Well-Intended / "Autopia"

My first car was a 1969 Volkswagen Squareback painted pumpkin orange.

I was 16 and couldn't wait to stop taking the school bus with the freshmen. I failed the practical driver's test on the first attempt and waited impatiently the requisite two weeks before attempting again to parallel park without rubbing my tires up against the curb.

The stodgy squareback didn't exactly reflect the chic image I wanted to project. I had hoped for a fresh little convertible, but was grateful for freedom. At lunch, I drove classmates to the Golden Spoon for sugar-free fat-free yogurt topped with gummy bears and after school we piled in for cross-country practice. In the ample hatch back storage compartment, I kept baskets filled with schoolbooks and workout clothes as well as beach and beauty supplies. It became a mobile locker of sorts.

We all had cars it seemed, and like in so many high schools, the students' parking lot glittered with new imports while the teachers drove reasonable family transport. My father stated that all kids should drive a car made the year they were born. The Squareback took me on many long poetic drives down Pacific Coast Highway overlooking Laguna Beach and thus met her fate one sunny afternoon when my boyfriend fed me an M&M at the same moment the car in front of me stopped for an elderly pedestrian.

It's the only car I've totaled. You never forget your first love.

Since, I've driven a Rabbit convertible, a little Miata and a yellow Audi. My current car was a gift from my in-laws after the birth of my (now 11-year-old) daughter. She fears I'll stick to family tradition and save it for when time she gets her license. A silver Lexus SUV, it gets no more than 18 miles to a gallon and has a front window that once down, winks open-and-shut, open-and-shut a half dozen times before it finally stays closed. But, it's fully outfitted for life.

In the back seat, each child has a pair of beach shoes and a baseball cap. There are a few emergency bottles of water and a pad of Mad Libs. I keep sunscreen in the glove box along with a bottle of sunscreen, baggie of ponytail holders, a toothbrush, notebook and pencil as well as a pair of garden pruners; because, you never know.

I've always wanted to be one of those people with a perfectly tidy car. Not a chance. My car is almost everywhere I am and it reflects my travels with ticket stubs and receipts, sand and shopping bags. Our neighborhoods are constructed with drivers in mind. No one walks. As I go up and down, up and down the Post Road most afternoons, I realize how many times I've been to the school or past the hardware store that week. I run out to the market for a loaf of bread or a bottle of tonic water and a lime just because I'm in the mood. On an impulse, I say, "let's go to the dog park." And we hop into the car and drive a mile in order to give the dog some exercise and enjoy a lovely walk before dark.

I don't think anything of the little trips I make, all within a dozen miles of each other in our little town each day and every week, I fill my tank with 16 gallons of gasoline and try not to think about it.

I won't change the world by condensing my errands or carpooling to the museum, taking the train to the city or making the kids get out the door in time to take the bus to school. But, as I consider ways I can decrease my dependence on fossil fuels, I have to address the most obvious direct contact I have with petroleum; when I squeeze the trigger and gasoline fills up my car's tank. Sure, I use moisturizer with petrochemicals and my electricity is likely mostly oil-derived.

And those are things I am trying to change, too. But if I could go to the gas station half as much, how would my life change? And how would we alter the way we design our suburbs?

Krista Richards Mann shares her "Well-intended" column with the Westport News every other Friday. She can be reached by e-mailing kristarichardsmann@gmail.com.