I shall drive a different road today,
to a different destination - a conference in Fond du Lac. Will driving a different road make me a different person? Yes, it always does, for all of us. Isn't that the substance of this whole proposition? We are the sum of the various parts of our experience.
Should I have an auto accident driving to Fond du Lac this morning, I would be a very different person indeed.
It rained off and on yesterday; was wet throughout the day; and cold by afternoon. At 9:30 p.m. I was driving home from the first day of the conference in Fond du Lac in the darkness, remarking to myself how much different the world looks at that hour.
Imagine an even darker sky. Imagine Indians on the plains and in the woods, who might or might not be intent on doing you harm. Imagine wolves, big grey wolves.
The world looks much different through the darkness of an ordinary night; and it looked different to our pioneer ancestors settling themselves into a new and strange land.
We are not many generations removed from them. From horse and buggy to walking on the moon - my Gramma Allen saw them both. It is but three long lifetimes back to the founding of our country, isn't it? That's how close we are to history, and how far.
There is a full moon over the roof of the house as I walk out to the pick-up at 6:30 a.m. There is a very heavy dew on the windshield. The air is cool.
In the east, a sunrise. In the west, the moon hangs like a Yellow Delicious apple ripe and ready for plucking, ready for tooth.
A light and lovely haze to the east, a National Geographic photo shoot I am driving into. This should be the early morning plains of Africa: the prey moving, the hunters waking, smelling the new day on the breeze.
There is a line of clouds low in the east, over Lake Michigan I presume. The sun is behind them. I am driving into sunrise, an unusual morning for me, a fresh way to look at our days, looking east rather than north, looking into the light.
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