Drivers Diaries

Hope Road

Driving on a Saturday noon learning Spanish from a couple of Scots, I pass a white pony wearing a blue jacket. And sun dances on the Flat River in a late winter thaw while poplar trees cast their grand shadows across the road. There is a pontoon boat anchored on the shore of a watering hole in a field where cows graze.

Here the trees are nomads that stayed in one place too long. The roots grew up through their feet and anchored them, immobile for eternity. As the wind blows, they moan. Longing to be free. Birds nest in their outstretched arms and whisper stories of their travels in the nomad’s ear.

The sun sets on another winter and electric blue clouds look down on the pony in the blue coat, the cows grazing, and the beached pontoon.

The dusk pushes me on through these mid-Michigan towns. Past the husks of rotted old cars that litter the landscape, where there are more abandon homes than chances to live the American dream. All this along the road called Hope.

Drivers Diaries

Social Interaction

I walk out of a place and do the awkward excuse-me-two-step with a woman walking in
I look her in the eyes, smile kindly, and say excuse me. She looks past me, making no effort to be polite.

It is like this too often. And I know why so many people hate. I am angry too. Not understanding why I shouldn’t be worthy of manners.

Seconds before my little enlightenment, I had thought she was beautiful. Elegant.
Now her mask was pulled away, her ugly nature shown to me. And I wonder; how many of her friends never see this reality that she is?