This week, I’m driving around a back road, far over the left-hand side, eyeing how a third of the road no longer exists. I’m far off the beaten path, so I don’t hesitate to stop, turn off the Subaru engine, and get out. The road, indeed, has washed elsewhere. The air is thick, sultry in a July way, but suffused with the wildfire smoke we’ve been breathing all summer.
I drive a little further and then drift into a driveway. I know the road drops steeply, and I’ve no intention of heading there. The homeowner is outside, and we talk for a bit, kicking around his view and his calm acceptance of the road’s condition. He asks where all the gravel to repair these roads comes from.
I’m stuck on his thought after this: it’s the human endeavor, the human conundrum. We’re always moving stuff from here to there: in my realm, moving plants from garden to pot, laundry from clothesline to drawers, and then the far larger realm — trees to boards to houses, gravel from pits in the earth to roads. And then the roads wash out.
At home, later that night, I’m still moving things, wool from sheep, to my knitting needles.
Stony Soil Vermont 
Such a beautiful notion that emerged from your writing today; we all, life, is but ‘stuff’, and moving stuff, from here to there…thank you and I send well wishes to all who have been displaced in their own way by the flooding.
Seems like moving is the heart of our whole existence… nice to hear from you!
and another moving of stuff for me too, just this week, as we landed in Martha’s Vineyard on a new life adventure. And too much stuff…!
How exciting for you!!
ok last message so I don’t get excessive! But wanted to express my appreciation for and enjoyment of Unstitched and Hidden View. I stumbled upon HV, and it brought a sensually rich and complex experience, so gripping and powerful as I still recall (read a few years back) when I think about it. More recently, I was struck by your writing Unstitched, as I was working on an addiction treatment team in Massachusetts and thought I was reading about ‘my people’ I saw; so familiar and tragic a trajectory for so many, and such an awful scourge not seen before. I await your next project! Take care and I wish you well.
Thank you SO MUCH for this comment. It took me so much to writers these books, especially Unstitched. I’m so happy to read your words. And thank you for the work you’re doing. So needed!!!!
Yes I wonder about gravel and stone. Great buildings are created with stone, unlike wood it must be finite. When do we stop digging gravel pits and quarrying?
I don’t see digging happening any time soon.
Last weekend, I was buying a load of mulch and the landscaping place had a pile of gravel. And *I* wondered, where does it come from? Does it come out of the ground in those small uniform chunks, because it seems like an awful lot of effort to smash larger rocks into gravel. If so, I would think gravel would be far more expensive than it is. I’m certain I’m poisoning myself this summer by riding my bike several times per week with this lousy air quality.
As I work for a town, I can testify that gravel is crushed. And gravel is mightily expensive. The town is anticipating hundreds of thousands of dollars of repair…. Healthful biking versus breathing smoke? Toss up.
I suppose we’ll stop moving things when we stop breathing. In the meantime, movement isn’t all bad.
And the world keeps turning…
Appears so….