Finding the Extraordinary in the Ordinary
- yodafurda
- Nov 17, 2020
- 2 min read
Hallelujah for local road trips - it has saved us from the boring monotony of the stay-at-home Covid-19 pandemic lifestyle! Given all the travel bans going on, the USA is not a bad country to be stuck in - its size, diversity and beauty offer boundless options for exploration. My brother, who lives in Singapore - an island city state measuring 280.2 square miles (the US is 3.797 million square miles) - was an avid holiday traveler pre-Covid times and now laments his lack of choices. I guess there are only so many times you’ll want to visit the Gardens by the Bay (which, don’t get me wrong, is stunning and one of my favorite places to visit in Singapore).
After cancelling a trip to Massachusetts due to cross-state travel restrictions, Tom and I scrambled to plan and book an alternative trip within our own adopted state, Pennsylvania. It was an eye-opener for us. New England is always the first place you think of when you want to go on a ‘leaf-peeping’ trip to take in the stunning colors of fall foliage they are so famous for. Well, guess what? PA ain’t too shabby on autumn glory, either. I guess the grass is always greener (or the leaves redder…?) on the other side.
The trip made me reassess the way I viewed places - especially when it comes to the overly familiar and the taken-for-granted surroundings we come across so often. Those of us who live in satellite towns on the outskirts of Philadelphia are really familiar with the ‘Blue Route’ (I-476) - nothing spectacular at first glance. But on our way home from our north PA trip, I paid attention to the journey, and to the changing landscapes as we whizzed by. Something clicked for me when I saw the lazy, hazy late afternoon sun, and how it cast a grungy, atmospheric complexion (especially through out dirty windscreen!) over the semi urban horizon.
We took loads of photos of many spectacular scenes of fiery autumn red and gold on our trip - yet, this highway snapshot was the one I felt compelled to paint. Nothing conventionally pretty about the scene but it was more a record of how I felt at that moment - like if I tried, I could find something wonderful in just about anything I came across. As we ride out this continuing chapter in pandemic life, may we all enjoy many more instances of finding the extraordinary in the ordinary - it sure makes for a less boring existence!
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