The Road

I don't know just when I fell in love with the road. Is it how it winds and disappears on the horizon, or who you might pass along the way? Being on the road is like being in a moving painting, brush strokes of moments that might never repeat themselves.


There are many ways to find yourself on the road; to see someone you haven't seen in a long time, to find a better job, to go to a chile festival in some random small town, to fill a treasure chest with the jewels of gathered longings. I've planned entire routes around the rumor of a blue ribbon award winning apple pie, or a bowl of a South Carolina diner's peanut soup.


Sometimes my favorite states are the ones people warn me I won't like. I found Ohio to be magical and cozied into Iowa's endless corn fields. Such vastness can cause you to fall back into yourself. Who am I? How did I get to be here? Great awakenings can come just by finding yourself in another town's daily life.


Just how does the sun set in Oklahoma? Where does Route 66 still live and die along the way? Is Texas really as big as they say? I'm here, what's over there?


I don't know just when I fell in love with the road.