Places + Feelings

I always think about that time when Jenna was driving and I was asleep in the passenger seat and Kate was asleep in the back. I forget where we had left and where we were going. We often piled in the car way early in the morning. Jenna took the first shift. She was listening to Kings of Leon, Caleb Followill drawling over the snap of guitars. The sun was just peeking over the horizon ahead, so we I know we were on our way home, driving east. When I stir, she turns to me, her tone serious: you won’t believe what I saw this morning. On this desolate country road, a sea of sunflowers basking in the first taste of morning light. For miles. I picture her mouth agape, body leaning over the wheel. It haunts me to this day. I complained about it often. I didn’t want to miss anything, I wanted the entire world for myself. For the rest of the trip, she remained optimistic. Maybe we’ll pass more sunflowers, she’d offer. We never did. But I think about it like I was there, alert, observing.

I picture the field of sunflowers we passed in Austria while driving to Burgenland. They made me smile, rooted me in a place. But what if they weren’t real? Would I have made it up? I remember feeling amazed by the expanse of yellow, of his ambivalence, at this place so familiar to him that somehow it could no longer inspire awe. I think about how so much of how you’re feeling affects your impressions, your memory of a place. I think of the yellow sunflowers and I feel warm, I feel in love, the speeding and blurred rush of yellow.

I wrote this in seven minutes during Wendy Wimmer’s breakout session at the Barrelhouse Conference last weekend. It got me thinking about places and feelings, how they can just be all wrapped up in each other even as we try to untangle them. Thank you again for your donations, as they allow me to invest in opportunities like the conference last weekend.

These pictures were captured on my iPhone during a morning walk last week. I sent them to Matt because we were texting about something I can’t remember and I wanted to show him. Man it’s a stunning morning here, I wrote.