Thoughts from the road...part II

My hands are surprisingly leathery. I am less alarmed then Elle or Vogue would have me be. They [my hands] show the age my face & figure do not. Lines cut by dyes, turpentine, chemicals and making crocodile my knuckles. Years of sewing, drawing, and serious playing stake their claim - writing the story a of a small, trivial life from wrists to fingernail.

As a child and still, my mom's hands held peace and comfort. Her story scrawls delicately on her skin, her veins blue and green pulsing upward.

There is an unexpected joy in the dryness of my hands allowing for their inspection and notation thoroughly - the unexpected joy of feeling connected to my mom.

[Later...]

This is the first time I have ever seen anyone drive with their LEFT FOOT. It looks slightly awkward - right leg between the front seats. I am quite impressed.

Riding through the South Korean countryside, I find it similarly different to The States. The highway boasts a steady traffic of cars & trucks; the trucks having been squashed. They are squarer, shorter, more compact. Billboards dot the peripheral with bright images. The symbols mean nothing to me - as if I have forgotten how to read. Directional signs hang overhead, their symbols odd but understandable. I am not able to make the subtle differences in most faces. Every vehicle looks to be driven by the same man only sometimes he wears glasses, sometimes a hat.

The scenery rolls past, homes grouped together. The homes in the first town have neon blue rooves, Home Depot orange in the second. The houses appear heaped together - piled laundry saving floor space.

There are a remarkable amount of sky scraping apartment and office buildings though we are in no city. Open spaces present watery farms and low-growing orchards. I imagine rice plants peeking through the flat water patties, and watch curiously farmers drive heavy and no doubt expensive farm equipment through wheel-high bogs. The water is clear and bright to my surprise and delight as I enjoy the reflections they realize.

There are changing but constant mountains in the distance. Sometimes we ride through a pass, but I never feel the incline or dissent. An hour and more outside of Seoul and it now feels rural. I am reminded of Vermont. The rolling mountains are healthy with a blanket of trees lush and strong. I begin to count shades of green distinct from one another, but the task is overwhelming.

The expanse opens to huge groups of apartment scrapers footed by rows & rows of long low greenhouses. They are instantly in the distance - a trick of this surprising country.

If I were to wake tomorrow in the future of 20 or 30 years, I believe it would inspire a very like feeling to my experience now ~ the feeling that everything, yet in some way nothing is familiar.