Suspended Homelesness

The world is different a thousand miles from where I live. Startling, I know, but it's true.

Many years ago I spoke to a person from the middle of our country about their local mainstays; things you see on a daily basis that become meaningless. In my part of the world it was log trucks and saw mills. The Pacific Northwest is rife with them. No doubt it has some connection to the dense crop of potential 2x4's covering virtually every inch of the Willamette Valley's hills.

To my surprise, log trucks and saw mills weren't mentioned by the flat-lander. I asked where the mill was in their town. They didn't have one. "You mean, there is a part of the world where trees aren't thicker than grass?", I thought to myself.

Over the years, that one short conversation has had a profound impact on me. It slowly changed my thinking of the world in a way that would include the possibility that not all places were like my back yard.

Still, it's easy to be surrounded by what seems normal and forget that somewhere, thousands of miles away, the world is different.

I commute 140 miles, round trip, every other day. It's in that commute that I've come to notice cars. There's zillions of cars on the road at any given time. I am just one in an entire country of people that are in motion.

When I say 'in motion', I don't mean in that ubiquitous terminology spewed in political speeches or motivational conferences, I'm talking real-live, honest-to-God, moving through the air motion.

We - me and my fellow patriots of the country of Car - are suspended a short distance from the ground, homeless, place-less, neither here-nor-there at a speed unthinkable to our grandfathers every moment of every day. We are sleepless in our motion.

All one has to do to be a member of this country of Car is get in to their vehicle and drive. It's impossible, where I live anyway, to imagine not using a car.

This sparked my thinking about where there are routes, roads or trails that a car seems out of place. A place where motion is achieved by foot only. A place where you are not disconnected from the firmament for even one moment.

Where is this place? I suspect it's the better part of this great planet. Fact is, the country of Car is a country inside a country. My bet is that you'll only find the country of Car when you visit rich nations.

Getting from point to point quickly and easily is reserved for the wealthy, I guess. How fortunate we are to have the country of Car, or are we?