Road Trip To Lake Arrowhead

Golden Hills of California

How can my 8 year old be almost as big as me?

My sister invented this ten cent holder for M's Ipad enjoyment...

Lake Arrowhead at sunset

Last little hurrah of summer. A quick trip (well ok, it was an 8 hour drive) to Southern California to visit family on Lake Arrowhead. I really like traveling through California. Perhaps my favorite part of driving long distances is getting glimpses into different communities. Peeking into people's lives while driving though a desert town. Watching who is walking down the sidewalk pushing the baby stroller. Who is ordering food at the drive-through. Resters at the rest stop.  I wonder over and over again if people are happy with their lives when I travel outside of my little place. I wonder if people even think about if they are happy or not. Does the thought plague them like it often does me? Do they wonder about how love shapes them? Do they consider loneliness and it how it seems to whisper in all the languages of man?  Or, do they push away loneliness at any cost, its price too high to tolerate. Sometimes, I look longer than is polite at these people in the world I am so curious about. I am imagining what their stories are, what their houses look like. Who their best friends are. What they think about when the fall asleep at night or the conversation they have with themselves as they put their clothes on in the morning. And when I leave my enclave of security in my little town filled with friends, life, movement, passion and food, I see the illusion that familiarity can breed for me. I am the fish out of water in the world who thinks about how suffering moves us, or love touches us and feel the organic movement from that below my feet. No longer is it important what title I will have, or great house I will possess or what ladder I will climb to get to somewhere. It is a big loss of traction when all signals coming from the outside world don't signal what they used to. And sometimes, this is a lonely place to be... So I imagine myself grabbing the eggplant out of the basket from the market. And looking at the bottle olive oil. And asking it what to do next. And the thickness of thought carries me. And I let it.