the drive up north to where my friends live is two hours.
i don't have a lot of close friends up there... in fact, i could count them on less than one hand. some of them i've met recently, some of them i've known for years, but i trust them all.
the drive is a little long, but definitely worth it... especially now, and even in the heat with a car with a weak-sauce air conditioner.
it rained all the way up there, so i had the cool comfort of driving my warm and dry little bubble up through the deluge with windshield wipers furiously slapping the water away. instead of music, i listened to all my unlistened-to episodes of This American Life... the drive takes almost exactly two episodes.
usually, i listen to the episodes at home on my computer after work while i'm making dinner of some sort. this is the first time i've ever actually put my 'podcasts' on an ipod for use on the road, and i would consider it a success.
i found myself driving along and looking outside as i listened to ira glass' voice... listening to all the stories... i found myself looking at the endless sea of rice fields. every stalk looks like the exact same height as it's neighbor when witnessed at 60 miles an hour... every paddy looks like the rice paddy to the side. they are all stacked slightly so as to use the runoff of the rice paddy above it and so they cascade down to the sea around raised roads and ramshackle homes.
the sunset reflects in the water around each spike of green. the grey sky itself is reflected in the silver fields. i found myself remarking on the physical beauty of the place. i wanted to stop the car and walk about. i wanted to sit on a hillside and take it all in.
but i was in my little bubble rolling through the hills listening to ira glass' voice and contemplating the various stories of various lives... as well as my own.
and thinking about the sheer quantity of green that i was witnessing... and how as much as the country is now green, just 7 months ago it was that brown... with nothing green.
green to me is the color of freshness and rebirth. it is the color of both the struggle of life and the serenity that the struggle leaves behind in it's wake.
you can fit a lot of green in two hours
the drive is a little long, but definitely worth it... especially now, and even in the heat with a car with a weak-sauce air conditioner.
it rained all the way up there, so i had the cool comfort of driving my warm and dry little bubble up through the deluge with windshield wipers furiously slapping the water away. instead of music, i listened to all my unlistened-to episodes of This American Life... the drive takes almost exactly two episodes.
usually, i listen to the episodes at home on my computer after work while i'm making dinner of some sort. this is the first time i've ever actually put my 'podcasts' on an ipod for use on the road, and i would consider it a success.
i found myself driving along and looking outside as i listened to ira glass' voice... listening to all the stories... i found myself looking at the endless sea of rice fields. every stalk looks like the exact same height as it's neighbor when witnessed at 60 miles an hour... every paddy looks like the rice paddy to the side. they are all stacked slightly so as to use the runoff of the rice paddy above it and so they cascade down to the sea around raised roads and ramshackle homes.
the sunset reflects in the water around each spike of green. the grey sky itself is reflected in the silver fields. i found myself remarking on the physical beauty of the place. i wanted to stop the car and walk about. i wanted to sit on a hillside and take it all in.
but i was in my little bubble rolling through the hills listening to ira glass' voice and contemplating the various stories of various lives... as well as my own.
and thinking about the sheer quantity of green that i was witnessing... and how as much as the country is now green, just 7 months ago it was that brown... with nothing green.
green to me is the color of freshness and rebirth. it is the color of both the struggle of life and the serenity that the struggle leaves behind in it's wake.
you can fit a lot of green in two hours
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