Here, there are narrow roads walled with trees and roofed by a thin strip of sky. It always seems as though one were going faster than one is, so close does the forest crowd. Other roads are so ill paved that cars slow to a crawl, bumped and jostled by potholes. Then, small gaps in the woods open views into places that are each distinct though similar. It becomes possible to imagine seeing strange creatures lurking there in dim glades. Being in a car is different here than in other places. I always get the feeling that I ought to be on horseback, or riding a creaky buckboard. The landscape is not suited to modern technology. The houses, dwarfed by the tall trees, seem to cower down as though frightened, as though they knew they were intruders, expecting at any moment to be expelled. Thus, a trip to the store becomes for me an adventure through a landscape of conflict and disturbance. I weary of my inability to capture in words the strangeness of this experience. I don't think I'll ever understand this place. It feels as strange to me now as it did when I first saw it more than twenty years ago, and its oddness remains as inexplicable today as it was then. Why the hell is this place even here? I doubt that I'll ever know.
flying_blind) wrote, 
