Road Trip!

Posted: 8 years ago | By: Christine Somers | In: Pride Of Place | Read Time: 1 minute, 35 seconds


{Lake Life}

Today is February 29 and a time for celebration. Happy Birthday to all the Leap Year babies! May you be blessed with health and happiness for another four years. 

Excitement is building as I plan for my next Footsteps blog series. I wrote last week about my obsession with the British TV show Midsomer Murders and the stories we tell through TV, the movies and books. My wondering led me to question why the Brits tell a story one-way and Americans tell the same story another. As I contemplated our differences, I asked, does place shape the stories we make? Do the idyllic landscapes of England produce storyteller with a more genteel sensibility? Does city living produce harder edged artist that produce darker and more ominous stories? In the midst of these ruminations, I came to the conclusion I should conduct my own "study". 

I am hitting the road to explore how pride of place shapes and influences the stories authors tell. If all goes well this will be a yearlong series. The first part of my tour takes me south and to be transparent, climate influenced my travel schedule more than a little bit. Washington, DC is my first stop where I explore the childhood neighborhoods of Majorie Kinnan Rawlings and Michael Chabon. I lived in Washington, DC for many years and I already know that Rawlings' DC and Michael Chabon's DC are very different places. I envision this series a little bit travel log and a great deal about some of America's most influential writers. 

If you are up for taking this trek with me and you haven't done so already, subscribe to this blog to receive updates. I will be posting "travel photos" to Instagram too. As Lao Tzu observed, The Journey of a Thousand Miles Begins with One Step and I am taking that step today. 

Hugs,
C