Sun, wind, and a rogue cow

Sunday the 22nd, another beautiful day. I went "backwards" again, winding alongside the wooded creek to begin with, saving the prairie for the end. That way, rather than start off eager, inspired, cold wild happy, only to lose interest and have to plod through the last few miles, I get to warm up my legs, my mind a little before walking out onto (into?) the bright windy landscape.

Of course, that does mean that I start off bored, slightly disgruntled. But I'm usually so desperate to walk somewhere anywhere that I don't mind too too much that I have to drive all the way out to the trail, park my car with all the others, share the place with joggers and children wandering off trail.

Maybe it was just that I was excited to finally get out of the woods, or maybe it was that I'd just run into a friendly couple that was obviously enjoying their hike the day the place, but when I hiked up the hill and emerged at the top of the ridge, views of grass grass grass sky sun, mmmm.

Then I started seeing sights, thinking thoughts, clouds and grasshoppers and a bright red gate!

The cows were there again. This week, they didn't just stare at me, rather continued to happily munch away at the forbs by the fence. I took a few photos (color!) and was about to continue on when I heard a nonchalant "moooo" off to my left, from among the bushes/grasses alongside the trail. Umm? There it was! A rogue cow! (I don't know why "rogue" sprang to mind, but it was free, defying the fence, feasting on the ungrazed vegetation! Hooray for the rogue cow!) More photos, as it joined the same frame as its poor fenced companions; I couldn't help but attribute some sort of symbolism to the scene.


Interesting, though, when I got back to the bridge by the beginning/end of the trail, I was extremely annoyed to see a family standing down by the creek bed, throwing rocks into the water. They weren't rogues; they were rule-breakers, sign-ignorers. I want to sploosh in the water too, people, but "Stream monitoring project. Please stay on trail." Isn't it the same instinct, though, to tend toward wildness, delight? Layers of culture inhibit deeper, rawer appreciation?

Ugh, Konza. Trails. Signs. Rules. Experiments. People.

(That said, it was beautiful out there again this past Saturday -- grass rustling with warmth, horsetails sweeping the sky.)

Oh dear, Part 3

Autumn finally decided to arrive last Sunday -- cold, windy, sprinkles of rain on the roof, rumors of snow on the radio, -- so of course I had zip up my fleece, add an extra pair of socks, pull on my mitten-capped-gloves and head to out to Konza. It was still early when I got there (and cold and wet), so I was surprised to see another car in the parking lot, felt an instant camaraderie with whatever other fool had come to traipse the trail.

For whatever reason, I decided to loop counter-clockwise, took the right-hand fork in the path with a delicious sense of spontaneity (little things). What did I see? Well, turkey, deer, trees, path path path, same old same old, no? No, completely different views, that .

I was so excited to see this tree -- really see it -- that I completely forgot to turn onto the first loop, didn't realize it until a mile later, when my fingers were stiff and purpley-blue and I was beginning to wonder why the route seemed longer from this direction.

Meanwhile, I crossed paths with the other hiker -- not a hiker at all, but some guy out jogging in some sophisticated all-black spandex gear. I think he saw me first, flapping my mitten-tops in an attempt to get blood circulating through my fingers. Oh. (That's why I prefer to have places to myself -- I don't have to worry about looking like an idiot -- can flap my arms and clap my hands and sing and dance and crawl around looking for crickets without having to explain to other people what exactly I'm doing. The birds, the wind, the prairie either understand or don't care.)


Much later on, after I'd found the turn for the second loop (you'd think I'd be able to manage not to get lost by now. Three trails, for goodness sake. I make a terrible geographer.)(Then again, I wouldn't feel lost at all if I didn't have to follow the paths and could just let the landscape dictate my direction) , climbed the big hill up to the grassy ridge / fenceline, and felt a little burst of rain, I encountered another person out braving the cold blustery weather -- a red-cheeked, flannel-wearing and hiking-stick-bearing man who was clearly delighted to be out in the wind and rain. We both smiled and murmured something to the effect of "beautiful day, eh?" before continuing onward.

And it was beautiful

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)