I am back from my bus trip. Looking at images, I came to realize that somewhere in the back of my mind, one of my purposes for the trip was to "go home," back to the Midwest and especially Illinois. When we finally crossed the state line into that state, I remember I indeed had that feeling: I'm home. But the whole trip (particularly now in retrospect) reminds me of a song Simon and Garfunkel sang in another time of great confusion and disappointment (if not despair): America. There is a sort of refrain in that song that I found to be behind the scenes for me throughout the trip: "I've gone to look for America." Simon concluded the song with the lines "counting the cars on the New Jersey turnpike, they've all come to look for America." We were in the Midwest, but I wonder now how many of the cars on Interstate 75 were looking for . . .? Perhaps an America that seems sometimes lost these days—or at least that how it feels to me.
The image is of an Illinois farm—and feels oh so familiar to me, and oh so like the America so many are looking for. Illinois farmland won't feel like home to everyone, but I suspect everyone knows some "America" that they are looking for and which feels somehow lost to them. Mission Concepcion in San Antonio I leave on Wednesday for two weeks for a trip to Michigan and Wisconsin, up through Georgia, Kentucky and Ohio (just about where Florence may be headed!) So this may be the last post for awhile.
Treasure Island has a kite festival about once a year. This was from several years ago. I thought that a little humor might help in these darkening days (including the weather—we're at the peak of the hurricane season).
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