David R. 6/21/04
I just remarked to Matty that “I need to write,” and he suggested I begin the next journal entry. When I said I needed to write, what I suppose I really meant was that I needed to think—just watching the countryside rolling by so quickly (we’re in Wisconsin at the moment, but not long till we see St. Paul, MN) sets me to contemplation, and writing is the silence in which I do my best thinking. I don’t know quite what it is about travel and seeing new places, new beautiful landscapes, that makes me thoughtful. Even the dull drive from Chattanooga to Atlanta has this effect sometimes.
Wisconsin is beautiful! The rich greens of the Midwest creep around the great lakes and up toward Canada, it seems. Rolling hills bushed with tree tops, great clouds rolling across our path, cool winds and cattle on a thousand hills. And fresh, fresh air!
Praise God for fresh air—the last two nights we spent in the hospitality of Anne in Chicago, a terrific hostess, but whose small apartment has the unfortunate feature of a cat named Zorro. Zorro is a black male cat, but as every cat is inherently feminine, he has certain awkwardly effeminate characteristics. Apparently, Zorro fusses at female visitors to the apartment but cosies up to menfolk. We tried to be polite, but the true amusement Drivingof cats is in playing with their minds. Sadly, I remember I am allergic to cats, so two nights in his presence left me sneezing and left my eyes well watered. I’m told we have two more cats to look forward to at our next stop. Joy.
Chicago is an amazing city! As we drove around the city, apart from enjoying the various buildings and peoples along Lincoln Park, I watched various persons as they went about their separate lives, but I found myself caring about them and what brought them to this place, and none of them felt like strangers to me. I suppose this could be because I was so obviously a stranger myself, driving around in a snappy car with a hardshell carrier on top and Alaska plates at either end. These Alaskan plates have a curious effect on people, more so than our Tennessee ones would’ve. People marvel at us and immediately wonder about the places we have seen and been, and what might’ve brought us so far. They (wrongly) admire us for the thousands of miles we must have come from the dark and mysterious places of snow, and reversely see in us their own desire to go so far. What is it that keeps people in one place, and what makes others roam? Our age is surely one for travel. Sometimes I am struck by how, even when traveling, we seek out the familiar or make for ourselves our own small sense of home. RVs are the most obvious example, and we’ve seen many of these—the comfort in RVs is deeper than plush chairs and room to stand in, it’s the sense of taking your home with you and having this concenient space which, wherever you go, is yours and only yours. It’s deep in the race for a man to want his own land, walls, floors, roofs, but the RV owner is one who cannot be without. Looking at a giant camper trudging down mile after mile of highway, I used to assume these were the diehard travelers—I was wrong, they too much love the familiar.
I love how fields of vegetables reveal themselves as you roll along adjacent to them. Comign toward one and looking across it, you see only a thousand heads of green bobbing along a gentle slope, a solid span of carpet, but as you follow its slope row by row flashes into view, one upon another, and each one is exciting. Standing still you could never have such a thrill—some things are most amazing in passing.
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