Words and Pictures

No I haven’t vanished off the face of the earth. In fact, I have seen more of the earth in the last two weeks than I have in some time. We just returned from a 4100 mile road trip through North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee and back home again. No we are not trying to burn up the remaining supplies of fossil fuels. We were working on an assignment tracking a family that followed the movement of the United States west from North Carolina to Texas. It was a fascinating trip, but also the substance of another discussion.

One of the things that struck me about the trip with how time had stood still in so many places that we passed through. Areas that had once been “thriving” centers of activity have gone back to nature, the stories of the past lost.

Here an ancient sundial in the Forbidden City in Beijing stands mute on a cloudy day. Time is a very strange thing. The activities of the moment are soon gone and become only memory.