There are two gnomes on our front steps. A female gnome and a man one. I don't know what their relationship is to one another, although they come from the same stock. The Polk Center in Polk, Pennsylvania, where I adopted them a couple of years back.
They look east off the steps out across West Abingdon Drive, the U.S. Park Service park that is part of the George Washington Memorial Parkway system, and then the Parkway itself. They can't see the Potomac River. Too many buildings between them and the River. Unless gnomes have magical vision. I don't know. They don't say much.
They stoically view the parade of cars and buses each day going up and down the streets to and from somewhere. From and to somewhere else. I mentioned to a group recently that in 2003, the average distance driven per car each year in the U.S. was slightly more than 11,800 miles. That was for 231 million vehicles. That’s a total distance of over 2.7 trillion miles. It's probably even more now. But those are the latest numbers I have.
That's a lot of miles. And fuel. And carbon dioxide. And other air pollution. A lot of wasted time traveling all of those miles, too. Time much better spent on much better things. Like loving. Touching. Smelling. Tasting. Living.
Cars and driving and frenetically going to and from God knows where are not life. They're death. I think the gnomes must know that. Because they seem to look a bit sadder each day.
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About Me
- Mark Gorman
- I was born in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, along the banks of the Susquehanna River, in the valley made up by Bald Eagle Mountain to the south, and gentle hills and valleys to the north. That place that sheltered me, gave me food and friends, and both physical and spiritual nourishment for 18 years. That is the space where I was physically and emotionally formed. Ever since growing up there . . . because of growing up there . . . I have been inexorably linked to nature . . . to the earth and to all life.