Counting The Cars

Play It Loud

When driving on the open road, my soundtrack carries me over each hill and along the lengthy straightaways (sees “The Soundtrack” from December 2012) as my constant companion and closest emotional guidepost.  And on the ideal occasions, when the tepid temperature cannot be kept from me by a single pane of glass, and the sporadic cars cannot be considered traffic, and the music seemingly leads the car forward, I roll down the windows, turn up the volume and sing terribly relishing in these most perfect moments of life.  When a song touches me this way and the world around me urges me to envelope myself in its melody and lyrics, I know not to resist.  Traveling solo happily lends to such behavior.

And as I entered New Jersey, number forty-eight in the quest of Project Fifty, through its northernmost tip, my intentions never included seeing the bulk of the state.  I would just graze the mountainous regions along the Pennsylvania/New York tri-state border, skipping the cities, the seashores, and the famed Garden State Parkway.  And one line from one song echoed in my head, and within moments, blasted from the windows of my rented car, “Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike, they’ve all gone to look for America.”

More Than A Number

With only a few Jersey miles behind me, an obelisk in the rolling hills distracts me, darting in and out from behind the trees.  As the road twists and turns, I crane to see the structure and attempt to devise a route closer to its base despite the intentions of the pavement.  A monument here seems odd and out of place, but even more unusual that I failed to notice it on my atlas.  Even with my short slice through the state, how did I miss the focal point of High Point State Park on my map?  I continue to approach, and it appears to grow in stature as I wind my way to its ground floor.

 

The monument to New Jersey’s veterans reaches more than two hundred feet into the brilliantly azure autumn sky, and I decide to conquer its two hundred ninety-one steps.  With a number of stops along the climb, I ascend to its peak and observe the distant mountains, the neighboring states, and the brushes of autumn painting brilliant colors on the forest of trees beneath me.  When I finally decide to return from my perch, I stop and strike a triumphant pose, and resume the blaring levels of Simon and Garfunkel.  But rather than count the cars, or the steps, or the states, I bask in my random discovery tucked in the corner of New Jersey.  And then off I go.

And the Moon Rose Over an Open Field

Simon and Garfunkel

There is no sound of silence in the hum of office life.  A wheeled chair bumps into a desk surface, a soft drink can fizzes open, the arriving elevator dings, a stapler beats a stack of papers into submission, and a muffled conference call yammers in a nearby office.  From my monochromatic desk I hear a pair of shoes clomp down the hall, a less-than-private conversation whispered in the hallway, the heavy stairwell door slamming shut, a fax machine chugging along unaware of its virtual obsolescence, and the overhead vent blowing recycled air down upon me.  The automated reminders pop up on my computer and their dings rouse me momentarily from my catatonic routine.  For no better reason than complete disinterest, I snooze each one for another hour with a click, click of the mouse.  I drown them in the maddening blend of overlapping sounds that fill my day with their numbing office echoes.

Amid the droning functions of the office and its constant, dull soundtrack, the occasional snippets of easy-listening background music waft through the noise and I heard a familiar soft song from Paul and Art.  Typically distant music just fills the empty space between white noise and printers churning out rhythmic copies, but on this day, a handful of words tumble across the office and I jot them down in my at-hand notepad.  “I’m empty and aching and I don’t know why,” the man singing softly muses to the fellow bus passenger sleeping at his side.  For me, amid all the audio clutter, I hear these lyrics above all other sounds and I understand the sentiment of needing to speak words even if no one hears them.  Feeling a familiar frustration coupled with just as much internal uncertainty in the midst of all the surrounding repetition and routine, I stare at the words on the paper scribbled between the reminder to confirm tomorrow’s meeting and the incident number issued by the IT department for the umpteenth computer challenge.  By the end of the song I still strain to hear the melody over the surrounding cacophony, but it occurs to me how desperately I desire to leave this mundane monotony and walk off to look for America.

For Amber Waves of Grain

After descending Pike’s Peak in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, Katharine Lee Bates captured a visual description of the sites towards the eastern slopes facing the American Great Plains.  From this bounty, the country nourishes itself and other nations and provides the wealth of agricultural

plenty for millions. But more than one bread basket feeds America, and I choose to enter in on this summer night.In eastern Washington State’s subtle hills, in sharp contrast to the Cascade’s peaks and the Bitterroot Mountains on either side, the golden farmlands roll for miles yielding their wealth of wheat to this corner of the world and beyond.  In this hearty region, I find my respite from office life and nourish my spirit.

Once my final flight of the day touches down in Spokane and I complete the routine rental car process, I drive amid the city lights until I find myself southbound among these wheat fields in the late summer evening.  Starting its tardy rise, the moon hovers low on the horizon, dipping below the taller hills as I skirt through the countryside.  While the moonlight glints against the earth, the land appears to move and shimmer in the low light.  No amber waves splash over these nocturnal hills; but regardless of the minimal light, the gentle summer breeze creates movement and flow of the ripening crops just slightly visible in the night’s solitude and silence.  This peaceful drive, free of distracting sounds, marks the beginning of the great escape I craved at my desk months earlier.  I adjust my focus from the dark slopes to the nearly-full orb rising beside me illuminating the path ahead of me.  And the moon rose over an open field.