the new road...

Sometimes you need to take a step back and reevaluate where you are and where you have been, and then determine the best way to get where you are going. Pull to the side of the road and check out the old Rand-Mcnally.

Now don't get me wrong, I, like most guys, don't like directions. I don't like looking at maps. I have been endowed with a Y chromosome that allows me to know how to get anywhere, and everywhere, without so much as a consideration of latitude or longitude, or even street names and landmarks.

I've been travelling this road that looks perfect - recently paved, beautiful (as in ohmigod beautiful) scenery, thought-provoking road-sign messages, the whole 9. But the road is new; its only been finished for a couple of months.

And like all new roads, there is still work to be done. The workers still have to place the "Slow: Men at Work" signs and those damn orange barrels out in certain places at certain times. They have to check the pavement, again and again, for confirmation that yes it really is ready for travel.

And sometimes, as if out of nowhere, there are occasional street signs that still denote the name of the old road. The final vestiges of a by-gone era. These signs hold on to their rusted posts, weather-beaten, dinged and dented, knowing that they will linger until some burst of cleansing wind sweeps through and topples them, and buries them in the sand below not to be forgotten but simply to stop being a reminder of what has been and can be no longer.

And I know, because I have once before travelled upon a similar road, that this road will for many months and years have occasional slow-downs, and occasional traffic jams, and occasional diversions and merges, and even the occasional collision.

But the road, the road is magnificent; even with its idiosyncrasies, even with its growing pains. And I am pretty damned convinced, probably naively, despite having just turned onto this road, that if I, and the road, take it slow and allow the necessary tweaks and refinements that before you know it, there will be an HOV fast lane that opens just for me and her, and there will be a smooth, unhindered journey forthwith.

So I think I will travel this road, and see where it takes me. The Rand-Mcnally will stay in the glovebox. No need to stop for directions.

Besides, I don't really have a destination in mind; I'm just here for the journey...