Author: Katherine (Springfield, MO, USA )
Website: Click here
Categories: [discovery]  [heaven]  [reflection]  

My commute to work is unlike that of most people I know. There are no traffic jams, no exhaust fumes, and no road rage. It’s a twenty-five minute drive on a four lane highway with a posted speed of 65 miles per hour. In reality the traffic travels more like 70 to 75 miles per hour, for the most part. This doesn’t include farmers in their junky old farm trucks, big yellow school buses, and especially not the little old ladies in their Grand Marquis taking up one and a half lanes while the stuffed cat in the back window seemingly mocks you as you work up the courage to pass. There is very little traffic and it’s not unusual to see a friend or neighbor waving at you as you pass.

 

The highway is also full of rolling hills, deep valleys, twists, and turns with a recommended speed of 45 miles per hour which are taken at 70. The people who drive this road know it. The rhythm and pattern of the wheel as you navigate the same path as the day before. It is also divided into two lanes with a median that is so large, fields and farms separate the North and Southbound traffic.

 

For the drive in, on a normal day, the sky is various shades of pinks and blues with scattered clouds illuminated by the rising sun. I watch the sky as it changes from deep dark pink to a soft subtle mauve. The sky is usually a brilliant blue by the time I park and walk into the office.

 

On the way home, the sky is on fire. It is red and orange, bursting over the trees which cast shadows over the fields and highway. The trees are silhouettes to the setting sun, hell bent on not going down without a fight. One of my favorite parts of the commute is to drive by a farm at this time of day. I don’t know the name of the farm, or it’s exact city location, but it is breathtaking each time the sun sets behind it.

 

I gaze at it for as long as I dare to take my eyes off of the road and breathe in the luminosity of what I see for what can be no more than 5 seconds while I think to myself, I should stop and take a photo of this. But I never did. I was always in a hurry to get to the next destination, the next errand, the next task.

 

This New Year, I resolved to take more time. And so the next time I saw the sunset over the farm, I put my blinker on, turned on the dirt road leading to the house, and I took a photo. It's time to slow down, and sometimes stop, to capture these spectacular moments. Through a lens, or through your eyes, it's your choice.

Other submissions by this author: :  Growing into ...  ::  Endings and Beginnings  :

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