The Longest Day

From east to west. Chase the sun, follow the sky.

I dreamed of a girl who loved so much, her own life could not contain her. Her fingers lingered on the door and she felt the old paint flake beneath her touch. She slipped into the dawn, unable to shape her goodbye into words.

The longest day passed in a wash of yellow grass, rolling hills and red mountains. She smiled. The prairie wind embraced her with a warm breath of dry, crackling air, pushing her ghosts away. And as the sun sighed its final breath and sunk slowly into night, lights emerged out of the ribbon of road. The dazzling crown of the city.



We followed the same path, but there was anticipation, uncertaity, tiredness, redundancy and impatience. The hours of whirring asphalt resets your sense of awareness and - suddenly! - we have a new way to measure time. Hours become minutes, minutes become days, and as we slink closer to the end, each hour blurs headlong into memory.

Corn. Cows. Transport. From the first moments of this journey we were shown with disturbing clarity (and regularity) how these things underpin our civilization. Ideas borne in books became reality. Truckers, farmers, drivers and every pit stop between them was the lifeblood of our economy.

I'd never known this man before, the John Smiths who toiled the land and believed - how he believed! - in meat and television and god. And as we stole farther from our home (their homes) he came with us, for we were partners along the beaten path. Always, evermore, and each day, we became the minnow among the big rig fish.

But this is not about me. This is not about us. This was once just a dream and our journey became it.

Massif

All my life I've been in love with mountains. As the trees surrender and the snow falls, my heart races just a little more.



I first saw the rainbow-footed mountains in southern Germany when I was 27, and my life changed forever.

Here, the mountains have a different face and a dangerous smile. As I breathe the frigid air, the world stretches for countless miles, completely silent. Nothing but the lonely click of a strange bird and the distant rush of the wind, mimicking interstate traffic. There are no lush green fields bursting with swathes of Alpine flowers, not here.







The juniper trees shred their skin, twisting slowly, futilely towards the sky. Their heartwood burns with luscious sweet smoke, reminding me of the American desert and red hills filled with sand.

Mountains call forth all that the skies have to offer. They reach for the clouds and pull forth mighty storms and shrouds of gray anger. On a blue day they sit lazily twirling their fingers in the petticoats of mist. I could watch them forever: powerful, dark, and strong. Older than bones. Older than dirt.