On the shady side...

It was good to take the "shady side" on the way back from LaCrosse this past Sunday.

Let me explain.

There are three major ways back to St. Paul from LaCrosse. The first is the open road on the open prairie, interestate 90 and highway 52. It's fast but in the late afternoon the sun beats down mercilessly on the left side of your face and rolling down your window only makes a small difference. On the Wisconsin side there is highway 35 which snakes along the Mississippi river and is astoundingly scenic, a road with twists and turns and small towns clinging to the sides of the bluffs. Between them is highway 61. It, too follows the river on the Minnesota side but it doesn't have as many twists and turns. Best of all, on a hot fall day it offers the cool mottled sunshine of a mountain valley as it meanders under the bluffs on its way north.

Sometimes people think all the driving bothers me but, in truth, I enjoy the time in my car. There is a peace there, the sense that the world can only come in as far as I let it. I often turn my XM radio on to channel 14, "Bluegrass Junction", and spend a few hours drifting with the music through the valleys and small towns.
Once in a while I listen to baseball, the one game that just can't be rushed yet remains full of poetry and drama.

I suspect that refuge is in short supply these days. We've created a world where words and images are being constantly dropped on us, a never ending blitz of pandering chasing exhibition that at its best leaves us exhausted. We've become caught somewhere between our inability to live without it all and our deep yearning for a moment of peace and quiet. Even when we go on vacation we bring a laptop along.

It would be interesting to see what would happen if everyone in the world would simply take a day off from it all. Turn off the TV, unplug the computer, leave the cell phone at home and the car in the garage. Listen only to beautiful music, or better yet just the sounds that nature provides. Perhaps read a book, not a stupid trashy one but something classic, something that makes you think.

Either we would probably all go nuts or a revolution of the best kind would break out in a planetary scale.