Catching up 1 : February

A little behind -- I've not yet written about the first week of February -- another blustery winter day, --

then mmm, two weeks later -- one of those rare, still mornings when fresh-falling snow traced every blade of grass and made it hard to tell what was earth and what was sky.

(Easy to forget, now, too -- as I look at the photographs and type peaceful adjectives, -- how darn cold it was. My fingers were blue and white by the time the camera whirred into action; hence a shot containing a loop of the wrist band.)

Frozen photographer issues aside, these were the most peaceful, beautiful walks I've had at Konza. (Come to think of it, the inclement weather was likely the reason why I had the whole place to myself -- no other hikers; not even any animals; just me and the prairie. I almost felt a touch of solitude.)

It would have been a good time for solitude / meditative moments. February was busy (read: excuses for not blogging for so long) -- in my ongoing attempt to make some sort of sense out of all my Konza musings (by proceeding smoothly from an onslaught of pure sensation through filters of perception to the grand goal of nice, tidy cognition or comprehension or dare I aim for insight?)(Ha!), I was designing a poster on "Reconciling Science and the Aesthetic Experience," preparing a presentation on the same subject in the context of a "nature / culture dialectic," and also defending my dissertation proposal (which centers on perceptions of and attachment to wide-open prairie landscapes, including Konza).

Too much to do. Too much sitting in front of a computer, typing out field notes and shuffling photographs. Too little wandering around the prairie. Always too little wandering, too little sun and snow, grass and wind.

Konza Konza Konza. Sky and earth, then signs and trails; hawks and deer, then people and cattle. A 2.5 or 4.4 or 6.0 mile loop then the 8 or 9 mile drive back to this city, this noisy messy busy boring bored micropolis.

I'll say it again, as much as I still hate Konza, I'm almost coming to love it. Cold and grey.