From The Place I Love

As I went this morning from the place I love to the place finances demand that I be, my thoughts went down a well-worn road. Someone once said that we can infer much about a man by examining what he thinks about when he is free to think about anything at all. At certain predictable times — when I am driving, when I am mowing the lawn, when I am washing dishes — my mind so frequently drifts to thoughts of God, of the eternal, of the un-graspable metaphysics of this earthly life. At such times, I tend to think of my place in this world, the chances I’ve missed or ignored, the opportunities squandered. I think of the nature of suffering, wondering if I’m a fool for believing certain things I believe, wondering how it will all turn out in the end, on the other side, when this sojourn is over.

But as I drove, I found that my thoughts merely skimmed these weighty subjects and then became absorbed in watching the landscape as it passed. The hay fields, combed and neat, looking like Japanese rock gardens with their striped, curving patterns. The crow, winging his way across the eastern sky, being pursued by two mockingbirds, having no doubt come too close to one of the fierce little nests. The pocket of mist in a hollow, looking like someone had dropped a truckload of cotton balls down there. The stand of oaks shimmering in the morning breeze, hiding the waterfall from view until October’s chill thins the now-green leaves.

And then down off the mountain, into the little town at the bottom, with the gas stations and food joints, with elderly men walking their little dogs before the day’s bustle begins, the silent and dark library, the doctor’s offices, the high school in its fiery preparations for the end of the year and prom and graduation, the cirrus clouds in thin streaks across the sky above the Presbyterian church’s steeple, the grocery store and its already-packed parking lot, the young man who pilots his bicycle along the shoulder of the road on his way to work each day, the garbage trucks, roaring like dinosaurs as they move from business to business, lifting dumpsters into the air and emptying them across their backs and slamming the empty steel boxes back onto the asphalt, the people in line in their cars, getting their seven dollar coffees.

Then into the parking lot at work, parking under my shade tree and sprinkling crackers on the red mulch for the crows, my longtime friends, walking to the office building, feeling the familiar constriction of my chest as I near the door, near the time of shutting out the beauty of my home and the peace of my morning drive, near the time of noise and ugliness, of gossip and backbiting and pettiness of every flavor, of power struggles and internal politics and the thousand manipulative deceits that make up the average working day.

But throughout the day, when I get the chance, I will go to the windows and look out at my old vehicle waiting beneath the tree, waiting for my return, waiting for our drive back up into the mountains, back to the green, flowered refuge of home. When I see my car sitting out there among the other cars, I think of a scene in the movie “Master And Commander: The Far Side of the World,” a scene in which the captain of a British warship tells his men that their ship, even though they are on the far side of the world, is their home. “This ship,” he says, “is England.” And so that’s how I feel when I see my aged, unimpressive car, a car without a camera or GPS or fancy stereo or smart-parking technology. During the hours when I am forced to face my wage-slavery, my car is home.

What a remarkable and wildly unpredictable world I live in, and what a life I lead. A life where I am battered by the very presence of my coworkers and their voices, a life where my happiest times are when my wife is at home with me and my dog is watching me and I am digging in the dirt or reading a book or listening to a beloved piece of music. How fragile my happiness seems. And how profound.

How will it all turn out in the end, on the other side, when this sojourn is over?

~ S.K. Orr