On the road (again)

I’m on the road again. For a short art trip through the South. Ahhh, the sweet smell of diesel exhaust. The chirp of car alarms in a rainstorm. The gaggle of chain stores clustered at highway intersections . . . 

(The photo above was my first landfall in Georgia.) 

It’s easy to make light of the commercial homogeneity of America . . . Yet for every highway exit crammed with the services you welcome, there are three with none of those. 

If you want to escape the standard Gas Food Lodging options, you can.

It’s analogous to the way we live our lives. If I want to escape the regularity of my days, I can . . . 

. . . take the long way home

. . . call a long-lost friend and skim the decades between our last conversation

. . . find a small service to perform some anonymous somewhere (a favorite is to take just a minute to clean up a public restroom, leaving it a wee bit better for the next person)

. . . take a walk in a new area

. . . look passersby in the eye and say hello

I can day trip from my regular life with just the smallest effort.