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April 12, 2006
i've been everywhere
A couple of weeks ago, I participated in a mini-seminar at work (these are professional development sessions required of folks who teach in our program who aren't full-time faculty) on the subject of preparing students for digital writing - or something like that. Anyway, we worked with iMovie. I had never used iMovie before, but with a little instruction and an example to follow, it was really quite easy. Soon I had my own little three minute movie about my travels around the country.
Antje Duvekot has this great song called "Long Way." It's about traveling, about being everywhere. I love it for many reasons, but in this project I came to realize that I could illustrate it with my own photographs of my own travels. My movie project wasn't really good at doing that, but in the doing of the movie project I came to see a bigger project, one that told the story in a less linear way, a way that more matches the sentiment of the song, a way that feels more like being "on the worn out heels of Kerouac". So tonight I was going through my photo box - the one that begins after I was single, after I had a new life in front of my, after I was heading out "into the great unknown." And I came to realize that I have been to some really beautiful places. I've seen spectacular sites, vistas, landscapes, waterfalls, lakes, mountains. I can flip through the pictures and remember where I've been, how much I've seen, how much I enjoyed the trip, how I'd like to do it more, and again.
There are a few states in the union I have not yet traveled. But just a few. I've been all over the map, and it really is a long way to Michigan/Washington/Tennessee and back. Really.
Posted by cageyer at April 12, 2006 10:44 PM