on the road

I think I have always found peace on the road. I remember my mother telling me that when I was a little baby, she and my father and I were camping on the Canadian prairies when a huge storm started. I was fussy and refused to sleep in the tent, so they moved me into the car and started to drive as the mighty winds threatened to push our tiny vehicle across the highway. Once the car began to move, I calmed and finally, I slept.

I don't know if it's the movement, the sensation of going somewhere, or the safe distance from which you can watch the world go by, but I feel so at home in the moments between being anywhere. I become a happy observer, jittery with excitement and yet completely relaxed (so much so that I usually fall asleep). I feel bitter when the journey begins to end because I don't want to have to leave my window seat. Often when I'm surrounded by people, I feel as if I am standing behind a fourth wall, seeing and aware but separate from the hum of society. I become a watcher, content to feed off the energy around me without spending any of my own. I'm not a full introvert, but I have my moments. When on the road, I again become that watcher, again absorb the energy of the world passing, again become a piece of something greater.

I took these pictures on the way from Glasgow to Oxford where I met up with Bella Kotak.