Meeting Green Again For the First Time
It's been two years since I've seen green.
I realized this somewhere in Oklahoma. But it's even more apparent here at home in West Virginia, where the green stretches upwards into the sky on the soft rolling hills. Lush, rich, explosions of green. GREEN. I don't know how else to explain it. If you never in your life left the American Southwest, you'd never SEE it. Not even on a hi-definition plasma television. Green so green that it defines the word itself and can't be described with any other. And all natural green, too. Not carefully watered "grass" that's more like carpet. Not some low clinging bushes up the side of dry rock. Green.
Some other random thoughts on the trip home:
I've now driven in 32 different states, and while there are 18 still outstanding, I feel that with this sample size that it is pretty safe to say that the absolute worst drivers come from California and Ohio. This is not to lump every single driver from those states into one category, mind you. It is, like all generalizations, inadequate to the individual case. But drive across the country a couple of times. I think you'll agree with me. Also, Ohio and Illinois need to get with the rest of the country and raise their maximum speed limit to at least 70. And kudos to New Mexico. Not only is their speed limit 75, but Albuqureque drivers are the best city drivers I have so far seen in the country--polite, safe, and not in a race to kill me or their other fellow drivers. California drivers, especially on the 101, are the exact opposite. Oh, and the Ohio drivers? They suck because they like to move into the passing lane and then just sit there beside a car they are not actually passing, or are passing at a rate of 1 inch every five minutes. Get out of the way!
Lightning! Thunder! Almost two years since I had seen those either. Or rain so hard that you can barely see the car in front of you while the lightning flashes and thunder booms around you. How did I live without them for so long? Weather, real weather that makes you feel alive as opposed to having some nagging sense you're inside a soundstage or on the Truman Show.
There is another great thing about driving--connection. I can't speak that much for travel by plane--I've only flown four different times--but from what I know of the comparison, flying doesn't make you feel connected to the places you go. They become likel little islands, disjointed, disconnected, fragmented from the rest of life. But when you drive, when you feel the tires churning over that road, and know that road connects back through every single place you've been since you left your starting point, and that starting point, all the way to every place you will go and to your destination....I don't know how to describe it except to repeat that same thing--you see, really see, that it's all connected. When you see the gradual change from absolute barren desert sand tan, to brown intermixed with little shrubs of green, to the yellow-green of lands that get just a bit more water, to the lush green of the east--well you understand water better. If that makes any sense.
Goleta, California is connected to this place in Wheeling, West Virginia by a ribbon of pavement that threads through the heart of the country, unbroken and stretching 2435 miles. Seeing that again makes me feel personally more connected as well--my past to my present, my current residence to my past ones, my current life and my past choices.
And it begs one final question--how did I ever leave hills that are so green?
I realized this somewhere in Oklahoma. But it's even more apparent here at home in West Virginia, where the green stretches upwards into the sky on the soft rolling hills. Lush, rich, explosions of green. GREEN. I don't know how else to explain it. If you never in your life left the American Southwest, you'd never SEE it. Not even on a hi-definition plasma television. Green so green that it defines the word itself and can't be described with any other. And all natural green, too. Not carefully watered "grass" that's more like carpet. Not some low clinging bushes up the side of dry rock. Green.
Some other random thoughts on the trip home:
I've now driven in 32 different states, and while there are 18 still outstanding, I feel that with this sample size that it is pretty safe to say that the absolute worst drivers come from California and Ohio. This is not to lump every single driver from those states into one category, mind you. It is, like all generalizations, inadequate to the individual case. But drive across the country a couple of times. I think you'll agree with me. Also, Ohio and Illinois need to get with the rest of the country and raise their maximum speed limit to at least 70. And kudos to New Mexico. Not only is their speed limit 75, but Albuqureque drivers are the best city drivers I have so far seen in the country--polite, safe, and not in a race to kill me or their other fellow drivers. California drivers, especially on the 101, are the exact opposite. Oh, and the Ohio drivers? They suck because they like to move into the passing lane and then just sit there beside a car they are not actually passing, or are passing at a rate of 1 inch every five minutes. Get out of the way!
Lightning! Thunder! Almost two years since I had seen those either. Or rain so hard that you can barely see the car in front of you while the lightning flashes and thunder booms around you. How did I live without them for so long? Weather, real weather that makes you feel alive as opposed to having some nagging sense you're inside a soundstage or on the Truman Show.
There is another great thing about driving--connection. I can't speak that much for travel by plane--I've only flown four different times--but from what I know of the comparison, flying doesn't make you feel connected to the places you go. They become likel little islands, disjointed, disconnected, fragmented from the rest of life. But when you drive, when you feel the tires churning over that road, and know that road connects back through every single place you've been since you left your starting point, and that starting point, all the way to every place you will go and to your destination....I don't know how to describe it except to repeat that same thing--you see, really see, that it's all connected. When you see the gradual change from absolute barren desert sand tan, to brown intermixed with little shrubs of green, to the yellow-green of lands that get just a bit more water, to the lush green of the east--well you understand water better. If that makes any sense.
Goleta, California is connected to this place in Wheeling, West Virginia by a ribbon of pavement that threads through the heart of the country, unbroken and stretching 2435 miles. Seeing that again makes me feel personally more connected as well--my past to my present, my current residence to my past ones, my current life and my past choices.
And it begs one final question--how did I ever leave hills that are so green?