Pools of light before we continue the journey

Scene from an OnRoute
Ingersoll, ON
February 2019
This photo originally shared on Instagram

This scene, captured at a highway rest stop near Ingersoll at 8:31 on a bitterly cold winter night, is pretty similar to scenes that play out at other highway rest stops in other wintry parts of the world. It's not even remotely unique, nothing jumps out as particularly memorable or spectacular, and there's no reason why a news crew would feature this on the 11 o'clock news.

Unspectacular and unmemorable doesn't mean unworthy, though. This seemingly nondescript scene contains any number of stories, each one important to the individuals pictured here. Just because we don't know who they are, what brought them here, where they're headed, or even why they're out in the first place doesn't make their stories any less significant.

So before we continue on our way, I stand in the darkened parking lot and take it in: The two pickups, sedan and crossover at the pumps, the lineup inside the convenience store, the brilliant, oasis-like pools of light that spill out into the night.

I've mused about these highway rest stops before, these transitional, generally forgettable places we try to put behind us as we rush to wherever we're headed. The clock is ticking, and our hands go numb around the gas pump the longer we stand in the cold, concrete emptiness. Can this thing possibly BE any slower? I wish the same thing as I fill up my own vehicle. I wish for the rest of the trip to be warm, easy, and fast. I wish for life - for me as well as for my fellow travellers - to be easier than it seems to be at this particular time, in this particular place.

I'm not about to walk up to these strangers and ask them their story. But it can't hurt to wonder, from afar, what those stories might be. And send quiet wishes for safe journeys.

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