“And suddenly you know: it’s time to start something new and trust the magic of new beginnings.”
~Meister Eckart
- On February 2, 2019 I left the safe haven of a small country town called Scottsburg to head for the big city of Atlanta Georgia…451 miles to contemplate what our time together would look like…
Although we corresponded daily… but Port Elizabeth is approximately 7 hours ahead of Scottsburg, Indiana…so while Mr. P was eating supper after work…I was in the middle of my work day…although we corresponded daily…it was normally in voice memos that we sent to each other…we hadn’t really spoken to each other in real time…which had it’s advantages and disadvantages…
Voice memos made it easy to say what I wanted to say in an uncomplicated and tranquil method…there was never any pressure at that point…just a simple flow of words…no thinking of how Mr. P was going to respond…and for him it was the same…
However, that was also a disadvantage…if there was something difficult to discuss or if I was unhappy about something…then I had to wait another 24 hours for a response…and that often felt like waiting on “pins and needles”…
The few phone calls that we had actually been able to experience had felt awkward and far more uncomfortable than the ease and depth of our voice memos to each other would have indicated…
and therefore…the solitary two day journey to Atlanta had questions bouncing around in my head like kids on a trampoline…and like kids…it was an exercise in futility in stopping them…
Mid-afternoon on a cold February day…I reached the Tennessee border
Tennessee…the country music capitol of the world…the 16th state to enter the union…The Great Smoky Mountains National Park is the most visited national park in the United States…and Tennessee Whiskey…
The American Civil War made a huge impact on Tennessee, with large armies constantly destroying its rich farmland, and every county witnessing combat. It was a divided state, with the Eastern counties harboring pro-Union sentiment throughout the conflict, and it was the last state to secede from the Union, in protest at Lincoln’s call for troops. It also provided more regiments to the Union than every other Confederate state combined. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennessee_in_the_American_Civil_War
Mr. P was interested in the Midwest States…although he had lived in the North-East and traveled to the US almost every year… he had not really seen this part of the country…so the 10 day journey that we decided on would take us from Atlanta…back through to Tennessee…and onto to Kentucky and Indiana…whether in silence or conversation…we had yet to find out…
It was a brave thing to do with someone that I had only spoken to on the phone…from halfway across the world…but then I have never been one for following conventional rules…where was the fun in that…
“I wondered about the explorers who’d sailed their ships to the end of the world. How terrified they must have been when they risked falling over the edge; how amazed to discover, instead, places they had seen only in their dreams.”
― Jodi Picoult, Handle with Care
Curiosity beckoned…expectation rising…I climbed back behind the steering wheel…turned the music up…hopping back onto that monotony of the interstate, exit signs and mile markers…the future…a misty unknowing…full of uncertainty and obscure dreams…
Threads of Thought 