Of dates and timing

Humanity looks for meaning in many places – dates, location, sounds and combinations thereof. I don’t know if I’m atypical in personality or memory, but I haven’t found profound meaning in calendar dates, feeling that they are more of a manmade construct. Holidays created by greeting card companies and food-interest groups, record companies, etc.

That said, today is different. The shortest daylight of the year. Depressing to many, the darkness enveloping northern latitudes for altogether too many hours. Dark when you go to work, dark when you come home, the sun seemingly skimming the horizon during the intervening hours – if you’re lucky enough to live in a place where clouds don’t dominate. But, there is hope in that depth of darkness. The knowledge that every day that follows will be longer than the last for a not insubstantial period of time.

Spring will come. Warmth will return. Change will follow.

So that’s why I choose today to start this new project. I’ve blogged before, written real articles for actual pay occasionally, tried to keep up with posting photos of one little bitty niche in the dark corners of the internet. Maybe this time will be different, I’ll keep up with it for many years to come. Maybe not. But it will be an adventure. That’s the nature of the roads less traveled.

Tomorrow I’ll be taking my fun car, the rare but not valuable Geo Prizm GSi, to a professional to diagnose a small, but persistent oil leak that befouls the garage floor with one little drip, after drip after drip. It adds up, like the dark days outside. But perhaps this diagnosis will lead to a fork in the road in the proverbial yellow wood. Fixing said leak may lead to further fixes resulting in restoration, perhaps leading to moving on to another project. A different car, perhaps rare but not valuable.

In the meantime, TheRoad.blue will be an outlet for cars, the good and the bad and the in between. The trips that they take us on and the thoughts that they inspire. I hope you’ll find value here – the manifesto will guide the path.

I had not intended to start this blog on a somewhat random December day. It was meant to be in the summer. Of 2023. About the time that I had organized a roadtrip for a small group of friends to camp and drive on some amazing roads. But life has a funny way of delaying things. So here we are.

Where will the blue roads take us? Who knows. Such is the joy of the shortest day.