About Tanja Hoagland

Accomplishments: I write for a living.

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One thing I’ve noticed on about pages. You either get someone’s list of what they hope people want to know, a list of societally appropriate accomplishments, a branding/marketing extravaganza, or something rather personal. I always prefer the something rather personal.

You and me, we can’t be contained to an about page, none of us can. We are dynamic. We shift. We change with each intake of breath.

We are multi-facteded and layered.

One of my layers is an interest in minimalism.

My version of minimalism is an experimental tour into the nature of attachment… or some would say detachment.

I found myself wanting a life like Thoreau, and living life like a mess instead. My mess is still with me, but minimalism helps me keep it contained. You can read about that here if you want, with my journey from packrat to minimalist.

But I don’t walk, talk, breathe minimalism. I’m not a billboard of less, sharing that one static message with the world. I’m something more as well, dare I say, a real life human having a human experience:

Valley of the Blue Velvet Couch

When I was sixteen, after my sister ran off to Africa, I inherited her 1954 oldsmobile, the two-tone green beauty. It must have been the late 80′s, early 90′s that I drove that beast around town.

It had this smell that was just absolutely amazing. It smelled like everything that was right with the world, with the slow, with the things that had been around for a while, gotten a little earthy, started reintegrating their integrations.

Sometimes I’d just sit in that old car. Sometimes I’d just breathe that musty old smell and listen to my tunes.

And I’d swing that giant steering wheel around and putt-putt down the road, with the tinny shrieks of my old buddies Trent, Perry, keeping me company from the cheap tape deck by my side.

That car couldn’t make it far, being rather late in life, and in need of some good tending, so my distance was limited. I’d take on Clearwater or Saint Pete with no trouble at all, those trips over to Tampa though, and Port Richey to see Christy…. they added up.

I didn’t mind being limited though. There was plenty to keep me busy in county too and for that very simple trade-off, I got to experience divinity in driving, the 1954 oldsmobile, with her two-tone green sexy good looks, hardly marred by the bondo spot waiting to be sanded, by the accidental dent in one door…. That old girl drove straight and true, her airplane pointing forward, her roll-up windows working like a sweet, sweet charm.

Years after my girl was sold off to a dealer I was rummaging in an old New Orleans thrift shop. In their piles of faded architectural delights I spotted an aeroplane, just as straight, just as true as the one on my old girl.

I contemplated buying that old hood ornament, as a piece to remember her by, but something held me back, a memory of that sweet old smell, driving straight and true.

All I had in my hand was an old chunk of metal. My car, the real magic, she would live on stronger and truer in my memory than she ever would in a trinket, a thing.

She was living in the valley of the blue velvet couch, with the seagulls overhead, listening to tunes and exuding that sweet, sweet smell, that sweet old musty smell.

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