(originally posted on my other blog, hybrid tumbleweed, 04-22-2006)
I was driving along a small road near Rochelle, Illinois, a town about an hour northwest of Chicago, when I saw what must have been hundreds of tumbleweeds strewn about between the road and a high fence. I just had to pull aside to take a closer look.
These were not mere weeds by the roadside. These were roadside metaphors. These were my metaphors, for like the humble tumbleweed, Salsola Tragus, I too am a wanderer, tumbling through the world without an apparent sense of direction, uprooted, driven this way and that by the elements. And like the tumbleweed, all too often, I get stopped in my tracks by a fence, get snagged on barbed wire. There are too many fences in the world, too much barbed wire.
Like the tumbleweed also, despite my seemingly aimless wanderings, despite my rootlessness, I carry within me a thousand little embryonic forms, a thousand creative offerings. These I carry with me as I tumble, scattering them along my path. Perhaps some will find fertile ground, take root along the way, take on lives of their own. Maybe some will take root right here by the fence that blocks my way.
I must remember that a metaphor, like all beasts of burden, has its limitations, can only carry so much weight. I must not break its back, must not lay too much meaning upon it. So I will leave it here and send it on its way.
Is it possible to capture a metaphor on film? Maybe not, but I've tried. Here is the beast, even if you cannot see the burden I have placed upon it:
