Side Roads

Main roads are made to get us where we’re going faster.  But Interstates and major highways bypass a lot of the good stuff.  The little country stores with the cooler on the front porch.  The big sprawling oak throwing shade over a stop sign.

On my way to North Carolina, I recently followed a GPS suggestion that I thought might end up being a shortcut.  I’ve lived in the same county most of my life and driven by that turnoff more times than I can remember, and yet I’d never taken it before.

The road curved like a repeating S with no center line or outside edge markings.  It was more like an asphalt path than an actual road, and it didn’t end up saving me any time.

But along that small country byway, someone had begun to restore an old historic-looking two-story brick house.  The fields beyond were long and flowing green with white fencing marking the perimeters.  Content-looking cows lazed beside a low bottom creek.  I wanted to stop and study it a bit, think about the succession of lives that might have played out there, whether this road had once had a horse and buggy version.  It was like driving through a real life painting, one that played out each and every day, literally a few miles from my own house.  And I had never known it existed.

There’s something to be said for slowing down a bit and simply drinking in a different view.

Sometimes that’s all it takes to put us on a new road altogether.