My Blue Highway

"When I go quiet I stop hearing myself and start hearing the world outside me. Then I hear something very great."~Brother Patrick Duffy, Monastery of the Holy Spirit (Trappist), Conyers, Georgia (end of chapter 18)

For about fifteen years I have been carrying around the book Blue Highways: A Journey Into America by William Least Heat-Moon. I bought a paperback version of the book while in college, during my On the Road stage and the cover gave me the sense this was a similarly themed story. As I've gotten older and gained (pleasurable and painful) life experience, I find the book becoming more relevant to my own life. Least Heat-Moon wrote a grand story of small moments by recording his interactions as he traveled the country in his van.

Two summers ago, my wife was briefly hospitalized, and during that time I picked up the book and began reading. As I read the book, I was quickly drawn again into Least Heat-Moon's slice of life anecdotes. His trip is prompted by his failed relationship and quest to get a better sense of himself, our country, and his place in it. Seeing and fearing for my wife, I began to search a little for my place in the communities I operate in, but most carefully, in the communal partnership that is my marriage.

Pulling back from Least Heat-Moon's story of his travels across America, I began to consider the anecdotes, moments and passing interactions that have shaped my relationship with my wife and family, and started to recognize how even the slightest interaction causes ripples throughout, effecting how she and I perceive our past and the reality that even the smallest moment will also effect (possibly) our future.

Breathe in, breathe out... YOU AND I ARE ALIVE!!