Perfect Imperfections

 

So why, if I wrote that a week ago didn't I post it?

Because I'd intended to add to it, to say so much more.

So why, if I have so much to say can't I think of anything when the time comes?

Possibly a good question...

OK, here's one: a basic paradox of trucking. The driver is but a link, either of materials or of finished goods, for other industries which operate on their own schedules, and even if it's not "just in time freight" then the company that she drives for needs the truck free to reload. So it's a heavily time constrained business. The driver is always in a hurry. Yet to drive a Big Rig safely one cannot be in a hurry. Every action must be executed slowly and deliberately, ready at any moment to change course drastically, all avenues fully surveyed.

Slow down to hurry up.

But wait, I'd posted, but I can't leave it there...When I'd first complained was premature. Sure the weather had been shitty and leaves were down but there was still plenty of fire burning on the hillsides. In fact I'd crossed the White River on the way to Indy and they didn't seem to have had the winds we did; the trees still cloaked in all their flaming glory.

Not so now. Not only is peak long gone but most of the leaves have fallen. Embers still burn in hollow and on hillside alike, but drabness claims the day. Soon there will be only the architectural interplay of branches to confound and amaze.

When I started this gig driving a big rig down country lanes after limestone it was nearly summer, the trees in full leaf. As usual when the leaves fall once hidden things become obvious. There are old stone holes all over the place, and I'm just talking what can be seen from the road. And piles of waste stone beside them, or near to one that can't be seen, surely.

How do they know where the good stone is? Why do I sometimes load up at one quarry only to carry the rock to another? In the depths of time how can an articulated fossil still survive what has become an otherwise blank white expanse of sedimentary rock?

I have one here, I hold it as we speak. Whilst loading a block one day I saw something glitter. On the bed of the truck already I investigated and found a perfect imperfection.