When the highways sleep

(View from the passenger seat in Mike's car)

Foggy days are often described as eerie or gloomy, but to me they have always felt safe.

A misty landscape has a quality that makes you want to whisper. It’s partly because of the stillness that inspires reverence, and partly because the world seems asleep and you don’t want to disturb it. It’s also because your surroundings are playing hide and seek, and you don’t want them to hear you approaching. Fog is what happens when nature decides to become a puzzle or perform a vaporous striptease. It’s a game in the same way that changing leaves are dress-up.

Photos of the fog never seem to do it justice, because it irons it out onto a flat surface. This cloudiness is anything but flat. It was never meant to be confined to a two-dimensional space.

Like snow, fog is compared to a blanket, but it’s different than the blanket that snow provides. Snow is static, while mist is in constant motion. It lets you enter and shows you things if it trusts you. The view becomes crisper as you move close. You earn it, like getting to know someone who is usually guarded.

Any light in the haze looks ethereal, even if it’s from cars on the highway. They’re like alien fireflies. This kind of fog makes the highways seem so stark; a near-abandoned alternate world. Every trip out is an adventure in discovering old things in a new light.

Lights become guides, and the sky turns into a milky ocean with a moon eye. It’s unseeing and draws you closer with the tides. Indiscriminately, it draws everything home.

Driving through mist can make you feel embryonic. It’s safe in the way confined spaces are. Of course, mist doesn’t really confine a space by veiling most of it. It just creates that sense while opening more possibilities.
                Many times I feel like I’m walking through a fog in a world of my own. When there’s a tangible fog embracing the landscape, I’m not alone. Everyone is in that same space with me, exploring together. We're in an all-enveloping cocoon, waiting while our surroundings evolve and then finally resurface.