I live in a desert.

Asphalt and chapparal cover the earth that is my chosen homeland.

The chapparal will always win, but the asphalt is gaining territory.

It is getting vertical, too.

Layered like a cake, or like strata in archeology.

Or stacked like firewood.

VERY stacked:

I’m counting six layers of lanes in that intersection. Six seems to be the limit. I’ve never seen seven.

I live in a desert, so these overpasses are over earth.

But it shook me pretty badly when a bridge collapsed yesterday.

I couldn’t stop watching the news. My first thought was whether one of my favorite writers, James Lileks, was okay.

Lileks blogs the way I wish I did. He talks about his wife and a LOT about his daughter. I was very worried for him, and for his family. I imagined what sort of sadness it would be if one of them had been killed in this horrible tragedy.

For me, he was the personal face of Minnesota during this time. I couldn’t turn off the TV until he posted online and I knew he was okay.

The sad part is, there are other families that are not okay.

Trying to whistle in the dark, I said to Chris, “At least I don’t have to cross any bridges when I am driving around.”

‘Yes you do!” he said.

“Well, not over water.”

right. But if I fell through onto asphalt or chaparral, it would be even less forgiving than the Mississippi river.

I’ve admired the beautiful freeways and overpasses I travel for a long time now. But what are they hiding beneath their swooping exteriors?

I can look down, when I am traveling on the higher of the six layers, and think about what holds me up.

Or what keeps me safe as I travel under:

How safe am I?

My heart is with the Minnesota people. I hope the best for them.