It is March and snow has been coming down for the better part of twelve hours. I'm trying to load up my vehicle with everything from books to betel nuts for a journey with no specified terminus or time frame. Such is life in these bewildering times when we live far afield from those we love or when a business spans the continental divide.

I don't fly any longer. Besides my leading reasons for abstaining, I like seeing what is in between. Trains would be lovely but we have eliminated all but major destination points from train travel in the United States. Travel simply lacks civility in general let alone in detail.

From "do it yourself" and "self storage" to "self serve" and "auto check-out/in", etc., we lean toward commerce over care and care minus the "e" = car to me. Watching people struggle with everything from complex parking meters to an airline computer that can't navigate a hyphenated name is troubling. To book a ride or a motel room you'd think you were attempting to gain entrance to Fort Knox (not that there's anything there now).

When I was younger I hitchhiked or happily took buses and trains to navigate the continent. Driving a car (even if I had owned one) would have been wasteful and also diluted the experience of exchange with other travelers and townspeople.

It is March, and it is grey, and the snow has been accumulating in a wet and offhanded March way. As though even snow's heart is not residing in winter any longer. My energy is likewise, and it's taking me longer than usual to assemble and pack, to load and orchestrate, even though, after all of these years of traversing the country, I have a kind of system for wearing my house upon my back.

The snow, the greyness, the plodding; it's the season.
Must be the season for confusion and listlessness, too.