Virginia has moods. There’s the mood she has when she’s first waking up- the quiet stirring of communities sorting themselves out to get through the day. Children with backpacks, mothers with walking shoes on and heels and pearls in her leather tote. The air is barely refreshing, just enough to stave off the oppressive swamp gasses that will soon overwhelm.

There’s the brightness of day, when she’s almost the most quiet she’ll be all day. Everyone is where they ought to be, and no one interferes with the process. commuter lanes are open to the masses and still she waits for the rush of people that will come, patiently, almost relieved. Soaking in deep cathartic breaths before everyone flees back to her homely arms.

There’s the mad running of the people in the late afternoon, when she shuts her eyes and bears her teeth through the anxiety of desperation- all her interstates and highways stuffed with the cars that have been choked down, so much more than she should have ever been expected to consume. All before it finally smooths out into her elegant drapes of Shenandoah skirts.

Then there is her finest hour- when the sun is low in the sky, and the clouds never fail to put on a performance of a lifetime. Every night seems to be opening night, the freshness of the first show just the same as her 10 billionth. The rustic barns seem to pour and reflect her light, the grass not getting brighter but greener. The hot mist that’s been collecting, sitting heavy in the air, finally settles into the grass, and the blue ridges, before mere suggestions and outlines, emerge for the first time in their full weight and significance. The earth genuinely seems to hums its approval for her show, pinks settle into blues, and the aria fades, the heroine unneeding of a curtain call.

She takes on a new sense at night. The communities in the folds of her skirt huddle close and show off their twinkling lights from inside their bricks and planks. The people gather and they tell and remember their stories. Fathers explain to their sons why they display a confederate flag next to the American flag outside their house. Uncles explain to their nieces what happened on the fields next to their grocery market that changed the world. The fields, not generally the grocery market. People go to county fairs and ride ferris wheels and actually use their sidewalks. The places, Mount Vernon, Monticello, Manassas, Chancellorsville- they all go quiet- and the stories come to life, whether they are told correctly or not. She doesn’t care if the story is told right, because it is the intent behind why the story is told that gives Virginia her character.

Also, because there is no way to really work this in, in addition to driving up the Valley today I saved a dog from being hit by a car. He ran across a 4 lane freeway while I was taking a picture, and I felt responsible. Then he runs right in front of a truck and I wave my arms to get the driver to slow down. I take off my very necessary belt, and use it as a leash on the dog with one hand, and hold my pants up with the one good thumb of the other. I walk a quarter of a mile up the road to the nearest house where a woman with big hair, a thick southern accent and a toothy smile welcomes “sadie” back into the house, that the damn dog may live to see another day.

My motel is a series of strange Virginian contradictions- A Victorian chair and ottoman in the corner, a horrifying pink retro bathroom, a flat screen TV, and no spare outlets, a Zen garden where the pool used to be. I love it.

Tomorrow is University of Virginia, Monticello, Skyline drive. It already feels like the middle of nowhere, though I’m not sure what makes one place somewhere and another place nowhere. But for the first time in a long time, I’m just excited to be anywhere!