Changing a tire or: An invitation to knowing

I’ve changed tires many times. There’s always a dreadful thrill in knowing that it needs to be done. It presents itself as a puzzle to solve: How to remove a broken part and exchange it for a functional one. I would say that I am adequately good at it–even if, every time, I have to remember from first principles how it’s done. How to pry off the hubcap cover, how to raise the jack high enough to take weight off the wheel, how to loosen the lugnuts that determinedly resist the supplications of the tire iron. The figuring-it-out part is, to me, one of the chief pleasures of the task. It is a process of remembering that I know and understand the structure of the machine, and can alter it at will.

There is a degree of filthiness to this task that is vital to the joy of it. The streak of grime across my forearm feels like evidence that I am accomplishing something significant; the sweat that gathers on my temples proves that there is real exertion in my labor. I am undeniably doing.

I’m perfectly fine at changing a tire. There’s usually a tricky bit somewhere in there that I struggle with a little, but for the most part, I can get the job done on my own. At least, I think I can. I don’t know for sure, because I’ve never once had the opportunity to get it done on my own. This is because every time I’ve needed to change a tire–in the rain, in the blazing heat, at a gas station, by the side of the highway with cars barreling past–I’ve been interrupted by a stranger.

It goes like this: I am crouched, sweating, pulling hard on the tire iron, or I am struggling to heave my spare out of my trunk, or I am simply staring at the flat tire and thinking aha, so it has indeed happened. This is when a car pulls up. There is a stranger inside. The stranger gets out and asks if I need help, and I say no, wanting them to go away and leave me to it. And then they stay, and watch me for a moment, and step in to help anyway.

In this moment I’m always a little annoyed. I’m a stubbornly independent person, and I want to do this thing by myself. I want to experience the deliciousness of the puzzle. I want to savor the instant when the lugnut yields to my strength (or to physics, if I am forced to stand on the tire iron in order to budge the lugnuts. This is a trick that works even if it makes me feel a bit like a cartoon mouse). I want to be able, later, to say “I had a flat but it’s fine, I changed the tire” and I want the person I’m telling to go wide-eyed with awe at my competence and skill, and I want everyone to tell me that I’m clearly very strong and smart and competent.

My annoyance increases, because the stranger often takes the task away from me at some point. They usually explain what they’re doing while they’re doing it: see, I’m using this tire iron to remove the lugnuts, and you can remember which way to turn the nuts by saying righty-tighty-lefty-loosie. I bristle at this. I don’t want the task taken away. I don’t need it explained to me. I know the fucking rhyme and it never works for me anyway because I’m not that good at telling right from left. It makes me want to stomp my foot petulantly and say I don’t need help.

But to the person telling me things I already know (or things I have forgotten but could remember given twenty minutes and perhaps some frustrated tears), it’s not about whether or not I need help. To them, this is simply one link in a long chain of learning. Humans love to teach each other how to do things. And every time we do, we remember when we were taught. We teach according to the best moments of our own learning. We think of the kindnesses done to us, and we try to duplicate them for others. In that moment, the stranger is saying this is not a crisis. This is not an emergency. This is just the way we get to learn. And they’re doing it by recreating the moment when someone else, some nameless stranger who stopped to help them, took the time and effort to not only solve the problem, but to teach them a skill. When these strangers assume I don’t know what I’m doing, whether they’re right or wrong in that moment, their response is: I can invite you into knowing. I can share knowing with you and then we will both know.

It’s not about whether I need help or not. Human beings are creatures of immense, often shocking kindness. When we see someone with a flat tire, we think to ourselves: There’s someone in a stressful circumstance. And then after that first thought, there comes a second thought: I will apply myself to the unpleasant situation I see. I will absorb part of the hell that person is experiencing. I will wear the grime, and perspire, and struggle, so that this person I have never met, whose name I do not know, is not alone in this ugly little moment. I will help, not because help is absolutely needed, but because I can.

Every time someone steps in to take over changing my tire, there is a moment when they look back and smile at me reassuringly, and in that moment my annoyance evaporates, because I remember what they think is happening.

They think it is possible that they’ve found someone who is scared and alone. Who is stranded, without a means of safely escaping. Who doesn’t know what to do to help themself. They are remembering the times they’ve been in this circumstance, and how they were helped and comforted. And it doesn’t matter if I do or don’t need the help and the comfort because it’s possible that I might, and so it is being given to me freely.

So I stand by the side of the road with a stranger, and we change my tire together. I am grimy and sweaty and unalone. I am cranky, and I am grateful, and I am alive.

Love Letters: Reasons to Be Alive is a yearlong essay series in which we acknowledge, celebrate, and examine the objects and experiences that keep us going, even through the hardest of times. The series is free to read, for everyone, forever.

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In the meantime, remember: Do what you can. Care for yourself and the people around you. Believe that the world can be better than it is now. Never give up.

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