Home
Effortlessly slipping back in time, that’s what it was. Well, perhaps not effortlessly. It took three days and fifteen hundred miles to make that trip. What was effortless was transitioning through the pockets of values each state and population held on my way there.
Big cities and small form around the practicing values held in the hearts and minds of individuals gathering in one place to form family. Agreed upon associations and presentation of like minds, the structure of law to prevent breakdown of ideology and also create some sort of equilibrium we call “fairness”; the family becomes society.
Varying levels of home-like comfort, accepted values, draw individuals to specific societies. Whether these are wanted values, or established values, the end result is a need to fit in with those of like mind, attitude, presence.
The following stood out to me.
Atlanta, as a city, was massive to me. As in having a weight, a bearing that seemed founded in squat, dense lodestone. I drove through the heart of it, pleasantly spending time in traffic that allowed me to observe its scope from the ground level. There was such movement, such flow of being that had some place to go, some place to get to now. Concrete, steel and glass formed by hand and machine, by creative minds taking time to imagine a presence, an interconnected flow and travel that would appease both function and form - as long as it didn’t get too high off the ground. And it was unmoving humid. Living in Florida I understand humidity, but Atlanta’s humidity was on a massive scale, no ocean breeze to move it along.
Paducah Kentucky stood out to me as well. There was more a level of comfort there, homy-ness, than I expected. I loved the mountainous pocketing of it, nestled and hidden away, approachable through roads dotted with slow moving semi trucks cut in the rock earth. Sheer yellow and brown limestone walls topped with green…this was earthen massive, a surrounding panorama of backlit mountain and clouds with not enough lift, skirting them like vaporous frill.
I took time sitting in a local mall, wanting to observe the people. Here’s what came of it:
Observation 8-2-11 Kentucky mall
A stork lady walked quickly past, her upper body lean and speed only emphasized her "escaping a predator" air, her head snapping side-to-side as she carried her bag in one folded "wing"
Everyone, a small group overall, seems to be in a hurry, many making an appearance repeatedly moving through the central crossing; it is not a big mall. One teen and his friends try to make a sale of a plastic bracelet with only his personality the marketing tool: rambunctious, too eager and pleading, yet sure of his smile. Hasn't sold it yet...I'm fairly sure he won't.
The mix of fashion here is an order of magnitude different from Tampa Intl. Mall, seems here is a lot less care about it, a home grown amalgam more closely tied with where they want to be, rather than what or who they want to look like.
Then there was the state of Illinois. It is a long state. There is a lot of corn. That was the majority of my seemingly endless trek through. Corn. Sky. Long, uninteresting roads. And it was seemingly endless. Cell phone service was out for thirty minutes at a time, not a pleasant thing when you are using the phone map feature to guide your way.
And did I mention the corn and sky?
Northern Illinois was dotted with wind turbines, massive grey and white pinwheels forcing the air to servitude. As unattractive as they were on the horizon, and jutting up behind and around homesteads, it was certainly more interesting than…any guesses?
Next was Wisconsin. Wisconsin was felt in the air, a cooler, cleaner quality that allowed my body to feel rested just driving through. It was home. It was as if some genetic expression was being satisfied, some weight of the world was being removed. It was sturdy, green and gentle hills touched by four crisply distinct seasons. Family moved over it, on earth turned by plow. Through hardship, toil, the satisfaction of a days work behind them, a flavor of nature lovers living with the land, valuing it and the life abundant.
A family reunion, my grandma’s family on my mother’s side, brought me in touch with smiling, energetic faces and minds, some cousins I hadn’t seen since they were five or six or younger. Most had children of their own, which only added to the number of names I had tendency to forget. Throughout all my interactions with them, there was the unerring tilt toward witticism and humor, a distinct need for playfulness from the majority of them. A genetic trait? I found out later on the swings and climbing equipment that none of that was lost on the children, my younger brother (now forty) among them, as he walked backward on a rope with nearly the same balance skill he had had as a child.
Impressive to not lose ones childhood talent with all that life throws at you. Home is where you get to flex it, to play…and they have to accept you.
