The motel room is dark leaving me alone with my thoughts. Not always a pleasant sensation. Leaving a home leaves me vulnerable to existential questions, particularly in darkened rooms on distant highways... And for a New Yorker who has lived most of his adult life overseas, this small town rest stop in Tennessee is the perfect place to taste this. That mental stuff I usually suppress.
Thankfully I am a man with friends and family, and a loose yet real bonding to my birthright Nation. This acute condition are the inevitable questions, for a man in his 60's. You too have them from time to time, when you are feeling wobbly at the knees, and the possibility of death colors itself... inevitable. Thankfully there is cable TV, and WIFI access, to hide inside most of the time, but occasionally the darker truths creep in.
That is why the Gideon people are so diligent in providing their favorite book. Leaving us doubters even fewer places to hide. Time is precious and bountiful, until it disappears in a puff. Life is clumsy and cumbersome until it hangs on a wire at the edge. Friends and family are in our hair until they are gone forever, sponged up by some mystifying quirk of nature, leaving us with only our thoughts.
... The sun is rising now behind the curtains. Truckers are starting their engines. Soon there will be a country diner breakfast, and a world of distractions. And... when I catch a glimpse of another hummingbird perched on some brilliant flower... I will be thankful.
Those 'deeper' thoughts will be waiting for me, just there... in another motel room, in some other corner of the universe. Existential darkness and radiant hummingbirds, who could ask for more. You take them all when you have the chance. Knowing nothing for sure is for sure.
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