Lynchburg and the sheriff

This blog entry is an excerpt of a larger project I am working on.

"It is the evening of the day I sit and watch the children play smiling faces I can see but not for me I sit and watch as tears go by ." The lyrics race through my head as I contemplate their meaning. The car is silent, as it has been for the past 45 minutes or so. I look over to Laurel. She's deeply concentrated, I wonder what she's thinking, I hope it's something nice. The night has been a bit of an unusual one. Taking off into the middle of the night, with no agenda, no plan, and no serious thought about what was going on, we headed "out along the road to no return." As I like to call it. We intended on a walk around the block who would've known that a 15 minute walk would develop into a 7 hour drive to Nelson county VA. You see the thing about Laurel, she's probably the most unusual person I have ever met,and I mean that in the absolute best of ways. We can sit in the car for total silence for hours, and then have a great conversation out of nowhere, she's the type of person where you don't have to act a certain way or say certain things because she gets you. It's an incredible trait, one I think if more people had, there would be a hell of a lot less problems in the world. We've been on the road for a couple of hours now, and so much has raced through my mind. It's nights like this that really get me thinking about the monotony in which we live. The pace of life is just so fast these days, we don't even rememeber what happened yesterday. We live in such an instantaneously gratified world. A world where we work fast, drive fast, eat fast, sleep fast, shop fast.I'd have to say i'm much more of a slower person. Most people like a fast paced, adreneline pumping life. But I like slower moments, moments that taken in retrospect reveal something about you, and the world you choose to surround yourself in. We drove out into the countryside, passing towns like Goochland, and Oilville I'm amazed about the beauty of darkness that surrounds me. As I pass each house I think about the family, I wonder what kind of issues their facing and I pray that they get through it, I wonder what their stories are and also ponder if they'll ever know mine. -to be continued-