Postings from The Lake District - I

Some time has passed since I shared a photograph from the Frist Center for the Visual Arts. Life goes on and as many people are, I too have been busy. A few months ago I decided to take my desire to strike out on an adventure seriously and packed my cameras and my bag for England. I joined an old friend and together we spent a week in Cumbria; in the Lake District to be more precise.

Time has been such that I have been prevented to settling down to review the photos I took. But today I felt that more time had gone by than I wanted and decided to sit down and begin work on my next 20 photos... book.. Here is the beginning.

This photograph looks as though it could have been taken anywhere. Not the case. This particular tableau is found in the garden at Hill Top Farm in Near Sawrey. Hill Top was the home of Beatrix Potter and this setting pays homage to her precocious creation, Peter Rabbit. 

The evening following my visit to Hill Top, I wrote to my wife telling her that I could see us settling into a quiet life of retirement in Near Sawrey. In that small hamlet, I imagine a life of reading, writing, puttering in the garden, walks in the countryside and sharing an evening of conversation with friends at the Tower Bank Arms.

A man can dream. 

I Dreamed of England

Gerrie and I used to live in England. This is not news. I have written here and there about our life there and a desire to live there once again. Yet, as in all things, life offers it’s twists and turns and the likelihood of again taking up residence in the United Kingdom appears distant. Still, it is a desire.

But while we wait for that day that may or may not come, we can still hold fast to our memories of life there. We can share our dreams of one day returning and we can make a visit home every now and then. That is what we are doing now.

We have spent this weekend pulling out and dusting off the luggage. We have sorted and re-sorted what cloths to take, and yes, we’ve come up with a few new things to take along. After all, when in England...

As we have gone through this exercise I have let my mind wander to the things that I miss most about England. There are a lot. We have made our lists of things we wish to do while we’re there but being careful not to put too much on the lists. Of the many things we would love to do, it has become more important to us spend time with old friends. In fact, of the twelve days that we’ll be, only four of them will be spent in London. Otherwise, we’ll be in the Midlands visiting in Leicester, Nuneaton and Hinckley; places an average visitor to England would most likely not visit, but home to our dearest of friends there. Who knows, we may manage a visit to Nottingham and up to the Peak District.

Exhausted following a climb in the Peaks

But now to some of the things that I miss.

I miss the taxi rides. I even miss the madness of the tube rides. 

Gerrie enjoying a brisk taxi ride

I miss taking a train to get to where I needed to go. 

I miss settling into a table in the side room of the Angel and Crown, pulling out my journal and spending a few hours writing. I used to do this over a pint or two of Caffrey’s Irish Cream Ale, but I understand that it is no longer on the menu.

I miss people watching at Leicester Square.

I miss the free museums. I would spend hours at the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square. In one room you could view Van Gogh’s Sunflowers and then set into the next room for Seurat’s Bathers at Asnières. Room 38 holds a nice collection of Canaletto’s, one of my favorite painters. Then there is Paul Delaroche’s painting, The Execution of Lady Jane Grey in Room 41 which is perhaps my favorite of the National’s collection. The way Delaroche used oil to present an almost satin look to the Lady’s dress and the delicacy of her hands will will hold my eyes for quite some time. This visit will hopefully include a stroll through the National, the Tate Modern and a few hours in the British Museum.

A day spent at the British Museum

I miss rummaging through the booksellers scattered around the city. It may be the small shops with tables outside near the British Museum in the lanes between Leicester Square and Covent Garden (I suppose they are still there). Waterstone's at Trafalgar Square was a favorite as well.

I miss stepping into the cheap London souvenir shops where I wouldn't purchase anything, but would have a chuckle at what people would actually buy to commemorate their time in the City. I would never buy those types of things. Right?

I miss an late afternoon glass of red and a plate of English cheeses at the Crusting Pipe in Covent Garden. There was no room for writing here as the time was spent listening to classical trios and quartets or being serenaded by the Royal Opera or English National Opera hopefuls. The Flower Duet from Lakmé is a personal favorite (it was played at our wedding as Gerrie came down the aisle). 

An afternoon at the Crusting Pipe

I miss walking through Hyde Park or stopping by a corner market and collecting a few things for a picnic in St. James’s Park. This was usually a pre-packaged egg salad sandwich and bag of Walker’s Salt & Vinegar Crisps. 

There is so much that I miss, but these things are the things I hope to not miss in a few weeks. There will be a few other things that we’ll accomplish. Gerrie wishes to spend a few hours in the Portobello Road Market and I want to visit Kensington Park to capture a good photograph of the Peter Pan statue. Taken together, these things will complete my hopes for London.  

Years ago I dreamed of living in England. Then we did. These past few years have been spent dreaming of England from time to time. It is exciting to know that in a few weeks  time I’ll once more walk on “England’s green and pleasant land.” And though I’ll do a few things that the tourist do, I will not be a tourist. I’ll be a friend who is making a journey to visit old familiar haunts and to have a cup of tea with dear friends. 

After all, when all is said and done, it is our families and friends (both near and far) that give meaning to life. In that, I am most truly blessed!

An "Ah-ha" Moment

15 October 1996

I have had this particular date on my mind for a few weeks now. My wife and I woke up that morning in Arquata Scrivia, Italy. Arquata Scrivia is a small town in the Province of Genoa, about 34 miles north of Genoa. We had fallen asleep the night before with a light drizzle of rain falling and woke up with the same light drizzle. If only it had stayed that way.

We were in Italy on a prayer walk. This walk, the Reconciliation Walk, was the outreach of our missions training class. For us, the walk began in Dijon, France on September 23rd and ended in Bari, Italy on November 24th. We covered a distance of 1,020 miles crossing the Jura Mountains, the Alps at Saint Bernard Pass and the Apennines. But we didn’t walk every mile. A good many of them yes. But not every one.

This is what we were doing in this small, obscure town in Northern Italy on this damp morning. We had our breakfast, packed our gear and set out. 

The drizzle became heavier as the first hours passed and finally gave way to a steady rainfall that accompanied us through the day. It would lighten up at times and become heavier at times. Light or heavy, it was raining all the time. About that day, I noted in my journal that “even the inside of my coat was getting wet. My sweater and undershirt were getting wet around the neckline and I could sense the wetness creeping higher up my legs. There was no keeping the rain out.” It was a rain that would eventually soak me, and everyone else, thoroughly. 

It was also becoming colder. About the only thing that would keep you warm was to keep walking. Normally we would take turns having a break from walking as a day would progress. But not this day. Walking fought back the chill.

In time, we made it into Genoa and found a small church where we would spend the night. There wasn’t much room, but enough to have a place to change and get dry, to cook a warm meal and to drop my pack and spread my sleeping bag. I laid down pulled out my journal to write. Gerrie was beside me, laying on her sleeping bag, reading. 

“Another revelation of today is the appreciation of dry socks, shoes and cloths. Also having a dry place to lay your head. This whole day, and other events and locations we have rested for the day have taught me the appreciation of the simple pleasures of this life. So often we chase after so much comfort feeling that they are the necessities of life. But when it comes down to it, we all need few things than we think.

“Laying here in my sleeping bag I have just come to understand that all I really felt was needed for this two months, is under my head. It is a nice understanding. True, if I were settled somewhere, which I will be sometime in the near future, I would like my books and music. But I know that it doesn’t take all these things to live. They are add-ons that can make a life more enjoyable, but they are not needed to live. I am beginning to understand more about the teaching the Jesus in Matthew 6:25-34. He will provide.”

This was one of those quintessential moments in life. An “ah-ha” moment when you catch a glimpse of something bigger than yourself. It was a moment in time when I could pause and truly say that I was happy in that moment.

Life is full of distractions. We race around doing all in our power to achieve, to acquire, to accumulate all the things that we were told “makes life worth living.” As Tom Hodgkinson writes in the preface of his book, How To Be Idle, “In the West, we have become addicted to work. Americans now work the longest hours in the world. And the result is not health, wealth and wisdom, but rather a lot of anxiety, a lot of ill health and a lot of debt.”

When Gerrie and I returned from foreign missions, this is world we returned to. It is not the world of our creating, but the world of our necessity. It is the world that demands a quickened pace simply to keep up. It is a world that chips away at dreams and says that you can’t do something. You can’t do the thing you want to do because it takes time that you do not have. It takes time that you should be working, achieving, acquiring and accumulating. 

But this is not the life I want. Is is not that life we want. So I dream. We dream. We dream about “one of these days” and wonder if we might be able to manage one or two them. We dream about striking out on an adventure again where the experience, or the lesson from the experience, is gained. We long for those “ah-ha” moments again where we are given a glimpse of something grand. Something spectacular!

Many moments in life are meant to happen only once. Yet still, there are moments that I wish for, that I dream for, to happen again. I pray that someday I'll have a moment again, like that evening in Italy, when I realize that what I have with me, is all that I need. That I am at peace in a moment. Living simply and simply living.

Gerrie and I don’t know what it is, or when it will come. We don’t know where we will be. It could be right here at home for all we know. But we know that something is ahead of us. We know that before we close our eyes for the last time, that there is still a time for us. A time when we will say, “this is what it is all about. This is our life. This is profound. This is God!“

Baseball and Art

Welcome to those few of you who check-in and read my weekly missives. I’ve not a lot to share this week, other than to say that I am away for weekend. Though we don’t often make it a yearly event, my daughter and I try to arrange a father/daughter trip whenever we can. This weekend, is one of those whenevers. 

We’re in Chicago!

If the rains from Isaac didn’t interfere, then we would have taken in a Cubs game yesterday. My daughter has not been to a MLB game before and what better place to see your first game than in Wrigley Field. 

Today we’re in the Art Institute of Chicago visiting the Roy Lichtenstein Retrospective. I am also gathering inspiration for the projects yet to come. We’ll probably write on the wall at Gino’s East. I imagine we’ll also have some deep dish pizza while we’re there. Paying another visit to Billy Goats is most likely in the plan for today. Not the best burger there is, but the atmosphere is not to be missed. I hoping to grab a few cheesy souvenirs as well.

I love hanging out my kids. Loved it when they were younger! Love it now!

So, this is a great weekend!  Hope yours is as well.

~ Greg

Being Outdoors

It has been a long time since we’ve gone camping. Mind you, camping is not something that we ever did that often, but something that we’ve thought about doing more often than we have. We talk about every so often. The conversations are the same and usually end with one or the other of us saying, “We need to get out more and visit the state parks.” Or, “You know, if we camped in the Spring or Fall, it wouldn’t be so bad.” We have these discussions then promptly file them away until the next time.

It has been so long in fact, that we’ve had to purchase some new gear to add to the older gear. We’ve spent a part of yesterday and will spend more time this afternoon familiarizing ourselves with a new tent and learning how to set it up, so that we will not look like complete buffoons when actually get to our destination on Thursday. We have been sorting through the old gear, washing what needs to be washed and cleaning other things as needed. And, all of it is needed. We are making such an effort that it demands we try to camp a bit more often as time goes on.

That is one of the blessings we have living in such a beautiful state. I am reminded of something Peter Jenkins said. After walking across America, a journey he chronicled in his books, A Walk Across America and The Walk West, he returned and settled in Tennessee. I have tried to find the exact quote, but can’t. It may be on a dust jacket lost years ago. Still, what he said was something to this effect. He said that after walking across America he came to settle in Tennessee because it was one of the most beautiful places he visited during his walk.

We have enough state parks to keep us busy for a while. Some are fairly close to our home and others will require a bit more effort. We’ve even thought of starting off down the Natchez Trace for a few days and finding places to camp along the route.

Being outdoors would cause us both to do something that we need to do badly; that being slow down some. Life seems to be constantly busy. Some of what keeps us this way is very good, but other times it seems we run for runnings sake. We have so much that we love to do; things that need to have more attention paid to them. If we were to take a weekend now and then to get away, to get outdoors, then we have put ourselves in a place where we can read more, write more and draw more. It is an opportunity to be creative.

We know this is important. We simply have to make it the priority is deserves to be. It would give us time to enjoy creation and experience some of those things that God has given us to enjoy.

As I look at the year so far, it seems that 2012 is becoming a year for going to new places and to trying new things. We’ve had our horizons stretched and our minds broadened. This week the adventure will take us outdoors as we travel to Shakori Hills, North Carolina to attend the Wild Goose Festival. The wild goose is a metaphor in Celtic Christianity for the Holy Spirit and the festival “at the intersection of justice, spirituality and art.” It offers music, discussion, art, film and time to reflect on ones personal journey. We expect to be challenged and we know that we’ll come away with a deeper, and perhaps, a more expressive walk with God. We expect to be able to look back  on those few days and cherish the time to be outdoors and to focus our hearts, minds and spirits on what it means to be a believer. 

Being outdoors. It is something, when we think about it, that needs to happen more often. There is always something to be sought after, to be enjoyed and appreciated, if one will simply take the time to walk out the front door. It is all a part of the journey.

Greg

In One Month

It has been just over a month since Gerrie and I boarded a plane for Los Angeles. Now that we’re home and looking ahead to the long hot summer there will be many times when we’ll think back on this month. We’ll think about the visits and time spent with family and friends. We’ll think about the cities we visited and the landscapes and cityscapes we were a part of.

In one month we visited Los Angeles, Chicago and New York. We stood on the steps of the Art Institute of Chicago looking across Michigan Avenue and saw where Historic Route 66 begins. And we were on Santa Monica Pier where it ends. Twice, our train ran just beside the route.

We had some very memorable meals with wonderful food. Then, we had some meals  that were memorable solely because of where we ate, though the food was only so-so. Sometimes, after all, it is about the atmosphere.

We walked through canyons of steel and concrete and paused where towers once stood and remembered that tragic day. Yet, in our reflective moments we celebrated the American spirit as we saw men constructing the next World Trade Center. In these canyons we found quiet respites. Places like St. Paul’s and Trinity Wall Street. The Gothic Revival church is a peaceful haven away from the busyness of the streets. The churchyard is the resting place for many a distinguished people. Among them are Alexander Hamilton and Francis Lewis, a signer of the Declaration of Independence.

Our eyes enjoyed the natural beauty of magnificent blue skies, sweeping coastlines and calming sunsets. We were mesmerized by the vastness of the Southwest and the  sweeping plains of the Midwest. We delighted in the beauty of the flowers in the mission of San Juan Capistrano. 

The hours spent at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Museum of Modern Art were inspirational. We soaked in the works of Van Gogh, Picasso, Monet, Seurat, Dali, Cezanne, Gauguin, Degas, Renoir, Rousseau and Toulouse-Lautrec. Then there is Warhol, Ernst, Lichtenstein, Wyeth, Hopper and Pollock. It was a visual feast!

We laughed until our sides hurt, enjoying “Peter and the Star Catcher” on Broadway. The next evening we learned exactly why Carnegie Hall is considered one of the best performance spaces in the world. The music of the Nashville Symphony Orchestra soared in this historic place!

Washington Square Park treated us to an eclectic mix of music and styles. Central Park showed us what a park should be with its mix of activities; people running, people biking, people strolling, people lounging on the grass, people doing jazzercise somewhere in the distance and people sitting on benches simply enjoying the day. The  visit to Strawberry Fields gave us a few moments to be still, to reflect, and to listen as a lone guitarist provided a soundtrack of Lennon and McCartney for those moments. 

In one month we experienced so much! We have added more memories to an already marvelous lifetime of memories and experiences.

In our lifetime together we have visited London, Paris and Rome; living for awhile north of London. I wonder why I waited this long to visit Chicago and New York. It is a regret. There is so much richness these cities. There is so much to be explored, to be experienced, to see, to do. 

Years ago, as an aspiring young actor in community theater, I’d lay awake at night and wonder about moving to a big city like New York. I would ask myself if I had the level of talent and skill necessary to become a professional actor. In time I decided I did not. It was the right choice. On occasion I wonder what would have happened if I had tried.  

But now, in my mind games of “what if”, London or Paris top my list of “where I’d like to live” cities. I do not feel, at this point in life, that I could live in either Chicago or New York. But I do know that I wish to arrange my life so that I’ll visit these cities at least once a year. In my mind I have already began to map out plans for 3- and 4-day visits. This  one month provided a glimpse of what lies ahead for future visits. We’ve only scratched the surface of new experiences and new memories.  

Onward.

Greg

Postscript:  While viewing some of the work that passes for modern art these days, I think to myself, “I can do that.” I believe it is time to clean out and convert the garage.

People on the Train: Part II

The Union Station in Los Angeles opened in May of 1939. It combines Dutch Colonial Revival, Mission Revival and Streamline Moderne styles of architecture. Though it is smaller that other Union Stations around the country, it is considered the “Last of the Great Railway Stations.” Because of its proximity to Hollywood, it has been used as a backdrop for a number of films and television shows. It is on this canvas that we first  observe an extremely unique person.

Gerrie and I had been sitting in two old chairs in the larger terminal hall for the better part of an hour. As the time to board our train approached, we gathered our luggage and moved closer to the hallway leading to the platforms. A few chairs were available so we took a seat to wait. 

     “We saw a very colorful fellow yesterday while waiting at the Los Angeles Union Station. He was dressed in simple shoes and very colorful socks; brightly colored flowers against a black background. He wore a rust colored trouser with the legs neatly rolled up to mid-calf. His shirt was a tight fitting black and white stripe. Though he wore a belt, he had thin black suspenders attached to the belt.

     “On on belt loop he had attached a wooden slingshot and on another was a change purse. On his head he wore a gray fedora with a red carnation. And from his ears dangled long feathered earrings; a black feather on one ear and a while one on the other.

     “He was dark complected - Italian perhaps - with black hair and a well-kept black beard. His mustache curled up at the ends.

     “He used his hands, whether he was counting out a few dollar bills or arranging his luggage, like he was a magician performing a slight-of-hand trick.

     “We have seen him twice on the train now; once in the dining care last night and again this morning in the lounge car. He is very outgoing and quite the conversationalist; eager to strike up a discussion with someone, anyone.

     “His name is Mo.

     “Mo and I talked a little this morning about art. He sketches from time to time and went back to his coach seat to bring me some of his work. It is interesting.

     “Mo lives in Albuquerque and he is going to the zoo there this afternoon to draw animals.

     “Mo added a clip on bow tie to his shirt today; a bow tie, a few buttons, and a small safety pin.

     “Mo is a gypsy!

     “If he isn’t, he should be.”

This was from my journal; an entry dated 04.24.12 @ 10:10 a.m. (MT).

I wish I had asked Mo if I could take his photograph. It is isn’t often that I run across a person who obviously has such a carefree zest for life. I would like to have had more of a remembrance of him.

Mo set across from us during dinner that first night on the train. He loved his wine and he loved the conversation. Whichever direction the talk took, he was quick on the trail. He was always so courteous in manners and in how each addressed each person at his table or serving his table. This is true of all his conversations I would imagine.

We saw one last time later that day. It was on the platform in Albuquerque. We were visiting with Gerrie’s sister and brother-in-law who had come out of meet us. Coming across the tracks was Mo. He was dressed as had been since the day before; coach doesn’t allow many changes in clothing I suppose. He had a bag thrown across his shoulder. With one hand he was pulling a suitcase with a Navajo pattern blanket tied to the handle with a length in cord. In his other hand he carried a shopping bag that held two pictures he bought from a street vendor in Los Angeles and a bright blue ukulele adorned with flowers. 

While on the train Mo gave me a postcard of the Union Station. On the back it had his name and address. It is on my desk now, along with a few other postcards, bookmarks, brochures and pamphlets from the journey. I think I’ll write him someday.

Back on the platform, I said farewell to Mo. I returned to visiting with my family. He was heading to the zoo to draw animals.

People on the Train: Part I

Train travel is about people.

There is something “old world” about train travel. It may not be the world portrayed aboard The Orient Express; Hercule Poirot is not sipping his creme de menthe at the next table. Still, there is a certain romanticism about being on a train. 

Train travel takes time. It takes a willingness to have conversations with total strangers during the course of a meal. It is learning that one couple splits their year between the southwest and the midwest so they can spend time with their grandchildren, or that a businessman takes the train to escape the boredom of airplanes. It is sharing a lunch with lady and her husband who are traveling to Washington so that she can receive a literary award for her first classic mystery novel. It is spending time listening to your steward share his dreams of someday becoming a singer. It is civilized. It is choosing to invest your time in a people.

Train travel is passing time. When you’re not sharing a meal having something to do is important. Having a book to read or write in, pens and a pad to draw in, or music to listen to will help to pass the time. Taking a nap or gazing out the window is a suitable pasttime. The world looks different at a few feet versus 30,000 feet.

Train travel requires courteousness. It means patiently waiting your turn to walk down a narrow corridor to the next car. It means watching the passing countryside as you walk slowly to dinner, behind a lady with a walker. It is standing aside while a man with oxygen makes a labored ascent up the stairs. It is returning the many smiles you receive as you make your back to your room. 

Train travel means having choices from a menu during breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Train travel means not being in a hurry. It is taking more than a few hours of your life to relish the scenes through the window. It is enjoying your own thoughts as you move across the country, all the while, looking forward to the next person you meet and the story they have to share. While most flights are to be endured, train travel is to be savored. It is like a fine dining experience. It takes time as you move through the courses; each one adding to the splendor of the meal. When it is finished, you reflect on the experience with great satisfaction.

I fear that long-distance train travel is becoming a thing of the past in our country. This saddens me. It is a simpler and more elegant way to move from place to place. It is slower and more thoughtful. While it still lasts we will travel by train when we can. From our room we’ll marvel at the beauty of the countryside and when it’s time, we’ll have great conversations over a reasonable meal.

Greg

Postscript:  Gerrie and I will be traveling to New York next weekend. We will visit with Peter and the Starcatcher on Broadway, look at a few of Monet’s Water Lilies and listen to the Nashville Symphony Orchestra perform Charles Ives The Universe Symphony at Carnegie Hall. However, please visit Sharing the Good Times next Sunday. I’ll continue People on the Train by introducing you to someone. 

On Seeing America

Gerrie and I have just returned from a ten day adventure! Our travels took us to Los Angeles, through the southwest on board the Amtrak Southwest Chief and ending with a few days in Chicago. It is the longest vacation I’ve had in many years. In the weeks and months to come I will share bits and pieces of the adventure. Here is a beginning. 

____________________

Among the back pages of my journal is a part of a paper napkin. It is the map that appears on the Southwest Airlines cocktail napkin. On it I marked the states that I have visited and made a list of the states I still needed to see. I kept the napkin and pasted it into the book. I discovered that there were still many places out there I wanted to see and determined that I would do what I could to visit these overlooked places. This past week I marked three of those states off of my list.

Though I was born in southeast Missouri, I have spent most of my life in Tennessee. I am used to the sights of farmland and rolling green hills. What I know of tall mountains comes from living a short while in Switzerland or from visiting Colorado a few years ago. I am familiar with oceans having lived near the Atlantic coast for a short while and with white sand beaches from years of family vacations to the Gulf Coast.

Waking up on Tuesday morning, I was greeted with a landscape that I have only known through photographs and films. A little past ten o’clock and we were in the lounge car looking north. We were somewhere between Gallup and Albuquerque. Flagstaff and Winslow were already behind us. This was my introduction to the Southwest!

The land there is barren. Stark. The soil has a red tint and is punctuated by gray-green shrub and sage brush. In the distance, say two to three miles away, stood hills. Perhaps these were mountains. They were a type of flat-top rock formation. Every so often there would be a small grouping of houses. These were trailers mostly and a stucco structure here and there. These were all on their own patch of ground with no grass and no trees for shade. Just the red dirt and the odd shrub. Some houses were abandoned and left to decay in the sun. I found myself looking for the bleached white skull of some long deceased animal. Like a Georgia O’Keeffe painting.

In time we’d begin to see rock formations more closely. These reminded me of the granite kopje formations we saw in Zimbabwe. Great piles of granite stacked atop each other or intricately pieced together like a giant stone puzzle.

As we continued east, the palette changes. The colors and texture of the land are different. The red soil gives way to the golden hue of the prairie. The landscape is dotted with scrub brush still, but more trees begin to appear. This scene stretches on for miles. Only an oasis of trees or a distant hill or mountain to keeps it from stretching  on forever.

This land fascinates me! It fascinates me the same way that the Bodmin Moor in Cornwall, or the Dartmoor National Park in Devon does. The land is stark and barren. It has the aura of still being untamed. I imagine these places can be brutal to humankind, just as I imagine the Southwest can be. Yet, it is beautiful and majestic in its own way! What may appear to be a land with so little can also appear to offer so much. One can imagine that there are endless possibilities in this land. 

I spent hours watching the countryside pass by. Looking out my window I thanked God! His creation is marvelous wherever you go and wherever you look. Whether it's a familiar scene in my neighborhood, a rolling hill in Tennessee or a stretch of white sand, He is present. Even in the harshest of places, He still causes life to happen and beauty to abound. For that, I am thankful! 

A few weeks ago I quoted Rich Mullins, “And there’s so much beauty around, for just two eyes to see. But everywhere I go, I’m looking.” As I watched the landscapes going by, I was reminded of another line from Rich, “Everywhere I go I see You.” God painted the marvelous pictures just outside my window in Arizona and New Mexico. His brush was still at work Colorado and even through Kansas as I slept. He is in and through it all. 

At the conclusion of this incredible ten day journey, I am left with this thought. If I live the remainder of my life without returning to the southwest, it will be a tragedy. 

A tragedy to me at least. 


Greg

Life Is A Highway

In Tennessee, the summers can be brutal! This is why we prefer spring and fall.

When the white flowers have fallen off the Bradford Pears in our yard, we start finding ways to be outside. We may set on our small deck in the back and talk or perhaps read. Very likely, we’ll plant some flowers and vegetables that we will soon neglect once the summer heat makes being outdoors uncomfortable. We will also begin to think about road trips.

Every so often Gerrie and I will take Saturday drives. It doesn’t matter what the price of gas is, we simply say we’re getting out and we go. We call these drives, “Two-Lane Tennessee”. We pull out a map of the state and think of which direction we want to go and then we set out. Our only real rule of the road is that entire journey must begin and end using on two and four lane roads; no interstates. William Least Heat-Moon’s called these, blue highways. In his book titled Blue Highways, he relates his journey through America using only backroads. He writes,

“On the old highway maps of America, the main routes were red and the back roads blue. Now even the colors are changing. But in those brevities just before dawn and a little after dusk - times neither day nor night - the old roads return to the sky some of its color. Then, in truth, they carry a mysterious cast of blue, and it’s that time when the pull of the blue highway is strongest, when the open road is a beckoning, a strangeness, a place where a man can lose himself.”

While our day drives can't compare to Heat-Moon’s epic journey, they do allow us to experience the personality of the highway. The countryside is more immediate and the character of the towns is there for discovery. There is no fast food on these roads. You search for a local diner or corner market to find your meal.

Our journey’s are usually not about the destination. Traveling east we discovered that many of the storefronts on the town square in Lebanon now trade in antiques and curios. I very nearly started collecting old suitcase during that drive. A turn towards the south will take us to Bell Buckle. There we found a wonderful variety of shops along the front street and a great lunch at the Bell Buckle Cafe. We never know what we’ll find, but we know we wouldn’t find it staying on an interstate.

Though most of our outings are in-state, we are not limited by this. One weekend we set our sites on Louisville, Kentucky. It was Gerrie’s birthday. As a surprise, I booked us into the Brown Hotel and arranged a dinner reservation at the English Grill Restaurant. That morning we drove north along U.S. Highway 31 W, known as the “Dixie Highway.” Our only goal was to arrive early enough in the afternoon to enjoy the surrounding of a grand hotel. This meant we could take our time.

Along the way we stopped at Cave City to walk around the Sleep in a Wigwam Motor Lodge. We found a used book store on Water Street in Horse Cave and spent time browsing through the shelves. In Elizabethtown we found a bench on the square and sat for while. We then saw the cannonball lodged in a building on the town square; a reminder of General John Hunt Morgan’s 1862 attack on the town. I also discovered the State Theater and took a photograph to add to my small collection of old movie house photographs.

Yes, spring weather makes us want to get out on the road. Soon we will pack up some snacks, put the cameras in the truck and queue up the music. We’ll unfold the map and one of us will close our eyes and point to a spot. That will be our destination. For a few hours we’ll leave behind the busyness of life and embrace the peace of an open road.  

I don’t know, perhaps I have a romanticized vision of what life was like when these roads were the Main Streets of America. I do know that taking a trip along these “blue highways” is one way that we break from the pace of this age. They are our portals to what we imagine was a simpler, less complicated time. It is a way for us to slow down and experience things that have all but been forgotten. We give ourselves the opportunity to see a marvelous countryside and have wonderful conversations. For these hours, we can forget ourselves and simply enjoy breathing in and breathing out together on the highway.

“And if I were a painter I do not which I’d paint.

The calling of the ancient stars or assembling of the saints.

And there’s so much beauty around us, for just two eyes to see.

But everywhere I go, I’m looking.”

                                        ~ Rich Mullins

                                           Here In America

Greg