Highway in the Wind

One thing that has kept me from becoming, or even attempting to become, a successful artist is the discrepancy between meaning and meaningless.  Sometimes it's a difficult line to see.  Art can, by the cynic, be seen as petty.  But then take Banksy's political and social commentaries, so in depth and thought-provoking.  Take that artist in O'Henry's The Last Leaf, a story (you should read) in which a painting literally gives enough meaning to a woman that she chooses Life.  Look at any artwork, and by artwork, I mean anything, because the definition of art basically encompasses everything. . .

So, thank God for Arlo Guthrie, as I've been obsessed with him lately.  Thank God for these songs and voices, sounds, colors, shapes, and actions that can inspire us to get up and go.  Thank God for writing that has nothing to do with anything sometimes other than looking at our own lives and deciding that if that person there can write a short story (thanks Vonnegut), that by God, I should be doing something.

And so we leave today, my ex-mother-in-law and my three children, to drive all afternoon and night to the Bus, in Marshall, North Carolina.  We drive with new leaves on the trees, through DC and its cherry blossoms, through country that Pete Seeger sang to and of, past mountains that have been topped and across borders, down to the town where Amanda Barry's father lives, over and in and through Appalachia. . .

The bus is something more than steel and oak (!) and wishes.  It's a movement both literally and figuratively.  I will be driving it up with kids bouncing in the bunks and playing cards on the floors, back the poetic way we will ramble down.  Through the thunderstorms they are forecasting, through all sorts of wonderful surprises.  It will be parked somewhere in New Jersey, a location not yet disclosed to even me, arriving on Mother's Day, a significant day for me. . .and my mother. . .and against all odds, it will prevail as something good, meaningful, pertinent, positive. . .like the art I struggle with to find meaning in often.

The worst news to come of the bus, after I traveled down 3 weeks ago to clean it out and move it to a garage to prepare for the 600 mile trek, was that the veggie conversion done in 2011 is, in diesel mechanic Tim McGee's valued opinion, is "all gummed up."  This translates to it is the worst attempt at a conversion he's seen in his thirty years working on diesels, buses to be specific.  We're talking next door to Asheville, North Carolina - a convergence point for every type of progressive person, group, movement, and order in the nation - a place where those in San Francisco and Portland, Oregon go when they need something more progressive. . .so Tim has seen his fair share of converted buses.  In his opinion, he could not let me drive at all with a clean conscious with the fuel system intact. . .not only was it installed terribly in-efficiently, but it was dangerous!!  Wow, so, being the woman I am, with karma in tow, I have let any feelings of resentment or anger pass me by and have chosen to view this set-back as a learning opportunity.  Not doubt or mistrust in people, but a chance for me to perhaps learn to speak with many different people, to take my time with big endeavors, and to. . .well, to enjoy some Alice's Restaurant when it all falls to pieces. . .