A Living Magazine - Day 161 - That Slow Southern Style

I woke to the peaceful environment I'd been living in here. And, I hung around the camp site for quite a while...

Lilies--some even had buds.

It was a Sunday, and I decided not to take bus downtown even though I haven't even seen that area yet. The schedule is (stupidly) not on "The M" site, and the Wal-Mart bus stop has a nail going through its column for weekend pick ups. I did observe the bus arrive there at 10:40 am on Saturday, but without knowing when it would return, it does me no good. I didn't want to be stuck downtown and have to find a sleep spot there (although I did locate a possibility online). I like where I am.

All of this being stuck outside of town is maddeningly frustrating. It is like a dream where the harder you try to get somewhere the slower you move. I have not yet been to a city that I couldn't take pictures of and explore the downtown!

Frankly, I'm coming to grips with the fact that I might have to move on to Mobile without ever seeing Montgomery's downtown--if it just isn't practical and I am able to buy and print my ticket here outside of town. But, I haven't given up yet. Everything is impractically spread out here--at least for pedestrians. The Greyhound station is six miles from the downtown. The Wal-Mart is six miles from both. Even the UPS store where I will have to print my ticket (if the strip mall or in town libraries insists on a backpack search--which I will not submit to), is four miles from all of these things.

Usually, I depend on a Starbucks as an inner city hotspot, since they are always close to the downtown of cities, but not in Montgomery. It is another (at least) four miles from all the other things I've listed.

No matter where I am, I HAVE to be back at that far-distant Greyhound station on Wednesday. And I don't want to walk the six miles to get there, as it is due to rain on that day (that would be a two hour walk in the rain). It's just all screwy and anomalous. I'm complaining, but it's nobody's fault. America has been built for the automobile.

In the beginning of this Journey I did very long walks between towns and cities, and was willing to crank out twenty miles a day. But, I just can't see the use of spending that much time and sweat, just to take pictures of Montgomery's only tall building. This is the capital of Alabama, but even the capitol building, the Rosa Parks exhibit, the civil rights exhibits themselves, while being very worthy of seeing, are tough to devote an entire day of walking (twelve miles is at least four hours of walking).

I am getting a clearer and clearer impression that these circumstances are occurring for a special reason. There are other things to experience besides the downtown areas of cities. My feeling with this town is that it is the natural setting that I should be focused on, along with a personal lesson for me to slow down in certain places, and just be.

What Aldous Huxley called the "datum of experience", and Terence McKenna called, "the felt presence of immediate experience" (both, meaning that the moment one is experiencing is the most important moment of all), is beginning to dominate all that I do--not just here in Montgomery. My expectations and ambitions are simply not what the real deal should be about--apparently. It should be about the moment, each moment, every moment, and not about my plans for creating moments. The things that don't work out are most frequently what I personally want. This has been hard for me to accept; VERY hard. I have real goals - personal and public - that I want to accomplish, and sitting around building a desk out of scrap wood in a camp site, has not been one of them.

The Spark is great at leading me through epoch events, huge challenges, heroic moments; but then it throws curve balls at me that I don't understand or particularly enjoy.

In a way, I am fitting into this Southern culture, by default. People move more slowly here. They sit around and talk, without being at all concerned about getting to the next appointment. Why? Because usually the people at the next appointment are sitting around talking as well. It seems to be that they are living more in the immediate moment, than in the goals of the future or the memories of the past. Those future and past things are handled by talking about them in the present. This is very foreign to me.

In New England it was all about getting 110% of what you planned to get done each day--which, if you're paying attention, is impossible. In the West it was about only planning future achievements, and making each day a step toward them. In the Midwest it was about doing a complete day's work and being unconcerned about what was done before or what would be done later. All generalizations, I know. But, basically, those were the feelings I got.

So, I guess I need to just relax and swim in the luke warm water of each day, without worrying why I can't just get out and DO things. I suppose this is a valuable lesson for me. I don't think the whole South will be like this, but my time here in Alabama sure has given me a taste of the front porch, sweet tea drinking calm and tranquility that I used to hear about, but thought was a cliche.

I got to McDonald's and wrote up my post before noon...

Had to leave my traditional mark.

Then, I walked aimlessly around the parking lot, trying to decide if I should take the chance of riding the bus downtown. I can be very indecisive sometimes, and this was one of them. If I didn't take the bus, I'd have basically two options: (1) go to that other McDonald's on Route 80, or (2) back to the campsite and just hang out for the rest of the day. I guess I just got lazy, because I chose the latter, eventually setting up the tent at about 3:00 pm and taking a nap(!); something completely unheard of for me.

I woke up at about 5:30 pm to a brilliant sunset...

Strange to think California was out there...somewhere.

Sitting cross-legged in the tent, with the one remaining beer from the day before on my little table, I waited until after dark and then picked up the laptop, shoved the AC adapter into my pocket, and walked lazily back down to Wal-Mart, just to get online for a while. I didn't see much action there either, and after downloading a couple more podcasts, I yawned and headed back to the campsite at around 8:00 pm.

I felt fairly useless, and like I had wasted the day. The only thing that inspired me was the fact that the next day would be Monday, and I knew the bus schedule for the weekdays (basically five past the hour, each hour). I would finally get my chance to see the downtown--if everything worked out alright. And, I needed to buy and print out my bus ticket for the Wednesday ride to Mobile. Finally, I'd have something to actually DO.

Thanksgiving and the long weekend really threw me off. And, combined with Montgomery's spread out amenities, it just hasn't been an overly productive time. HOWEVER, maybe that was the point all along!: Slow down, have periods of doing nothing; just BE in the moment. Well, that is how I'm going to look at it anyway; four days of that slow Southern style.

I listened to the two podcasts - excellent interviews and commentary by the great KMO on his C-Realm show - and then fell asleep, having three quite bizarre dreams.