From the back door of the camper in Farmer City, Illinois, at 7:29 p.m. Central Time:
There is the rare peak event but also the beauty of the everyday.
As I'm writing this, searching for the right way to frame the profundity that feels just out of reach, Meade suddenly bellows, comically, "Well, what's next on our bucket list?"
I ask his permission to quote him, and he says yes and "You know I said that ironically."
"Yes, I wrote 'comically.' Don't worry. I won't let them think you said that seriously."
We're anti-bucket-list people, but we put a lot effort into doing a bucket-list thing. It was the last chance for the experience of a lifetime, and we drove 6-and-a-half hours each way to grab it. The sunrise and the sunset were captured spontaneously. And I'm only seeing that bird just now, symbolizing all those things that we see and don't really see.
ADDED: I had a few typos in the original draft of this post. Talk about seen and unseen. Corrected. And now I'm seeing the ghostly, spontaneous bird in the sunset clouds.
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“You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet, still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.”
—Kafka
It's also good to get out of the house, too.
there's some sandy hills in the middle of nebraska..
nebraska is THE OPPOSITE of anyone's bucket
Well, Ann and Meade.
You have not lived if you have not visited Nebraska.
Highlights
1. Niobrara River and especially the Norden Chute where Begley could have been killed.
2. All of Nebraska's Sandhills.
3. The Sandhills Cranes by Kearney.
4. Creighton University and the death mask of St. Ignatius Loyola, S.J. inside St. John's Church. Also, the statue of St. Ignatius in the center of campus.
5. Henry Doorly Zoo.
6. Lauritzen Gardens (Meade!!)
7. Old Market.
8. The Drover for the famous whisky steak.
9. The sun rising over Council Bluffs and the Missouri River.
10. The whole Omaha restaurant and music scene; especially Buck's in Venice.
Southeastern Nebraska is beautiful. It is all corn. Every inch of the place. Cornfields, cornfields, cornfields. Cornfields.
Also, Harold Warp's Pioneer Village which may have the world's largest collection of antique vacuum cleaners and washing machines.
Further west in Ogallala one finds the long-running Cowboy Revue, a goofy (and, yes, corny) summer stock show. Highly recommended.
I've seen blinding sunrises/sunsets in IL and WI where the land is very flat.
We're not used to that where I live...the hills and mountains seem to take away some of the lumens. Either that, or we see the sun when it's higher in the sky...
I've learned something similar.
The best way to enjoy scenery is to ignore it. When on a hike, don't stand there and gaze at the scenery expecting to soak in its beauty; that rarely works. Instead, just hike along, thinking your humdrum thoughts and doing what you have to do to accomplish hiking things. Then, occasionally, you look up and around and go "Wow, that's really beautiful." It comes unbidden.
You may think you are missing the scenery because you're immersed in your humdrum thoughts, but you're not. Subconsciously, you are keeping track of the scenery and soaking it in. When the time is right and it wells up into consciousness, it can be quite profound because all that subterranean noticing is there deepening the experience.
When I consciously try to enjoy the scenery, I always feel like Chevy Chase at the Grand Canyon in Vacation:
https://media1.tenor.com/images/c81549d3dab69be2f09dbdfd08f97211/tenor.gif?itemid=9618143
Odd how the sun seems to be in front of the tree.
"... WI where the land is very flat..."
I hear outsiders say Wisconsin is flat, but talk about not seeing things. Does "driftless area" mean nothing to you?
In the documentary "Primary," Hubert Humphrey is traveling through Wisconsin by car, and at one point he says, "Rolling hills and nice fields." I've always remembered that.
People who see only mountains or flat plains are missing the most pleasing landscapes.
Farmer City! Been there a couple times! Also Gibson City. (Neither of which I would classify as actual cities)
Phoenix rising
If you have a clear sky this evening or tomorrow evening, after sunset, check out the thin crescent Moon with the rest of the disc bathed in the dim light of the sunlight reflected off the Earth.
I like that philosophy.
I often recall the admonition to 'bloom where you are planted', and 'life is what happens when you are making other plans'. Nothing against plans and dreams but make sure you using those to move forward, and not just to avoid engaging in commitments, obligations, and responsibilities nearby.
Iowa gets the 'flat land' thing too but I would more charitably read Joe's comment as referencing those portions of the state that are flat. North central Kentucky's river valleys are nice but I find myself missing a sky where you can see the clouds rolling east for what feels like forever.
We're anti-bucket-list people, but we put a lot effort into doing a bucket-list thing.
I’m not quite sure what it means to be “anti-bucket-list.” Does that mean you’re hoping, in your final moments of life, to be able to say something along the lines of “Oh shit, now I’m never going to see …” ?
I have two things left on my list: I want to see Pompeii and Herculaneum, and I want to see the Northern Lights. Luck will be involved in the second but the first just needs airline tickets to Naples and a hotel reservation.
Flat is relative wrt land. Many non-Iowans coming for the first time to ride across the state for RAGBRAI have the same reaction: Iowa is not flat. Biking gives a different perspective.
It's a flat landsacpe the shape of a hilly landscape.
My bucket list = not kicking it for as long as possible.
Flat or non-flat, that is the question.
I say it depends. Rolling hills can be as dull as any flatland. Its what on the land that is interesting.
'I hear outsiders say Wisconsin is flat, but talk about not seeing things. Does "driftless area" mean nothing to you?'
'"... WI where the land is very flat..."'
As in 'the area of WI were I was which was very flat.' I was not making a general statement about WI as a whole. I haven't been to every inch of your state. Sorry.
I'm sorry, but the part of WI that I drove through was actually very flat. As in really flat. I didn't think I needed to show you documentary photographic proof.
Where I ended up in WI was not, probably a driftless area. It was extraordinarily beautiful and I will visit again many times as my friend has a house there (Lake Geneva).
I see things perfectly well...much better than most. I made a very good living out of seeing things and creating visual things that make other people money.
MadisonMan said...
"Farmer City! Been there a couple times! Also Gibson City. (Neither of which I would classify as actual cities)"
You have my everlasting sympathies. My wife, having begun her early life in New Shawneetown. Old Shawneetown having been inundated one too many times by the Ohio River. I have visited her relatives who live all over that area. Too many times.
I want to see Pompeii and Herculaneum
I do, too, but I know I'll be disappointed. "Where's the top half of these buildings?"
500 years after Copernicus, 400 years after Galileo, why people still talk about 'sunrises' and 'sunsets'?
Sun doesn't 'rise' or 'set'. People are periodically exposed to Sun due to rotation of Earth about its axis.
"Poetic license", sez You? "Anthropocentric bullshit", sez I.
"As in 'the area of WI were I was which was very flat.' I was not making a general statement about WI as a whole. I haven't been to every inch of your state. Sorry."
Oddly enough, by this subjective standard, the flattest states are the really mountainous ones.
"I’m not quite sure what it means to be “anti-bucket-list.” Does that mean you’re hoping, in your final moments of life, to be able to say something along the lines of “Oh shit, now I’m never going to see …” ?"
No, that's something that would be said by someone who made a list and attached importance to such a list.
We dislike these lists and the whole way of thinking that gets people into making these lists. Checking off items on a list is what comes after making the list.
I wouldn't mind doing some of the things that get put on such lists, but I'm against orientation to the list.
'Oddly enough, by this subjective standard, the flattest states are the really mountainous ones.'
Is this what Meade deals with every day?
You can't ever be wrong?
You can't admit that you misinterpreted my words even after I explained them to you?
Wow...
"500 years after Copernicus, 400 years after Galileo, why people still talk about ‘sunrises’ and ‘sunsets’? "
What would you call them?
500 years after Copernicus, 400 years after Galileo, why people still talk about ‘sunrises’ and ‘sunsets’? Sun doesn't ‘rise’ or ‘set’. People are periodically exposed to Sun due to rotation of Earth about its axis. “Poetic license”, sez You? “Anthropocentric bullshit”, sez I.
More than 100 years after the advent of Einsteinian relativity, why do people still talk about motion as if it's somehow absolute? The lesson from relativity is there is no absolute motion! This means, among other things, it's perfectly correct to regard the earth (or any other object in the universe — even one's mental visualization of a point in motion in space, i.e., a “reference frame”) as reposing perfectly motionless in space, not even rotating — whilst in (e.g.) the case of the earth, the entire cosmos revolves around it every 24 hours.
This means that, beyond the insufferable pedantry of your point, it's not incorrect (at all!) to talk about the sun (moon, or anything else) physically rising and/or setting.
Then, too, as far as “anthropocentric bullshit” is concerned, one of the lessons of modern relativistic physics is that the physical viewpoint of the present observer — human/“anthropocentric” or not — is at least as valid as any other.
Illinois has been the recipieant of three glacial periods. One of which got as far south as East StLouis. The last glacial periods terminus runs roughly parallel to US rt. 30. The hills you see in N. Illinois are made up of glacial tills and gravels. All of which come from N. Wisconsin or Canada. None are made up of the limestone shield that covers much of Illinois. Illinois is flat.
Althouse said,
"Oddly enough, by this subjective standard, the flattest states are the really mountainous ones."
Hmmm. How am I supposed to interpret this?
Yes they appear flat. To my eye. Over the west that I have traveled they seem more undulating.
If you start your journey from my house which is exactly 600 feet above sea level and travel due west you'll find that you are constantly going uphill until you get to the foothills of the Rockies.
DesMoines 783 feet above sea level. Omaha 1060 feet above sea level. Sydney Nebraska 4085 feet above sea level.
As soon as you cross from Illinois into Iowa you are confronted with rolling hills.
I would drive 1,000 miles round trip to visit Austin, Texas, and nearby areas, (and see an Austin City Limits show) and I would even spend $1,000 to do so. But I would never do this just to see a momentary solar eclipse. But that's just me. I learned a long time ago not to judge what people think is important in their lives, and what they are willing to spend money on.
Ann Althouse said...
["... WI where the land is very flat..."]
"I hear outsiders say Wisconsin is flat, but talk about not seeing things. Does "driftless area" mean nothing to you?"
Rib Mountain is also pretty cool. There's a fair bit of rolling terrain and winding watercourses up toward the UP.
T-shirt on a babe with a terrific rack. "Not everything in Nebraska is flat".
T-shirt on a babe with a terrific rack. "Not everything in Nebraska is flat".
South and west of Attica, IN, and slightly smaller. (ATT-I-CA, ATT-I-CA.) Very nice public golf course there - front 9 is early-1900s old and then in last few decades, added a back 9. Well maintained, some very mature trees, and not crowded when I've played in post-Labor Day September. Indiana is underrated.
Last time I was there - September 2015, IIRC - its McDonald's still used the old McD foam coffee cups. It had been many months since I'd seen any of those, McD's having retired them because foam. I bought 2 large coffees, and kept those cups for re-use for weeks. Good times.
Meanwhile, 15 flat miles to the west of Covington on I-74 sits Danville, Illinois, recently rocked by news that its largest and last corporate employer, Quaker Oats, is shutting its doors and leaving, following GM, Hyster, Esco, and several other corporations out of town.
It's reckoned the largest employers will now be the local hospital system and the public housing authority. The local prison lies just outside the city limits so it doesn't make the list.
["... WI where the land is very flat..."]
This is not what I wrote.
Try again...
Elephant tourists are the worst.
Charging elephant kills an American woman on 'bucket list trip' in Zambia
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/zambia-elephant-kills-american-woman-tourist-kafue-national-park-rcna146343
Is this fitting or ironic?
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