Pax Nortona – A Blog by Joel Sax
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Joel live from anywhere.
Posted on September 7, 2003 in Book of Days Prose Arcana Vacations
Note: This is part of a series based on exercises from A Writer’s Book of Days. It’s something of a rebellion against the Friday Five and similar tupperware content memes.
Today’s topic: Write about a place you long for.
I long for the road, for what I call the miles, the long strips of asphalt that deliver me places. I prefer auto travel to airplane travel because I can stop at the junky tourist places, talk to the ruddy-faced locals, and check out the unique features of out of the way hamlets and delapidated ranches.
The best kind of travel, I feel, would combine both. What I need is a low-flying magic carpet that will move speedily from one folk feature or hoodoo to the next. It could take me into wildernesses without costing me a single huff and without leaving its mark on the delicate ground. I could fly over the living soil of Utah, over the Pacific Ocean, through marshes, and atop the line of wildebeests which walk in single file across the Serengeti. It could take me all places, allow me to reach down and sample the fruit growing from the trees (I would be careful to bring a plant guide), and just linger in air-cushioned comfort over Capitol Reef, the Himalayan foothills, Kilamanjaro, or the Ross Ice Shelf. There would be no limits to where it could bring me on this earth.
This being fixed in one place, having to develop adventures based on my sedentary life frustrates me. I want to be free sans the smoke-belching, oil-craving, slow moving mechanisms of the present day. I want to tell you about the koalas I am seeing in the Blue Mountains, the chambered nautilus I fished up from the Pacific, the meerkats blinking in the African sun, the okapis swishing their tails in the Congo rainforests. I want to be Joel live from anywhere. I want wormholes to be real and navigable.
Want to participate? First either get yourself a copy of A Writer’s Book of Days by Judy Reeves or read these guidelines. Then either check in to see what the prompt for the day is or read along in the book.
Tomorrow’ topic/prompt: ___________ is the color I remember
