“I’m just a poor, wayfaring stranger / Traveling through this world below,” croons Johnny Cash (along with countless others who’ve covered this song). 

I’ve spent my life in the Great Plains, where flat horizons are interrupted by swirling tongues of light, and winding road lines vanish over the horizon into a sky that looms like a divine presence. That sky determines the appearance and fortune of everything below. I’ve driven beneath clear sunlit skies, inside the echoing velvet of night, though ice storms and blizzards and torrential summer rains. I’ve seen a funnel cloud forming over a distant town as I drove my car through whipping leaves and branches on a small country road. My Camry wouldn’t do much good as a storm chasing vehicle. If the tornado had swung toward us, I think the car and I would have been drawn into the swirling clouds like a sacrifice to the storm.

There’s a melancholy to the rhythm of traveling. Everything feels temporary: nothing stays the same—especially not the traveler. The world careens past the windshield, and the only constant is motion. A breathtaking view is lost the next moment. Clouds shift across the sun, casting shadows. Stasis invites death, so the journey continues. Yet there’s exhilaration, too. Every time I travel it feels as if I’m setting off on a quest, and whatever I encounter is a mythical character. In fact, the general structure of a mythic quest – take that of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, one of my favorites – is a journey to confront the unknown. Animals become supernatural harbingers, everyday places take on fantastical aspects. Rural gas stations appear in the distance like magical islands. Deer wander across the road and it’s a roll of the dice whether they’ll jump out at the car or barely avoid the enticing headlights. 

Some might dismiss mythology and fairy tales as escapism. Yet storytelling is integral to every culture, and I’d argue that it connects us with a reality deeper than the merely visible. We tell stories, sing songs – and in my case, paint pictures – to connect the sensible world and the mad unfathomable rhythm that runs beneath it. 

-        Maria Haag