A Living Magazine - Day 252 - Homecoming - Greensboro: Being Symbol Minded

The morning was even warmer than the last when I awoke. I had slept without my head in the sleeping bag--very unusual. I went through the routine and was on my way down Cove, Cleburne, and then Cornwallis. It was Sunday and traffic was light.

When I turned into the long parking lot for the business strip along Battlefield, I heard a smash-crunch!! It was the unmistakeable sound of car slamming into car. Turning back around I saw this, right where I had just been...

It was a headon collision at low speed (thankfully--very low speed). The gentleman in the black car was not paying attention for whatever reason, turned onto Cornwallis at the last second and way too widely, smashing into the white minivan that had just begun to pull forward from a stop.

The black car paid the heaviest price, utterly destroying everything from the front bumper (or whatever cars have now instead of bumpers) all the way back to the windshield. The driver inside - a middle-aged black man - was trapped--unable to open his door. The minivan's occupants seemed to be in shock, and possibly injured. I heard a woman crying and yelling from the front seat. Several drivers immediately cordoned off the intersection. A young man stopped and helped the black car's driver crawl out through passenger's side door. The driver looked panicked and sat on the ground checking his legs to make sure they weren't broken. Then, he got to his feet and waited by the side of the road, pacing and wiping his forehead.

A businessman and young woman came up from two different cars behind the white van. Frankly, it looked like the businessman was just about as interested as getting his hands all over the young woman as helping the van occupants. But, maybe I'm just misinterpreting the picture above.

The young man who had helped the driver of the black car had called 911, and - I swear - there was a fire truck and two ambulances on the scene in less than five minutes from the collision itself. These emergency workers were super vigilant.

I stood watching with a guy about my age who had stopped in the parking lot and we were viewing the scene from his open driver's side door. I said, "It looks like they have enough help."

He said, "Yeah, I know. I stopped to see if I could do anything and everything was taken care of within two minutes!"

Before I walked on, I looked at him and said, "Day of the Lord!"

He just laughed and said, "Yah, good thing!"

With all of that craziness now in the past, I continued to Starbucks. Working there for the rest of the day, I got another post published. But I certainly wasn't cranking them out. Despite its relatively simplistic nature, it took nearly seven hours to complete. I am a perfectionist--this I concede. But, no matter how close I get these posts to what I consider to be "acceptable." They really never end up that way. And as the hour grew late and my beard gained another gray hair on this day, I just had to let it go, and publish.

Hunger drove me to leave and seek out some place different (eating an actual meal at Starbucks is simultaneous far too expensive and way too little food). Walking along the sidewalk, I just couldn't stand the idea of McDonald's anymore, for - as some may recall - obvious reasons.

But, the truth is that most other places, even those that are one quality point above the "golden arches" are twice as much money. And, if sitting down to eat, they require a tip. I had been eating once a day--better meals, but it was costing me a solid $15 each evening.

I went into an IHOP (the only thing around just above McDonald's and not quite at the level Applebee's or a locally owned restaurant). I got a salad ($5) and a potato, bacon and cheddar soup (that was large and fantastic, by the way, for only $3.99). They even had some semi-spotty Wi-Fi. There were certain restricted sites for some reason--one, being IWALLK...Argggggg. But (and this is my pressure release for everything now) it was what it was.

When I was done and ready to return to the ivy I slipped the laptop into Saggy's bulging mass and returned to the street...

X Z Y? Symbol.

Tracks going nowhere. Symbol.

Can I cast a long enough shadow? Symbol.

I got back to the sleep spot at about the same time as the night before. It would be my last night there. There were some outside reasons why Fay and I could not promote the project in Greensboro, or I would have stayed a few days more for an interview. 

That was okay, but it meant I couldn't really stick around much longer. The gravity of a the coming spring was pulling me north and eastward, ultimately toward Virginia. And I had to time my meeting with my cousin in Wake Forest very carefully. This timing would be impossible to really nail down until I got to Durham. Slowing things even more was the requirement of passing through Burlington first. The next day would begin that Durham leg.

Before the sun completely disappeared behind the tall trees. A red sky seemed to spray out of the west, as from an aerosol can of glowing paint. I took the opportunity to test a new symbol I'd been thinking about for both IWALLK and Modern Nomadism, carving it into the bark of my main tree there...  

I think it will be the mark of this Nomad.

I climbed into the tent, slid into the sleeping bag--zipping it, and enjoyed the crooning of the peepers. I hoped they were having more luck with romance than I was. The Nomad must be careful with love. If he falls for it, life probably needs to solidify into one place again. If he never looks for it, he may be destined to walk the highways and haunt the forests and fields for the rest of his lonely life. The time must right. Sleep came immediately.