Roads

The fog spreads in from over the lake, soaking newborn fields; veiling treelines in shades of grey. Robins, fat, shiny earthworms, squitters ‘n lilac proclaim the season. Heading east, the road before me takes on a list of metaphors. The boredom of driving allows for mind escape. Escape when we are sometimes in periods when direction is not always clear. Escape when the road ahead feels swamped with decision, as veiled as the treeline up ahead. Spending time on the road these days—to and from Ottawa on family duty—leaves plenty room for contemplation.

Onderdonk; Morrison Point; Lower Highshore Road. The Alley; Sunny Bank Lane; Wooler and Zufelt.

In tandem with the waterways as means of travel, globally, roads have evolved from walkways traced by human and animal. Trade, social exchange—news from all directions—gave rise to centres at intersections within the spider web of paths. Paths eventually widened to accommodate the wheel, the wheel for a duality of warfare and trade such as the Silk Road of China, a turnpike of 206 B.C. Many of Britain’s roads today follow ancient Roman tracks. I remember walking the still-visible traces of the rutted trail of the Red River carts that carried newcomers across the prairies of Canada’s west.

Narrows Lane; Army Reserve; Babylon, Bakker and Burr. Gilead, Gommorah, Jacobs and Hull.

Mesopotamia, what is today mainly the border of Iraq, is recognized as the cradle of civilization. It evolved on the fertile floodplains at the intersection of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. The region, historically void of trees for timber and of stone for construction, saw the first rise of the city. Domestic architecture literally grew from the soil upon which it stood. Sundried bricks of river clay, and reeds from the shorelines were the material at hand. The people of Mesopotamia—in Arabic Al-Jazarah (the island)—living on a fertile crescent, recognized that water was the first principle from which all else flowed.

The region is credited with, among many things, the origins of writing and of the wheel — four-wheeled carts with leather tires once carried over roads finished in stone that was imported and cut into pavers.

It was a place where women shared equal footing—business, brewing, healers. The civilization evolved in faith that the world was created by gods winning over chaos, and that humankind was created to be co-workers with the gods. By extension, they saw it as their civic duty, through daily rituals and attention to the deities, to help maintain balance in the world and keep the forces of chaos and destruction at bay. Work was not simply a job, but one’s contribution to community efforts in keeping the world at peace and in harmony.

Mount Carmel; Willow Creek and Scoharie. Stapleton, Vienna and Tubbs.

I enjoy the ancient art of various cultures—including the former Aztec and Inca people. For me, the works express a reverence for care, detail, aesthetic of execution, and values where human beings honoured the gods through the jobs they performed every day—artisan, weaver, potter, shoemaker, fisherman, teacher, scribe, healer, priest or priestess.

Tooth Acres; Thistle Dew; Taft and Storms. Mitchells Crossroad; Kleinsteuber Parks and Chuckery Hill:

The highway now veers north toward the nation’s capital. The veterans-of-war highway cuts through stone and creek. The buds are alive along the corridor, swallows nesting by lingering fields. In passing woods, coal-black crows scavenge the darkening pavement. I am almost there, a respect for elders I guess you could say. Almost there, seeing a work evolve, like the headlights on the road ahead, a guide through a passage, an intersection in the skies of night.

Melville, Eatonville, Duetta and Fry. Consecon, Brickworks, Roses Crossroad and Taft.