Traveling, Journeying

Travel.
Wake up in the early morning
When the sky is still dark and hazy,
When your mind is foggy
But you’re excited to be traveling.
The roadways and pathways
The seas and the sky stretch before you
Past the horizon,
Beckoning.

Decide to go
For an experimenting stroll
In the afternoon,
In a new, strange place.
Explore. Don’t care if you get lost:
There are people to greet,
And places to meet.
Quirky things, or
Sudden ideas.
The atmosphere,
The feeling of a place.
All of it
Is journeying.

Traveling.
Journeying.
Going somewhere new
Or somewhere old.
Someplace you’ve just made acquaintance with,
Or have met a dozen times before.

Traveling.
Journeying.
Doesn’t matter if it’s just around the block
Or farther.

Humpback Rock

I am the rock at the top of the mountain,
Battered by gusting, wild, keening winds,
Looking out over valleys and winding roads.
The seasons molt beneath my feet,
Changing day by day with the birds, with the trees,
In the ground, and in the folds of the land.
And so years pass by. A century is as nothing.
People carve their names into my age-old stone and go,
But I am content to be where I am.

The summit of Humpback Rock, which I just hiked yesterday.

Drive 0-1 Mile West. Ending point: Farm Country

Workers have been drilling on one of the main roads. Sometimes there’s a detour sign, sometimes not. When there’s drilling, there’s probably dust. And today, since it’s windy, a lot of dust was kicked up. This dust smelled. It smelled like a chemicals–to me, at least.

Whenever I come in contact with a strong smell, I have a tendency. I feel like tightening up and breathing in as little as possible. I don’t have a lung problem, or anything, but that it just the way my body wants to react.
So what? Just keep the windows rolled up so the dust doesn’t get in the car.

That’s where the problem is. You see, our car does not have air conditioning. (Yes. It is ouchy-hot in the summer!) And so, the windows were down. Sometimes that is annoying (hair getting in eyes, papers flying) but it is the only way not to almost die of heat. So the windows were down; the dust came in.

I got through it, of course, and I don’t really have that much of a reaction, but that little incident made me realize something:

I am very thankful I live in a suburban area, not even close to any large city. Here you can drive almost 0 miles out of town and you’re in farm country.

Here, right now, exactly where I am sitting and typing these words, I can look out the windows and see the trees swaying slightly, and their leaves billowing sideways. The field of thick, long green grass is waving in the wind.