Thursday, June 11, 2009

A Month and A Day


To get a feeling for our trip over the last few days print out the pictures below. Don't look at them. Now go for a drive and hold them out the window and try to steal a glimpse at each one, while driving, before letting it slip from your fingers and blow away.








I want to hold on to all of them and can't. These last few days I fell into a trap I'd avoided the whole trip up to now. In a last ditch effort to see everything it seems like we saw nothing properly.

We are sorely afflicted, too, by a desire to go home (and by too much affected colonial speech).

And yet, every time I pass a brown park sign I feel a stab of pain at something we are missing. I pass by signs like that all the time at home but don't feel the urgency, because, hey, we live there.

Here I want to turn off and see that thing before we leave, who knows when to return. I actually did it today to see Walden Pond. But the parking lot was locked and the park service has put evil brown posts all along the road to prevent you from even pulling over to look. So I glimpsed flat water through branches at 40mph.

If anything this trip has given me a profound sense that time is short for the vast wealth of things there are to do and see in this world. I vow that when I am home I will not return to sluggish complacency. When I see them, I am going to turn off and follow where the park signs lead.

7 comments:

Toni said...

yes! That's why I LOVE to travel so much! You never know exactly what you'll see or experience on any particular day!! There's always that little unexplored lane or small road or fascinating person you never knew about until you actually got there! That's the wonderful serendipity of exploring both old & new places!!!!

patricia said...

Oh my gosh, how I love that first paragraph. A perfect analogy.

What a trip you've had!

I can commiserate with that sense of needing to squeeze as much in as you can. At least you didn't fall into the trap earlier! I push my family to the limit when we travel. They all want to throw me out the window of the rental car by our last day. But how to resist a Learning Opportunity? I'm a sucker.

And Walden Pond as flat water through branches at 40 mph? I'd take it.

Stefaneener said...

I'd love to do some of that.

I'm looking forward to your learning at home again soon.

Karen said...

I know just that feeling you write about, when we were in Oregon last spring we about wrung ourselves out, visiting every museum and state park (and beach)... we left feeling like we'd been to too many places, but somehow had not seen enough.
I'm sorry you found Walden closed; here's a link to our visit last February so you can see a bit of what you couldn't see today :-)

http://stoneagetechie.blogspot.com/2009/02/how-to-teach-thoreau-to-little-guys.html

Karen

maria said...

I love love love your new banner.

Welcome home to you all!

Kristin said...

What eloquent writing. I feel your nostalgia. Maybe you are just in love with history. I'm glad that you appreciate "old stuff" so very much. Surely your passion for it has planted a seed for your daughters' future romance with it too. The more people who appreciate the past and learn from it, the better. Don't you think?

gina said...

I live in Massachusetts and have yet to venture to Walden Park. I always say- Next year...


hmmm.