Lingering life outside the fast lane
Among the orange groves on the road to Seville in southern Spain, the sharp-eyed motorist will do well to detect the occasional cotton field, where the plants are in full white bloom on a beautiful autumn morning.
I have never seen cotton fields before, and their very thought conjures up images of the deep southern states of America rather than here, in a region of Spain that was home to Arabs for centuries, an Islamic foothold in the Iberian Peninsula.
Across hillsides there are now grey steel windmills slowly producing their clean energy for homes and schools, offices and factories, with thoughts too of Don Quixote, forever set to tilt at these in a pained pursuit of honour and valour.
As you drive north, the land begins to rise, and much of Spain is indeed a plain — and yes, it does rain, but only a shower followed by a rainbow — a promise from the heavens that all is truly well.
Cattle look beefy in their fields, thriving in the shade of old oaks that carpet the landscape. At the side of highways, where small towns and villages still thrive, you can tell the type of agriculture that endures by the showrooms and businesses that cater to the farming communities they serve. There are sturdy tractors on offer, ploughs, trailers. And as the land gets poorer and incomes drop, those tractors become smaller — the trailers too, with each passing kilometre.
What do we know of the life of towns and villages, hamlets and settlements from a passing car? How different life must be for people who live in places connected by the thread of a highway, the routine of a regional road, the casual trade of those who make brief stops in petrol stations, refuelling to go on somewhere else?
Are children who grow up in such communities not filled with the wonder of what lies down the road, around the next bend, beyond the next highway turn-off?
How strange it must be to live in a place where people pass through, stopping by only for fuel, a fill-up, to use the services?
Impressions of life from a car are so fleeting. Yet, we see so much but take very little in, it seems.
Screaming out to motorists
Petrol stations in rural communities have their own pace, unlike the filling stations with fast food, bright lights and a whole selection of foods and sweets, drinks and juices just screaming out to motorists who fill up in cities.
There is often one pump, maybe two. And the meters take ages to reset to zero for your sale. And when those pumps begin, there is a loud whirring unlike those from the pumps in cities. And it takes much longer to fill your vehicle, and you won’t be surprised if the gauges are mechanical rather than digital.
These petrol stations are more like the offices of tradesmen, where there are empty shelves, some oil containers or a carton or two, and maybe a dog-eared receipt book for the regular account holders who pass this way to fill. Most travellers are just that — interlopers in the real lives of these communities, set on heading to a destination in faraway places.
How simple life seems to be in these byways off highways, where people rush through, but just briefly stop to fill up to get somewhere fast. Here, life seems slower. Simpler. Unrushed.
We have places to go, things to do, people to see. They do too, but take their time in enjoying the little places of life.