Bus Ride Story Collecting

Something is in the air, not yet quite visible to the naked eye. But beginning to take form. The image, developing shape, is one of vehicles; moving vehicles such as buses, cars, trains, planes and boats. A apace ship, too, comes to mind.

Yesterday I did a follow-up interview with an Abkhazian Dinner attendee, seeking feedback from her regarding the dinner event. Not having been privy to much of the small group storytelling at the event, I wondered how she had answered the first question for the discussion groups, following Sue’s reading of our Bus Ride story.

I want to travel
with you.

In summary the question was this:

What did our Bus Ride story invite you to hope, feel or think?

By way of an answer, she offered several images. The first thought she suggested was that our story reminded her of a poem she’d read, the second was of a story. Interweaving her reflections on our Bus Ride story, the poem and the story she had read, she noted the idea that the happenings of an outer journey can have resonance, simultaneously, with an inner one; each one of these representing a sense of moving forward, should one care to notice.

All week long, since our Abkhazian Dinner, I have thought of journeys I have made in or on some kind of moving vehicle; flying to Paris on the first leg of a business-related trip. Day trips by car with my son, intent on assuring his spending time with me, during his teen years, free of the distractions of his friends, television and so forth. Sailing weekends with friends on the Chesapeake Bay.

Voluntary captives on these excursions, the vehicles transporting us served as containers for that which went on between and/or among us. Purposefully geared toward relationship bonding, the trips with my son, as I think back on them, boded the highest reaches of success; conscious intent rewarded.

So now, coming out of our Abkhazian Dinner event, New Horizons is intent on taking our Bus Ride story on the road, so to speak, intent on inviting others to travel with us to the higher reaches of personal and social transforming. We know we must travel together with purpose, enduring the journey, no matter how challenged it may become. And make this trip longer than a moment to achieve a tangible outcome; arriving at awe.