Oh dear, Part 2

Halloween here was brilliantly sunny, warm, decidedly un-Halloweeny (isn't the day supposed to be misty and dark, full of shadows and mystery?), so Konza really should have been quite enjoyable. But as I plodded around the second loop, I found myself so disinterested and disengaged that I just sat down, plunk right in the middle of the dry, rocky trail. Perhaps subconsciously it was a sort of show-down with the prairie: "Fine, Konza, if you don't want to show me something new and interesting, I'll just sit here until you do." (Ever-demanding)(And is it a bad sign if I've started calling Konza "you" and speaking to it as if it were a sentient being?)

I was there for probably half an hour, mind empty in a non-meditative way. (Don't even have any "tra la tra la"s or "twee-oo"s to type in here, really nothing, just


.)

I suppose if you sit anywhere long enough, something is bound to happen. It came in the form a grasshopper. Granted, insects had been chirping about all morning, but I didn't really care to notice them until one little green thing leaped right in front of me then just sat there too, balanced on a blade of dry, rustly grass, as if challenging me back.

I could turn this into a much longer story / reflection on perception / amusement / the nature of grasshoppers and people and prairies, but really, to summarize, I ended up spending the rest of the morning crawling around on my hands and knees in an attempt to photograph insects. I can't say that any of the images are spectacular, but it's somehow telling that on a day with such big blue skies, I only used the "macro" setting on my camera.

Oh dear, Konza, what to make of you? (Part 1)

Three Konza rambles since I last wrote, alternating between exhilaration and hatred for the place. At least I'm now stricken with ambivalence, as opposed to not caring whatsoever. I'm starting to wonder whether it's the weather (though, granted, it's fun just to say "whether the weather," whither? whence?) -- ominously stormy on Oct 24, and oh how curiously beautiful, energized the place felt. Then the next week -- Halloween nonetheless! -- bright, sunny, nothing. This past week cold and drizzly again, mmm peace.

Getting ahead of myself, though, losing the immediacy. Back to the 24th. Rain in the forecast, big grey clouds in a low sky. Felt a few sprinkles, kept going anyway (something I've come to learn, as in actually finally believe and act upon, is "so what if it's raining.")(I guess a few months in a temperate rainforest will teach you that life get's pretty dull if all you do is sit inside and stay warm.)

Maybe it was the light? Or just my mind, more focused, but I saw the mailbox again, there standing dark at the top of a hill. How could I not have noticed this the dozen other times I'd walked the path?



(I opened it up this time, just to confirm that yes, in fact, it houses interpretive brochures. Somehow that's far more disappointing than real mail, or even nothing. My imagination could have done more with an empty mailbox than one full of tidy lists of numbers and names.)

Anyway, onward. I'd thought the day had been sponsored by turkeys -- they were everywhere, glarbeling at me from out in the grass, -- but soon ran into a new curiousity: cattle? New rotation in the grazing patterns established by scientists studying the impact of ungulate herbivory (i.e. hungry cows).

It was a little surreal. They'd been mooing merrily away until I approached, then they must have caught whiff of my leather boots or chocolate-filled pack because they stopped. Stopped mooing, stopped eating, just stood there. Cows in a field. Silent. Staring.

On, around, the longest loop for the first time since this summer, pausing for this tree. Although the colors were what struck me -- the sun barely happened to peek out just as I was walking by, illuminating a few tattered leaves, gold gold gold against the dark sky -- I stuck with the black-and-white scheme. Again, let the imagination fill in the hues, and, along with them, the rustles of grass, the chill of the air, the beauty, the delight. (Konza!)

Octobery

This Saturday, I leaped at the opportunity to explore areas beyond the neatly maintained, mowed, signed, controlled path, and indeed saw new things -- wandered down a creek bed, learned the names of the grasses, the trees, met some bison.


But oh there were little "science stations" everywhere -- metal boxes, fences, gates and more gates. The bison had tags in their ears. The gates had locks. The fences had grass on one side, forbs on another.

The sky was grey, cold bitter wind, rumors of snow swirling in the air, autumn.Drove to the top of a hill and looked out across acres and acres and acres of grass, but wasn't allowed to just slip away, head cross-country, dip into the woody ravines, climb along the flinty ridges, just lay down in the middle of a field and watch the clouds grey grey grey. So many shades of grey, though you can't tell without sitting, site-watching. Instead it was just sad, somehow, to see the prairie so poked, prodded, abused, divided. Differentiated. Trammeled.


Back then again the next day, to the same old path. Greyer, colder, wind tearing sprinkles from the sky. Made the place feel even smaller, to have had my eyes opened to roads, fences, boxes beyond my immediate experience. I was at my own pace, but didn't have to look where I was going, just let my feet follow the path. (Maybe that's what it is? You don't actually engage in a place when you follow a path, you just go where it tells you to go, see what it tells you to see. There's no choice.)

At the same, delightful to return to familiar spots, to see oh! the burn from last spring is as full of grasses, rich as ever, I'd never have known it had been black, charred, bare just months ago had I not seen it, returned.

Each time I go back, I have to revise my perceptions -- not totally erase and rewrite, but revise, add layers, depth, dimension. Fascinating to study, but I don't want to be told what to study, I want to explore, see what, as Robert Frost would say, sticks to me like burrs in a field.

Back to Konza after three months walking wandering wondering about El Cap Cave / Tongass National Forest / Prince of Wales Island in Southeast Alaska and one month sitting sitting sitting with a broken leg. Barely off crutches, a little stir-crazy. Didn't really want to go to Konza -- knew it couldn't possibly compare to the pure wild peace I felt this summer -- but oh there's no where else, nothing else, can't I just find little happinesses if I look hard enough, close enough, often enough?







Instead of making me feel familiar, welcomed, the swell of place-based memories -- turkey-sightings, path-turning, wind wind wind -- exacerbated my loneliness, my alienation. I can like the feel of the sun and the smell of the sage but I just can't like the place. Too many paths, fences, signs, other people. Too far away from my back door. Konza. It's all I have. That makes me hate it more.

Konza part x (?) (April)

“I’m back again, this frosty and misty April morning. I think it’s the 11^th? 10^th? Mmmm, and the birds are singing and the grass is greening and everything smells so springing. We got rain last night, turned to frost. The drive in was through clouds – waves of clouds, -- then it opened up and here I am. I haven’t been here for a while; we’ll see how it looks after the deserts of the Colorado Plateau.” (10.1)

The little creek is flowing; I can hear it before I even come to it. I never realized that it makes noise, oh it’s trickling and burbling and laughing as creeks should. I wonder why that’s always such a soothing noise. I guess if you’re traversing the prairie or the desert, then that sound of water rushing… (10.2)

I think it was William Least Heat-Moon in PrairyErth who was chiding Kansas for having the meadowlark as the state bird, as do something like five other states, but that’s the first bird whose song I learned to identify and I’m still so happy to see them sitting on the fence wire; I like meadowlarks. Lark, larklark. I like meadows; I like larks. Put them together and you have that song, that song of spring and sunshine – lark! (10.3)

Burn! I just realized – I was so lost in my thoughts, then I got to the turn, the first junction with the trail, and wow! Oh I was wondering why it looked so bald ahead, but I thought it was just something to do with my sunglasses. So. I don’t know, it’s sort of beautiful. Hmmm. (10.4)

I wonder how they keep the signs from charring. (10.5)

I had no idea that outcropping of rocks rings all these hills! I should have realized, but I never thought about it. The burn has uncovered more – some little scraggly bushes, trees still sticking up. Odd to see the very distinct lines where they mowed and controlled – the idea of ‘controlling’ fires fascinating too… I was thinking that this ought to be a similar experience to walking across salt flats, where you just have this flat lifeless monotone, alien landscape. It should seem… I don’t know how to explain it – sensually it’s the same, but here it’s such a different perspective – a hope, a renewal, this is all going to regrow. It’s potential… it’s… I don’t know. I keep saying ‘I don’t know,’ I don’t know… (10.6)

A little pool! I didn’t know that was there.

Burn only on one side, I keep looking back and forth right to left, grasses so soft and feathery, traditional landscape with hills and mist in the distance, and the other side just black with these pools reflecting the sky, such a different idea. Back and forth, grass and… I think the burnt landscape feels more alive? Now the grasses are just brown and dead, then over here, it’s just water and earth… and [laughs] sky. (10.7)

I just want to splash in the puddles and roll in the mud! Like a buffalo, I suppose. Oh, I know I’m not allowed to (because it’s Konza. Rules.) but oh… (10.8)

Why is it I can’t get the same feeling anywhere else? Watching movies or talking to people or reading a book. Not the same as the wind and the sun and even the rain, even fire. I was thinking that, as we were doing the Refuge essays, that people turn to different things for solace – to baseball, to family, to words – to reconnect with the world outside themselves and in so doing reconnect with themselves. [“Them,” I say, “them,” as though I’m not one of “them,” I’m a wild creature, not a social specie.] We’re not supposed to – now that’s interesting, ‘supposed to,’ according to Taoism, Buddhism – need anything outside ourselves, but I can’t remember, can’t appreciate the wind (or it’s absence) without it there.

I don’t even like Konza, compared to anything. I mean, I’m following this six-mile path over and over again, I can’t go splash in the puddles and I can’t go pick up stones and I can’t I can’t I can’t. But at the same time, nobody can control the wind, nobody can control the clouds, so I get that slight taste of something, something bigger than me, than us…

I hate cities, I hate buildings. I don’t want to say I hate people, but I just never feel this way, the way I feel out here… (10.9)

I just want to keep walking, walking and walking and walking without any responsibilities and goals. Here to not be on this trail, just… (10.10)

These moments, you know – I don’t know, I keep saying I don’t know, but my legs just got tired and my ears are cold and the wind is blowing and [can hear wind and birds on tape!] I don’t know. What to do. Just keep walking…. (10.11)

The peepers are peeping and the robins are looking for worms. It’s all wet and adamantly spring along the creek. (10.14)

Oh dear, drowning in thoughts/work/life, I'm afraid I've neglected this whole virtual realm for a while. I'm agonizingly trying to crystallize/coerce my prairie-walking observations into some sort of larger understanding(s), but egads thinking oughtn't get in the way of living, and moments oughtn't be frozen in over-interpretation. Here's the raw "data," though, from the past few weeks...



"It’s March, and I completely forgot to press the “Record” button. [On the way in, I’d disturbed a whole flock of turkeys who were munching on green stubble in the field, sent them scurrying into the sky. Hope they returned to finish their breakfast.] So we’ll try this again.

There’s a bird calling back to me – ‘twee-hoo, twee-hoo.’ It’s cold, windy, wet – it rained last night, so all the colors are out. And they burned too, so the soil is dark with charcoal and moisture [darkness! The contrast between the soil and the little green sprigs]…and oh, there’s a tree that’s fallen. I don’t remember that before, I think that’s new? A slump right here? Maybe I just didn’t notice, I can’t tell…

Anyway, everything’s wet. ‘Twee-ee-oo,’ go the birds. Green. I’ll just walk. (9.1)

I have to confess that after last night’s rain, I came out here expecting to experience that euphoric smell of spring. I keep breathing deeply [breathe], and don’t smell a thing. Maybe it’s the wind blowing it all away?

Today the light is different, at least. The sky is clouded over. (Stupid me forgot my raincoat, too.) With the sky clouded over, though, there aren’t any shadows… [abruptly interrupt thought, I’m sure I could have kept ruminating on that, but…] (9.2)

Runners! Two people running on the trail. I envy that they can do that, and at least they’re coming here – trail-running, -- but is there something you miss, by going at a runner’s pace? Different objective, I guess. (9.3)

I thought I just heard geese honking from somewhere far away. I heard them and got all excited to think, ‘Spring!,’ even though I hate geese and at home I always ugh, those obnoxious things would sit I swear outside my window and they would tease my dog. But after rereading Sand County Almanac – darn it all!, -- I’m sort of happy to hear geese. (9.4)

I’m excited that I’m talking again. I thought I was getting bored with the place, that I’d learned all it had to tell me, God, what a … not a failure or blindness, I don’t know what word I’m looking for, it was just a presumption, ugh. I’m seeing all sorts of new things; it feels different today. (9.5)

Lazy – that’s the word I was looking for, it was lazy of me. I need these cold grey days to feel alive. And here. (9.5b)

I just tried to take a picture of the path to show how bronze the grass is in comparison with the horizon, which is in one direction grey, and the other direction just this curious blue, blue-purple, the ‘blue of distance’ as the book I’m reading…(oh, what’s the title,…Solnit! By Rebecca Solnit!) or the purple of wet trees in March. But of course the camera can’t capture that; it’s something I’ll need to try painting, or just keep in my memory-file. (9.6)

Somewhere in that sea of grass, one little bird calling, ‘twee-oo, twee-oo; twee-oo, twee-oo.’

Oh I don’t have the notes right; I’d make a poor bird. (9.7)

I paused to take a picture of turkey tracks (‘take’ again, ugh), and heard this ‘ta-taptaptap, tap, ta-tap tap’ and thought it [a woodpecker] was right next to me, but I can’t see it among all these trees.

I also, a while back, took pictures of an old oak, this grand old oak. I don’t know why I didn’t say anything about it, there weren’t any words in my head [stepping up to the trunk, under that great canopy of branches], it felt mythic. [stumble for words…] I just wanted to stand under it, not talk about it. (9.8)

And I know it’s against the rules to step off the path, but sometimes rules just…hmm. (9.9)

****

one two three four

Adventure.
Work.
Love.
Food.
Air.
Sunshine.

Of the six elements contributing to a good life (as determined by Aldo Leopold), work and food would seem to be the most essential, air and sunshine taken for granted and adventure and love superfluous. Yet after months' of subsisting on interesting work and good food, I'm aching for air and sunshine, more so adventure. Adventure, adventure, adventure.

Thoreau's famous observation -- "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation" -- still rings true today. People tell me to start with the basics -- slog through the day, put dinner on the table -- everything else will fall into place. Sunshine, adventure, just have to wait for the weekend, the summer, next year, do your duty today and dream of tomorrow. But then tomorrow doesn't come, people get so comfortable in the day-to-day that they temper ambitions. Is it better to recognize little happinesses where you are, in what you're doing, or forever long for something else? Dare to try something new, or appreciate what you have? Can you have both work and adventure? Does either matter if the sun is shining and you don't care?