Under the Invisible Sea

Today we crossed into the central time zone, officially leaving the west.

We left the vertical striations and other hallmarks of volcanic and seismic activity decorating the landscape from California to the eastern Rockies — and entered a featureless ground that’s been flattened by either mammoth sheets of once-upon-a-time ice or the crushing weight of a great inland sea.

With the Nebraska pavement mostly dry, this flatness allowed me to play a video game on my phone at cruising speed. But don’t judge me for my ill-advised cell phone usage; praise me for finding a strategy to stay awake while not steering for hours.

The other impact of driving in a workday-length straight line is that — especially after leaving the challenging terrain of the west — the reality of our move began to settle in.

True, we wanted a slower pace. But isn’t there a middle ground between feeling overwhelmed by the pace of a place and simply staying awake?

We both felt sad today, like we’d lost some spectacular thing or made an imprudent life choice. It will likely pass, but the dimensions of our move are sinking, sinking, sinking in. Does identity hold while going from mountaintops to seabeds?