Driving thoughts

July 9, 2011

We’re on our way home from the beach, about halfway to Cincinnati, I’m sitting up front, Theresa is driving, and Arnie and Nick are buddies in the backseat.  We just passed through the majesty of the Smoky Mountains.  The drive from North Carolina into Tennessee alone makes me want to get out of the car and stay for a while.  There are many places in the country that strike me momentarily as worthy of attention, but this part of the country, the Great Smokies, consistently draws me in.  Years ago on a trip back from the beach with my family, we stopped at a gas station right at the border of Tennessee and North Carolina, and I thought, “this is where I want to live.”  Surrounded by mountains and rivers, I used to think I’d be a great river guide in the many tributaries that weave through these parts.  A dancing, teaching river guide?  I imagine myself to be freckled, and a little dirty having spent the day on the water, tired muscles, ready to eat vegetables delight from our garden.  And there is a small child running around outside, also tan and dirty.   Nick is a carpenter of sorts, he makes special order furniture and is the garden tender.  Or the cheese maker, or he is a teacher in town.  And life is so great that all of our friends and dance community move down to the mountains and the river. 

Or we enjoy the moments that we’re in.  I walked to the end of the island yesterday, on our last day at the beach and I thought for a long time about how to really purposefully tuck the sensations of the wind and the water into the folds of my brain, so that on a bitter Chicago day, I can be lifted a little by one of my favorite places in the world.  It struck me, rather than trying to memorize the details of the shells on the beach, or the tide pool with a lazy little fish, or the sun pushing through the clouds to settle on my shoulders, that really investing in each moment, being present, will effortlessly create lasting memories.  I don’t have to work at it.  I just have to be in the now.  And, sometimes that’s a relief.