Life in quadrants
I have often found it interesting that the apparatus founded to ensure our countries security is now the main artery of the morning commute. This thought has struck me as funny for a long time.
I have been thinking for awhile about something else. Really ever since our vacation (more on that later). For all of my adult life I have lived in proximity to I-75. When I lived in Rossville, GA., I traveled to the mall, to movies, to guitar shops, and downtown to hear music on I-75. When I went
to college, travelling up I-75 to get there, I went the opposite direction (south), but still I-75 got me everywhere I needed to go (that wasn't in Cleveland). When I moved to Knoxville several years later, it was 75 that got me there as well, and to do many things in Knoxville you had to go via I-75. It is a beautiful stretch of interstate that many of you are familiar with, that stretch that runs between Knoxville and Cleveland, and I love it. I love coming up on the Tennessee River around dusk or heading south and see the three radio tower lights at night. Or coming south out of Kentucky and all the mountains around Jellico North of Knoxville.
It is odd to be on a different quadrant now. I was contemplating this while driving north on I-65 the other week on vacation. I haven't been on 75 in months, and though I was on 65 at the time 0f contemplation, I am really an I-40 kinda guy nowadays. All thing I do involve 40, while occasionally I will access 65 for various things. To go have lunch with my wife on the rare day off, to go to the mall, movies, to libraries or downtown, it's all the even number East-West spectrum, no longer the odd numbers of north and south. I am not sure how to feel about that, but it does make me feel weird, odd even. It is a completely new way of thinking really.
I think its apart of change, a part of mathematical (or logical) familiarity. I had become comfortable with the axis of my journey being the north-south polarity, the identity of East Tennessee. I could order all things of my life around it. As many say that something is "west of the Mississippi," I understood or made sense of my world by its position with respect to 75. Though I no longer consider myself new to Nashville, and love it here, I have not yet gained a similar sense of polarity.
I have been thinking for awhile about something else. Really ever since our vacation (more on that later). For all of my adult life I have lived in proximity to I-75. When I lived in Rossville, GA., I traveled to the mall, to movies, to guitar shops, and downtown to hear music on I-75. When I went
to college, travelling up I-75 to get there, I went the opposite direction (south), but still I-75 got me everywhere I needed to go (that wasn't in Cleveland). When I moved to Knoxville several years later, it was 75 that got me there as well, and to do many things in Knoxville you had to go via I-75. It is a beautiful stretch of interstate that many of you are familiar with, that stretch that runs between Knoxville and Cleveland, and I love it. I love coming up on the Tennessee River around dusk or heading south and see the three radio tower lights at night. Or coming south out of Kentucky and all the mountains around Jellico North of Knoxville.It is odd to be on a different quadrant now. I was contemplating this while driving north on I-65 the other week on vacation. I haven't been on 75 in months, and though I was on 65 at the time 0f contemplation, I am really an I-40 kinda guy nowadays. All thing I do involve 40, while occasionally I will access 65 for various things. To go have lunch with my wife on the rare day off, to go to the mall, movies, to libraries or downtown, it's all the even number East-West spectrum, no longer the odd numbers of north and south. I am not sure how to feel about that, but it does make me feel weird, odd even. It is a completely new way of thinking really.
I think its apart of change, a part of mathematical (or logical) familiarity. I had become comfortable with the axis of my journey being the north-south polarity, the identity of East Tennessee. I could order all things of my life around it. As many say that something is "west of the Mississippi," I understood or made sense of my world by its position with respect to 75. Though I no longer consider myself new to Nashville, and love it here, I have not yet gained a similar sense of polarity.
I live closest to I-20 which takes me from Dallas to Birmingham to Atlanta.
As you know, I utilze I-75 most often (everyday!!) BUT live in close proximity to "The Split", where I-40 goes West and I-75 and I-40 begin to be the same for just a short while. When we lived in Greensboro, when Hope was born, we lived at the exit where I-40 ended.
What an interesting way to view the world!