanks to a cracker-jack salesman, it went smoothly, for once and would soon be in the hands of a family member who needed it.
On the way to dinner Saturday night, the day before the Nissan was to be picked up, we were driving C’s old beater car, a Chevy Malibu, (the trade-in) and C turned on the radio. We had recently picked up grandma, who is recovering from a stroke and, as she beside me, in the back seat, she was singing, “I once had a Nissan now C has a Nissan,” and so on. When, all of a sudden, after grandma quit singing, C noticed the word “Nissan” on the Malibu’s car radio screen, where the name of a band and the song playing usually goes. The radio was inexplicably tuned to a Spanish station, so C fiddled with changing the channel, ultimately deciding to put it back to the Spanish station. “You won’t believe that it just said ‘Nissan‘,” she repeated. We probably wouldn’t have believed her, since she alone had seen it, but then the word “Nissan” appeared again, and we all saw it, while the Mexican music played in the background. “This is quite strange,” I said, reflecting on the juxtaposition of a large pink moon in the sky and my elderly mother sitting in the back with me, singing about cars.
Finally, when we were seated at the restaurant for dinner, as luck would have it, a Mexican restaurant, C used her phone to search the word “Nissan” to see if there was a band by that name. No band by that name appeared. So, thinking of the pink Moon, I said, “Wouldn’t that be funny if you looked up ‘Nissan’ and it meant ‘magic’ or ‘miracle’ or ‘great good fortune.’ That was a psychicchic kind of joke, but I made it anyway, because things like that happen, from time to time.
“But it does mean miracle” C swooned, as she scrolled down her cell phone. “Nissan” has the same root of the first Hebrew month ‘Nissim’ when all good things, like miracles, happen. Some people say the name of this month is Nissan.”
Without a thought to what the other diners might be thinking, I got up from the table and did a small Happy Dance, mid-room, thanking the Universe for the Nissan and for the affirmation of cosmic intervention (via the Chevy Malibu car radio) broadcasting that small miracles are always possible, if you believe.
And so I say, Thank You, Universe, once again.
