Simplicity

I think of the most wonderful things when I'm driving.  Well, I also think (and scream) horrible things during rush hour..  But that's not the point.  Take me down an old country road sprawling through fields with grazing horses and sprouting dandelions, and by the end of the ride, undoubtedly, I'll wish I had a pen and paper.

I grew up in the country.  Pastures, cows, abandoned old mills, cows, chickens, and lots of trucks.  We didn't have a farm, but they surrounded me as an adolescent.

via Pink Hedgehog Photos

When I got my license, the freedom to drive my car had me zipping around the curves of what used to be that dreaded bus route (first on in the a.m., last off after school).  Instead of going straight home after school, I'd take a long route to open the sun roof and blast whatever favorite band I was swooning over at the time.  Most days I ended up stopping and grabbing a receipt or if I got lucky, a real piece of paper, and jotting down some thought. I always promised myself that I would elaborate on it later, safely out from behind the steering wheel.  Most of those jots turned into poorly written lyrics.

The things I think of in the car are more like perfect openers for novels or characters formed in my mind while I wondered about where all of the other people driving (at that very moment) were going.  Family reunions, church, to bail a friend out of jail, to get on a plane and fly away forever.  If you're staring down an interstate resembling a deep, red pulsing vein of brake lights, the possibilities are endless and, for me at least, a bit overwhelming.

Which brings me to this.  There are so many people in this world, all with a feeling of singular importance.  If we all stopped thinking of ourselves (and rushing by one another aggressively) and opened up to focus on the greater good, maybe things like politics and economics wouldn't be so important.  Maybe life could be simpler.