Faster Than A Speeding Bullet Is Meant For Superman

I sometimes feel as if our bodies were never meant to hurl 70mph down a highway. I used to live in Southern California, which is notorious for traffic, and when you weren't sitting in traffic, then you were speeding down great big freeways with a whole bunch of other people, who were isolated in their own vehicles, doing the same thing.

I drove those freeways for some years, and after awhile it got to where I had to psyche myself up to the stress of it. For you never knew what you were going to face. There were accidents, sudden slows in traffic, and then there was the “wall of death”, as a friend of mine called the temporary cement guard rails used when they were doing highway work.

The state of California, doesn't believe in doing their road work a small sections at a time for the safety of the millions of drivers on their freeways. No, they would have these cement abutments set up for miles, and miles, forcing drivers into what often became a sort of narrow cement tunnel, into which thousands of cars would hurtle through at ridiculous speeds, never knowing whether they would come out of it alive. Honestly, I think I have a form of PTSD.

I remember one night I was on the I-10 headed toward Pasadena. It was a dark night, and I had a group of teens, and young adults with me. We had all come back from the beach, and I was taking a young person home.

When you think of a car wreck at night, you think of brake lights, and bunches of cars. However, if you ever come upon a car wreck that has already happened, and it was serious, there ARE NO LIGHTS! These have been knocked out.

So I am running along at the speed limit, when right in front of me a wrecked car pops out of the night at a dead stop. I quickly, functioning on only adrenaline, look over my shoulder, and swerve into the middle lane. At this point, out of the darkness, another car pops, having crashed into the center divider. I swerve again, this time back to the left. That's when shaking, I pulled off the freeway at the next exit.

I was thankful God had managed to save, not only I, but my young passengers, including my brother. However, I was also distinctly conscious that somewhere out in the dark, were people that were not so lucky. I still had no idea what had happened to the people behind me! Just thinking about it even now, makes my stomach knot.

It was many years after this incident, among many others, that I began my homesteading journey. That began as I recovered from post-partum depression. However, looking back, I also think that I was not only suffering from the depression, nor losing my first two of three babies to premature birth in the years before, but also from a form of post-modern syndrome in which my core subconsciousness recognized that we were never meant to live that way!

Recovering from the depression was like the sun suddenly coming back on in my life. I actually am very grateful for having gone through the depression, and the subsequent recovery. All of a sudden, God turned on every creative, imaginative bone in my body to the sole idea of restoring peace to myself, and my family. At the time we were living on a rented lot in Riverside, California. I won't go into my complete story here. That is for another time. However, I will say that this time of extreme spiritual, and emotional growth, set me on a road to something great in my life.

I began to re-examine, just what was necessary to a peaceful, and successful life. I felt the call of God on my life to begin to feed my children, and husband better food than I could obtain at the grocery store. I also felt God wanted my kids raised to know how to work, and where real food came from. What I didn't want them learning was the gangland lifestyle my eldest son was currently learning at our local elementary school. Eventually, through several moves to larger, and larger property, I began to accomplish the dreams, I believe God placed in my heart. I also took my growing family, eventually four children, out of school, and began homeschooling them.

All of this is part of my history. We began homesteading, and we started on rented land. Slowly we escaped the rat-race that was California, and these days, I pretty much forgo highways, and freeways for dirt roads whenever I can. We now own 34 acres in two parcels, in Oklahoma.

However, I have realized after a few horse drawn carriage rides, that when I travel horse speed, I find a peacefulness that is profound. Its like that pace or even just walking, feels right. For one thing, we miss so many things when we are moving at breakneck speed down a highway, or freeway. It's like we are passing life by. Wrote a poem that I posted awhile back, about this. We are skipping by the little details of life, and thereby, in some ways, the joy.

More, and more, I find myself wishing for things I never had, like some sort of genetic memory that lingers in my psyche. I wish for the life here on the plains that used to have towns about a half day's ride from one another. I wonder about the exchanges we've made for speed.

In my mind's eye, I can envision a different world. I see a world that is more like the times past, but uses technology to it's best use. So a world which lives in small communities closer together, but where cars, and trucks, by choice are used only when necessary. I would love to see community which chooses a better version of both the past, and the present, in it's future. To me this is achievable through the voluntary commitment of individuals.

For can we not choose our future? Can we not choose to shop differently, drive differently, watch differently, etc..? Are we all not masters of our own fate, in as much as God has granted us liberty? The world as it exists now, exists under our complicity. We choose every day just what we participate in. I choose not to drive freeways, and highways, unless it is absolutely necessary.

Perhaps we need a 12 step program for the modern era! Everyone have a great day! Please check out my poetry, and art on my blog!