Trains and roads cross each other along the peninsula like a weaving. Ribbons and bullets of light shoot across the landscape. Someone is reading about a journey. Perhaps a return to a place that has changed. Something other than the daily landscape that changes very little. They might see someone and have a thirty second imaginary lifetime together. Then back to reading and the train moves on again.

Before dawn roads are calm. Seems like there are more cars every morning. After I wake up I can feel the mood of dreams and it carries over into the landscape of the early hours. Sometimes I think I will encounter someone from the night before. But now the atmosphere is more like the middle of the day when cars are rushing around. The pre dawn isn't as cool as it used to be.

I could interpret dreams, but it's been a long time. I don't recognize the places or people. I've explored many hallways and roads, and moved from familiar places into new and crowded rooms. Roads undergo heavy construction, I think I'm awake and have no place to live, the car won't go or I'm on foot and my feet won't move. Early mornings the landscape is dreamlike but I am awake. The calm house watches me depart for the days journeys. I arrive at the residential pickup, a person arrives at the destination, dawn arrives.

A well established gentleman, well employed, seeks private quarters, small and quiet, one cat, non smoker, non drinker, long term, excellent references. Early riser, often working, drives roads by memory, familiar landscapes, boundaries of unfamiliar dreams, good listener, very discretionary. Meditates irregularly, reads women poets, needs the minimum of light, prefers warmth, sensitive to sounds, especially remembered sound.

They guard their privacy . The residence remains a refuge from airports and roads. They leave me outside like the last piece of the weary landscape. Rarely does anyone ask me for help inside the residence and many times I find the luggage waiting for me on the doorstep. I say thank you and drive away hoping I gave them good service and a smooth ride.

Early morning, responding to impressions of light, breathing cool air. Touching the wheel, watching for road markings, dots, lines, reflected artificial light. Passing wide areas of sleeping people seeing light in dreams or lost in lightless deep sleep. Wondering about perception and observation. Who or what does the seeing? Are my eyes pin holes in a wide curtain full of pin holes. Are dreams behind that curtain and is light in dreams real. Is sunlight a dream. Then hearing. Are birds reciting oral history.

I have had a couple of jobs in the last eight years that start as early as 4am. I got used to it but was always in a sleep deprived trance. Sometimes I get home late and can sleep only 5 hours or less. When I drive it's like watching a movie of driving, as though the camera was placed next to the driver. What will happen next? That car just changed lanes, what does that mean? I listen to radio mainly for traffic news and music. I can't listen to the war news anymore. The roads are enough of a psychic battleground

Every day is different and I never know where I will be going, it's not up to me. I know what my first stop will be but after that it is all up to the clients and dispatch. I turn myself over to them. There can be changes because of arrival delays, weather, accidents, mistakes. Some clients are regulars and others are first timers so their residence is a new destination. I once had a delivery job in the city. I loaded the last stop first and the first three stops last. All the stops in the middle were divided left and right in the truck. I mapped out all the stops before I left and then attempted the first or second drop. I let the route take me, rather than carving it in stone and trying to make it work. I always got everything delivered.

Travelers. Engineers. Executives. Software trainers. Students. Costume designers. Teachers. Farmers. Mom, dad, and two kids. Four friends going on a trip together. Writers. Merchants. Pilots. Musicians. Arriving early, waiting in line, calling home, checking voice mail, touching base, checking in, reading, drinking coffee. Airport rituals. Delayed, fuel gauge broken, waiting for crew, waiting for parts, waiting for a substitute plane. Waiting on the runway, waiting in the aisle, waiting in baggage, waiting by the curb, waiting in traffic. Where is the thrill in flying anymore? I don't fly in my dreams anymore. I drive.

When I'm not chauffering I like riding a bike and walking. While I was out getting milk last night it occurred to me that my journeys have sometimes been geographicals motivated by some need. I often
wonder if I take the roads or do the roads take me? All roads are possible but sometimes they are inevitable. Maybe the roads choose us and we aren't really paying attention. That's the way things go we say, twists and turns, karma, good or bad luck. Roads are stage sets waiting for action to begin. Lights, camera, action. Two women had an argument about a car near my house. One jumped on the hood, the other drove the car, and the woman on the hood fell off and died. Nobody heard it. It all happened under bright street lights.

I drive for a car service. The clientele is half business, half leisure. They are similar in that every one is on the cell phone to family or close friend. They're in the back having a conversation in the dark with someone who isn't there like talking to a neighbor over the fence at night. I turn the rear view mirror up so we don't have direct eye contact and keep the radio on low volume. I become a part of the landscape like a streetlight that seems to see and hear everything but is perfectly discretionary.

Alice knows her territory around the house. She doesn't stray far. She often invites me outside and is pleased when she sees me going to the mailbox.

night scene

my new phone has 2 camera options, day and night. the night scene function
gets more interesting images. I have been trying it out around the house like
my cat Alice who doesn't stray far but always finds absorbing events in the
ordinary places and things.