Iowa damned their river. But, you cannot hold a river back for long. It rained and rained and the water spilled over the top of the dam and rushed to claim its natural channel again. It took more of the natural channel because it could and because it was damned before, so there was more water to take it back. That water had weight and power behind it that it used to loosen rocks and push them far downstream. The river had done this a few times since the damn was built. The first time, when the water receded, it left behind exposed rocks below the damn where its original channel existed. It did this again a second time in 1993. It revealed ancient fossils from the Devonian age, 375 million years ago, when the land in Iowa was under a sea.
We set out to see it with my brother, sister-in-law, and their three kids. As we drove North, out of town, the landscape became hilly. Perhaps because of the hills, I find this part of Iowa especially beautiful. The road twists and turns though woods until it comes to the massive concrete wall that holds back the water, the lake created when the river was damned.
We parked below the dam in visitor parking and tumbled out into the sun. Our exploration of the Devonian Fossil Gorge began. We walked to the gorge itself before we realized that we should have walked to the circular information center just before the gorge, erected by volunteers to showcase the history of the fossils below and give a sense of when and how the animals lived. These were old, old fossils, a record of the past life of a shallow sea where these rocks stand in the old river bed, exposed by the dam and the floods of the present.
At every step, there was a fossil.
We spent our time scouring the rocks and letting those around us know when we saw a find we just had to share. My niece and two nephews would shout out each time they saw one. The littlest nephew shout out most often and most insistently and wanted whoever was closest to see his find. The excitement and challenge of finding one never tired for any of us and was quickly followed by awe in the realization that they had been alive so long ago and we had a picture of them in stone to prove it
We really got into finding them. My sister-in-law had the sharpest eyes of us all and could find the nicest sets of fossils of all of us. She and my brother found one of the most stunning fossils as we moved closer to the dam. It was about a hand wide, a spiral that sparkled where the mica in the rock impression of this sea animal reflected in the sun. We worked our back up the bank. Everywhere we looked, there were fossils, even on the rocks that lined the banks. Eventually we walked back to the circular welcome station to read about the lives these fossils had had in the past.
A day in the sun looking at fossils made us all content as we turned back to present things like dinner and our next activity. As we moved on to our next action, we left behind the rocks and their impressions of a past life. If we return again, when we return again, to scour the rocks for more fossils that we had failed to see in the midst of so many more, they will be there. As the water from the melting winter snows and ice or the floods of future springs come again and again, more fossils will appear and disappear for us to see and miss, if we wish to see them or miss them...and if we do not wish to see them or miss them, they will appear and disappear just anyway
Monday, May 16, 2011
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Rock Love
Iowa has a fossil gorge. I was very excited about this. I have a long history with fossils.
When it was time for me to go to college, I did what my parents encouraged us all to do to save money and get acclimated to the college life—I went to Kaskaskia College in Centralia, Illinois. I took a Geology class there and fell in love with rocks. It was the only class I truly aced, but I did not pursue it because I am not a confident math person. I decided to keep it in my life as a hobby.
In that class we had to identify rocks and I got a 100% doing that. It changed the way I looked at rocks when I hiked around Carlyle Lake in Illinois, the largest man-made lake in Illinois. I could suddenly identify flint, mica, shale without the flint having to look like an arrowhead. It was empowering. I understood that glaciers has cut into Illinois and stopped; it was an end line of a glacier for a while, at a place we called Pelican’s Pouch, near my hometown. It was hilly there and rockier. My parents would drove through it every spring to see the dogwood and redbud on the hills. We loved that place and it explains why we love Northwest Arkansas and the Ozarks. It is a bigger version, with a different geologic history. I was hooked on the stories rocks could tell.
I learned all about Illinois, but I was moving to Arkansas. Since I was transferring to Arkansas, I am a proud Alumnus of the University of Arkansas, I had to take Geology again. Again, I loved the class, though it was harder for me because it was a large section (200 people) and I was used to my class of 20. I loved the smaller lab though. I learned that I had a natural talent for reading satellite maps and I learned even more this time about rocks, about Arkansas rocks and Arkansas geology. The story of two states became known to me and I loved the additional knowledge I gained from having the class twice in two different states.
Fossils litter the rocks and river beds of Arkansas. As I got out and hiked more often, or stopped at an enticing river on my way home, I found lots of them and other minerals too like quartz. I loved the idea of how perfect the chemical equation of quartz is—SiO4, silicon oxygen tetrahedral. And I understood chemistry only when it was presented to me in geology—as rocks and minerals. I meet a, eighty-year-old, local, self-taught geologist in the hills of the Boston Mountains who gave me many rocks and had large quantities of them he had acquired over the years. He told me that when the Arkansas Department of Transportation paved roads and blasted mountains to make roads, he would go there and collect fossils the dynamite uncovered. I will always remember his huge collection of rocks, so big he had old library card catalogues in every room of his house and on his back porch filled with samples of rocks, minerals, fossils that he had collected since his twenties. His stories were magnificent.
I discovered Edward Abbey and understood the sentiments he expressed about rocks and nature in Desert Solitaire. He writes about the patience of rocks. They sit it out and the weather works on them, as it does on us, even though we will see little evidence of that since our lives are so short and theirs are so long. He writes about the slow thoughts they might have compared to the flash of our thoughts and other animals’ and insects’ thoughts, since we live longer than some of them, but not nearly as long as rocks.
He has a perspective of place that Geology gave me. The land has a story, whether we are aware of that our not. Rocks have a long, slow story. So do trees, sand, rivers, dirt, continents, oceans, fish, dogs, cats, humans, coal, malls, and us. To name a few.
Fossils are a record of one thing’s history—something that probably no longer exists on this earth, as someday humans will no longer exist on this earth. Geologic time is not kind or mean. It is indifferent. It marches on with or without us. It is a long, interesting story and fossils are a part of that story, one small paper thin slice of it.
I am hooked on this story.
So, when my eldest brother and his family came up to visit, we took the kids and us adults, to the fossil gorge.
When it was time for me to go to college, I did what my parents encouraged us all to do to save money and get acclimated to the college life—I went to Kaskaskia College in Centralia, Illinois. I took a Geology class there and fell in love with rocks. It was the only class I truly aced, but I did not pursue it because I am not a confident math person. I decided to keep it in my life as a hobby.
In that class we had to identify rocks and I got a 100% doing that. It changed the way I looked at rocks when I hiked around Carlyle Lake in Illinois, the largest man-made lake in Illinois. I could suddenly identify flint, mica, shale without the flint having to look like an arrowhead. It was empowering. I understood that glaciers has cut into Illinois and stopped; it was an end line of a glacier for a while, at a place we called Pelican’s Pouch, near my hometown. It was hilly there and rockier. My parents would drove through it every spring to see the dogwood and redbud on the hills. We loved that place and it explains why we love Northwest Arkansas and the Ozarks. It is a bigger version, with a different geologic history. I was hooked on the stories rocks could tell.
I learned all about Illinois, but I was moving to Arkansas. Since I was transferring to Arkansas, I am a proud Alumnus of the University of Arkansas, I had to take Geology again. Again, I loved the class, though it was harder for me because it was a large section (200 people) and I was used to my class of 20. I loved the smaller lab though. I learned that I had a natural talent for reading satellite maps and I learned even more this time about rocks, about Arkansas rocks and Arkansas geology. The story of two states became known to me and I loved the additional knowledge I gained from having the class twice in two different states.
Fossils litter the rocks and river beds of Arkansas. As I got out and hiked more often, or stopped at an enticing river on my way home, I found lots of them and other minerals too like quartz. I loved the idea of how perfect the chemical equation of quartz is—SiO4, silicon oxygen tetrahedral. And I understood chemistry only when it was presented to me in geology—as rocks and minerals. I meet a, eighty-year-old, local, self-taught geologist in the hills of the Boston Mountains who gave me many rocks and had large quantities of them he had acquired over the years. He told me that when the Arkansas Department of Transportation paved roads and blasted mountains to make roads, he would go there and collect fossils the dynamite uncovered. I will always remember his huge collection of rocks, so big he had old library card catalogues in every room of his house and on his back porch filled with samples of rocks, minerals, fossils that he had collected since his twenties. His stories were magnificent.
I discovered Edward Abbey and understood the sentiments he expressed about rocks and nature in Desert Solitaire. He writes about the patience of rocks. They sit it out and the weather works on them, as it does on us, even though we will see little evidence of that since our lives are so short and theirs are so long. He writes about the slow thoughts they might have compared to the flash of our thoughts and other animals’ and insects’ thoughts, since we live longer than some of them, but not nearly as long as rocks.
He has a perspective of place that Geology gave me. The land has a story, whether we are aware of that our not. Rocks have a long, slow story. So do trees, sand, rivers, dirt, continents, oceans, fish, dogs, cats, humans, coal, malls, and us. To name a few.
Fossils are a record of one thing’s history—something that probably no longer exists on this earth, as someday humans will no longer exist on this earth. Geologic time is not kind or mean. It is indifferent. It marches on with or without us. It is a long, interesting story and fossils are a part of that story, one small paper thin slice of it.
I am hooked on this story.
So, when my eldest brother and his family came up to visit, we took the kids and us adults, to the fossil gorge.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
The Carpool of Truth
This Fall when I went to Oktoberfest in Kalona, Iowa with my husband and my brother.
We moved to Iowa in August and proceeded to put together our house. The hubby prepared for Law school and I prepared for the job his brother helped me get at a private college in Illinois.
Luckily, a great group of people carpool there from Iowa City (an hour and ten minute drive) and I got to join them. My group, the Tuesday and Thursday group, consisted of me and two psychology doctoral candidates from the University of Iowa who were spending a year teaching at this school. They were interviewing for their internship jobs elsewhere and I got to learn a lot about the graduate track in psychology. They are wonderful people and I call them my Carpool of Truth, because they never sugarcoated the weather I would be facing in Winter. I spent 4 hours and 40 minutes every week with them for 20 weeks. We certainly learned a lot about each other; the honest truth sessions about weather solidified our trust in each other’s judgments and lead to great discussions about pretty much everything.
We were busy settling in to Iowa and just getting used to the fact that family was 1 mile away, 1 hour away, 2 hours away, 4 hours away, 5.5 hours away and 9 hours away. This was so close compared to when we were in West Virginia. I could drive to both my brother’s houses in a day and not be exhausted when I got there. And they could visit us. And they did.
The weekend of Oktoberfest, my middle older brother, the second child (I am the last and third) came up to visit us. I was excited about this because my older, the eldest, brother had recently visited with his whole family and we had a lot of fun. I wanted that same kind of experience with my other brother, who like us is adventurous and had recently been spending a lot of time working in the Czeck Republic. I knew that this Oktoberfest would be nothing like what it would be like in the Czeck Republic, but I thought it would be fun anyway. The Kalona, Iowa beer is locally brewed by a long lie of German descendants. How could that be bad? It wasn’t.
My brother came out on a Friday (which I had off as a part-time instructor traveling 2 days a week to teach 3 writing classes—nice huh). We headed for downtown Iowa, which I barely knew having just moved there. He insisted on driving his nice new car—a Ford Focus with the voice command options. Let me tell you. That was nice. You can say Johnny Cash and it plays Johnny Cash.
My brother is an engineer and I remember when I was little and he was a teen that he took everything electronic apart, to see how it worked, and then could put it back together again and it would work like before. My eldest brother can draw and make things from his drawings. Both of them used to make, together, little rockets every year for the fourth of July. We would light them on the 4th at the family celebrations at my Aunt’s house 2 blocks down the road from our house. It was also my cousin’s birthday, so it was a big deal. They would shoot into the air and arc and fall to the earth. I would wait for those rockets, our finale, to be sent off all night. And the next day, we would search the field for them.
Mom recently recalled how they took apart one of their cars one year and put it back together. They worked on it often at night and I would go out there and watch them and look for my cat, who often was around too seeing if one of us would feed him. She and I remember some extra parts we both asked them about when they proclaimed they were finished putting the engine back together. They said they had no idea what they were for and were not worried about them since the car ran. And it did, without problems from lacking parts. I am amazed by both of their abilities.
Once when I lived in the dorms and was talking to the middle brother, he spent two hours on the phone with me telling me how a car engine worked. I was not at all surprised that he bought a car that could understand his verbal commands or that he wanted to drive it after driving it for 4 hours that day already.
So we headed downtown in his car, walked all over downtown Iowa, meet up with my husband and some of his law school friends for lunch at a Korean restaurant, and missed the tapping of the beer keg ceremony at Kalona.
Doh.
We did go the next day and walked the streets of Kalona, mainly a series of shops selling food, wine, beer, household items, and anything else a tourist might buy. It was a cloudless, bright day and chilly. The wind was cold, but sitting under a tent, listening to a German band play all the old German songs various relatives would hum or sing as I was growing out, was pleasant. And the beer was good. A nice glass of stout always makes for a good day.
I drug the men to the loom factory. I love looms. And they had the big industrial kind. We saw a hold-two-mugs-of-beer straight-out-to-your-sides arm contest and walked the streets of Kalona, and even though it was not a rip roaring time, it was great to be together in the same place having the same experiences with two people I love.
For days after that weekend, I had those German songs rattling around in my head. They had not been there since childhood, but they reminded me of relatives long dead and relatives now closer in physical distance to me now that we had moved to Iowa. I felt grateful to those long gone for their lives—grateful for my relationship with them and for being the wanderers they were. I was also grateful for those alive and closer in distance to me now—grateful for my relationship with them and their desire for me to be closer in distance to them.
It strikes me how much truth can be revealed in the relationships I have with others about me and what makes me who I am. What a gift our family and friends, our chosen family, give to us. Truly, together, we are a carpool of truth.
We moved to Iowa in August and proceeded to put together our house. The hubby prepared for Law school and I prepared for the job his brother helped me get at a private college in Illinois.
Luckily, a great group of people carpool there from Iowa City (an hour and ten minute drive) and I got to join them. My group, the Tuesday and Thursday group, consisted of me and two psychology doctoral candidates from the University of Iowa who were spending a year teaching at this school. They were interviewing for their internship jobs elsewhere and I got to learn a lot about the graduate track in psychology. They are wonderful people and I call them my Carpool of Truth, because they never sugarcoated the weather I would be facing in Winter. I spent 4 hours and 40 minutes every week with them for 20 weeks. We certainly learned a lot about each other; the honest truth sessions about weather solidified our trust in each other’s judgments and lead to great discussions about pretty much everything.
We were busy settling in to Iowa and just getting used to the fact that family was 1 mile away, 1 hour away, 2 hours away, 4 hours away, 5.5 hours away and 9 hours away. This was so close compared to when we were in West Virginia. I could drive to both my brother’s houses in a day and not be exhausted when I got there. And they could visit us. And they did.
The weekend of Oktoberfest, my middle older brother, the second child (I am the last and third) came up to visit us. I was excited about this because my older, the eldest, brother had recently visited with his whole family and we had a lot of fun. I wanted that same kind of experience with my other brother, who like us is adventurous and had recently been spending a lot of time working in the Czeck Republic. I knew that this Oktoberfest would be nothing like what it would be like in the Czeck Republic, but I thought it would be fun anyway. The Kalona, Iowa beer is locally brewed by a long lie of German descendants. How could that be bad? It wasn’t.
My brother came out on a Friday (which I had off as a part-time instructor traveling 2 days a week to teach 3 writing classes—nice huh). We headed for downtown Iowa, which I barely knew having just moved there. He insisted on driving his nice new car—a Ford Focus with the voice command options. Let me tell you. That was nice. You can say Johnny Cash and it plays Johnny Cash.
My brother is an engineer and I remember when I was little and he was a teen that he took everything electronic apart, to see how it worked, and then could put it back together again and it would work like before. My eldest brother can draw and make things from his drawings. Both of them used to make, together, little rockets every year for the fourth of July. We would light them on the 4th at the family celebrations at my Aunt’s house 2 blocks down the road from our house. It was also my cousin’s birthday, so it was a big deal. They would shoot into the air and arc and fall to the earth. I would wait for those rockets, our finale, to be sent off all night. And the next day, we would search the field for them.
Mom recently recalled how they took apart one of their cars one year and put it back together. They worked on it often at night and I would go out there and watch them and look for my cat, who often was around too seeing if one of us would feed him. She and I remember some extra parts we both asked them about when they proclaimed they were finished putting the engine back together. They said they had no idea what they were for and were not worried about them since the car ran. And it did, without problems from lacking parts. I am amazed by both of their abilities.
Once when I lived in the dorms and was talking to the middle brother, he spent two hours on the phone with me telling me how a car engine worked. I was not at all surprised that he bought a car that could understand his verbal commands or that he wanted to drive it after driving it for 4 hours that day already.
So we headed downtown in his car, walked all over downtown Iowa, meet up with my husband and some of his law school friends for lunch at a Korean restaurant, and missed the tapping of the beer keg ceremony at Kalona.
Doh.
We did go the next day and walked the streets of Kalona, mainly a series of shops selling food, wine, beer, household items, and anything else a tourist might buy. It was a cloudless, bright day and chilly. The wind was cold, but sitting under a tent, listening to a German band play all the old German songs various relatives would hum or sing as I was growing out, was pleasant. And the beer was good. A nice glass of stout always makes for a good day.
I drug the men to the loom factory. I love looms. And they had the big industrial kind. We saw a hold-two-mugs-of-beer straight-out-to-your-sides arm contest and walked the streets of Kalona, and even though it was not a rip roaring time, it was great to be together in the same place having the same experiences with two people I love.
For days after that weekend, I had those German songs rattling around in my head. They had not been there since childhood, but they reminded me of relatives long dead and relatives now closer in physical distance to me now that we had moved to Iowa. I felt grateful to those long gone for their lives—grateful for my relationship with them and for being the wanderers they were. I was also grateful for those alive and closer in distance to me now—grateful for my relationship with them and their desire for me to be closer in distance to them.
It strikes me how much truth can be revealed in the relationships I have with others about me and what makes me who I am. What a gift our family and friends, our chosen family, give to us. Truly, together, we are a carpool of truth.
Monday, April 18, 2011
Me and My Words: Shadows of What?
They call me a writer at work now. I am getting used to that. I have wanted to be one and have been avoiding being one all of my life. I am afraid of it. As I am afraid of living in Arkansas again, even though I want it badly, both to live there again and to be a writer. I am sure I am afraid of failure or of it not living up to my imaginations of it. I have been blessed with imagination. I love stories. I know this comes from a Grandmother who loved stories too and had children who also love to read because she read to them. One of them, an Uncle, even writes. So, I cannot say I am unique. I come from a line of readers and suckers for a story. I even read bad ones, knowing their bad, just to see how they will end. It is an addiction and a fear. Why else would I run from it?
One of the things I am learning about myself is my adversity to failure. I am learning that the more you resist it, the more difficult it becomes to succeed at anything. I hate to go all Zen on you all, but there is something for me about being in my 30s and being in transition that gets me spouting Zen lately. So the travel blog, until I travel again soon, means mind travel today. Zen travel. We go where the thoughts go and my husband can tell you, my thoughts wind about a bit.
And lately, one of my ideas has been the idea of reflection. I tried to explain this epiphany to my mother-in-law and sister-in-law one Sunday a few weeks back and I think I pretty much failed. But that was good. I learned about what I thought about it when I failed to communicate it and I heard what they thought about. Hearing that and reflecting on that, made me clearer. And I think that failure will make this blog post better. But, I will let you decide. You will know better than I if I am making sense.
I told them that it seemed to me lately that reflection was key. I could not say what it was key to exactly, not at the time, but now I think I meant this: reflection is the key to knowing ourselves, to learning about ourselves, and when we do this and know/learn this we can freely, mindfully act like who we truly are. When we know how and why we act the way we do, and see how it affects others, we gain a knowledge that is necessary to becoming better humans and even happier human beings. I think.
Blame Plato’s fabulous cave analogy and that I had to teach it this Fall. He got me thinking about what makes us enlightened, educated, virtuous people. And Gretchen Rubin has me thinking about what makes us happy—what makes me happy. I know that knowing something makes me happy. That moment in reading, studying, debating with others, when I make a connection or have an epiphany, that kept me in school for years and years. I wrote about it in my German classes when they asked me what I wanted to do with my life. I wrote in German: I want to work at a university and share ideas with people.
Eureka! That is me. Sharing ideas and hearing ideas is my happiness drug. Reflection though. That took a while to understand. I knew it was important or I wouldn’t have made my students do it, but I thought it was a source for ideas. It is really a source of knowledge about who I am and about what I know and learn and about how I know and learn. It leads to better actions. And, for me, it means a process of seeking enlightenment.
What we do with our knowledge matters. What we do with it to make ourselves better people affects others. They can become happier because of us or sadder. No matter, we are not in some vacuum all alone acting only on ourselves. We just aren’t. So, knowledge and reflection can help us make others happier and thus make ourselves happier. Reflection leads us to understand ourselves and how we interact with others. It leads us to understand ourselves and thus others.
I think that is what I learned. I want to hear what others say and pass that one on. Since I am lacking students, I am thinking about our future as parents and that that lesson might be a valuable one to pass one to children. If they could think about themselves as a part of a whole world, how interesting, diverse, and global would their view of the world become? And how would that impact the decisions they make about what they do, or well do? It sounds like it could be promising. It might make them less scared of failure. They would see more than 2 options. When I only see 2 options, then life is scary and what I want gets buried in the fear.
But, travel and reflection and words (the literature of others that I read and the literature I attempt to write) are teaching me to stop the fear cycle and move through life with the feelings of purpose, opportunity, and hope even when I fail. I just must remember: reflection is the key…even to remembering this post when I too tired to pause and to reflect.
One of the things I am learning about myself is my adversity to failure. I am learning that the more you resist it, the more difficult it becomes to succeed at anything. I hate to go all Zen on you all, but there is something for me about being in my 30s and being in transition that gets me spouting Zen lately. So the travel blog, until I travel again soon, means mind travel today. Zen travel. We go where the thoughts go and my husband can tell you, my thoughts wind about a bit.
And lately, one of my ideas has been the idea of reflection. I tried to explain this epiphany to my mother-in-law and sister-in-law one Sunday a few weeks back and I think I pretty much failed. But that was good. I learned about what I thought about it when I failed to communicate it and I heard what they thought about. Hearing that and reflecting on that, made me clearer. And I think that failure will make this blog post better. But, I will let you decide. You will know better than I if I am making sense.
I told them that it seemed to me lately that reflection was key. I could not say what it was key to exactly, not at the time, but now I think I meant this: reflection is the key to knowing ourselves, to learning about ourselves, and when we do this and know/learn this we can freely, mindfully act like who we truly are. When we know how and why we act the way we do, and see how it affects others, we gain a knowledge that is necessary to becoming better humans and even happier human beings. I think.
Blame Plato’s fabulous cave analogy and that I had to teach it this Fall. He got me thinking about what makes us enlightened, educated, virtuous people. And Gretchen Rubin has me thinking about what makes us happy—what makes me happy. I know that knowing something makes me happy. That moment in reading, studying, debating with others, when I make a connection or have an epiphany, that kept me in school for years and years. I wrote about it in my German classes when they asked me what I wanted to do with my life. I wrote in German: I want to work at a university and share ideas with people.
Eureka! That is me. Sharing ideas and hearing ideas is my happiness drug. Reflection though. That took a while to understand. I knew it was important or I wouldn’t have made my students do it, but I thought it was a source for ideas. It is really a source of knowledge about who I am and about what I know and learn and about how I know and learn. It leads to better actions. And, for me, it means a process of seeking enlightenment.
What we do with our knowledge matters. What we do with it to make ourselves better people affects others. They can become happier because of us or sadder. No matter, we are not in some vacuum all alone acting only on ourselves. We just aren’t. So, knowledge and reflection can help us make others happier and thus make ourselves happier. Reflection leads us to understand ourselves and how we interact with others. It leads us to understand ourselves and thus others.
I think that is what I learned. I want to hear what others say and pass that one on. Since I am lacking students, I am thinking about our future as parents and that that lesson might be a valuable one to pass one to children. If they could think about themselves as a part of a whole world, how interesting, diverse, and global would their view of the world become? And how would that impact the decisions they make about what they do, or well do? It sounds like it could be promising. It might make them less scared of failure. They would see more than 2 options. When I only see 2 options, then life is scary and what I want gets buried in the fear.
But, travel and reflection and words (the literature of others that I read and the literature I attempt to write) are teaching me to stop the fear cycle and move through life with the feelings of purpose, opportunity, and hope even when I fail. I just must remember: reflection is the key…even to remembering this post when I too tired to pause and to reflect.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
A Personal Reflection on Words, Writing, and Travel
When I moved to West Virginia, I decided to go out and see this part of the country. I did not know how long I would be there. This move was suppose to be a stepping stone and it turned out to be a life changing decision all right, but one that lead me in a direction I would never have anticipated or seen in my future. That is life though and that is what happens when you choose to combine your life with someone else and their family. It makes life rich, unpredictable and wonderful. And, it would never have happened, had I not moved to the green hills of West Virginia.
Luckily, I meet another person in West Virginia, my future husband, who was interested in see this place while I was here plan, or at least interested in seeing the little places my map said we might go. I credit this map and the social network for new faculty at the University, called the Rookies, with getting to know and falling in love with my husband.
Oddly enough, his maternal family was also from and mostly in Illinois too, with a few in Iowa, as my parents were in Arkansas. His father’s side was in Brazil. I found this Illinois connection interesting since I had left Illinois with no intentions of being tied to it again, except through my own family, immediate and extended. It also does help immensely that our families are concentrated in Illinois. When we had to travel to see family, we were often in the same state as they, or passing though it to get to other family and so seeing those in Illinois on our way to the next states. They were both in a central location, or roughly so. I had no idea I would be moving nearer to them in the future; the job market decided that.
I just made a decision to see what I could, camp when I could, walk in the woods when I could, and soak up the history of the Eastern states as much as I could, and it lead to today—us living in Iowa.
While in West Virginia, we saw West Virginia and Southern Pennsylvania; Pittsburgh is nice and close to Morgantown, and we got over to D.C. and Gettysburg, Antietam, Harper’s Ferry, the Appalachian Trail, Assateague, and the Outer Banks while we were much closer to them then we are now.
We could have seen even more. And hopefully we will again someday.
Now, we are in Iowa and trying to have the same goal we had before. Money and time are factors of course in being able to travel. The academic life in West Virginia gave us the money and time to travel. Previous to West Virginia, I was a student, which meant little money, even if the time existed to travel. And a transition in jobs, with half of us a student again and half us looking for employment, means the travel has slowed a bit too. But, I said when I started this blog, travel could be as close as the restaurant next door, and I am going to hold myself to that idea again.
I have not been posting. I have been working a bit, but not enough to mean not posting. And money was tight, but we use our money from West Virginia University wisely, so we are okay. I can only guess I was not in the mind space after our move to write on the blog in the way that I did before. I am back to that space again. It helps to have a job again; one that is temporary again, but enough to give us some breathing space in terms of paying bills. It takes my time, but I am making room for writing in my life again.
Luckily, I meet another person in West Virginia, my future husband, who was interested in see this place while I was here plan, or at least interested in seeing the little places my map said we might go. I credit this map and the social network for new faculty at the University, called the Rookies, with getting to know and falling in love with my husband.
Oddly enough, his maternal family was also from and mostly in Illinois too, with a few in Iowa, as my parents were in Arkansas. His father’s side was in Brazil. I found this Illinois connection interesting since I had left Illinois with no intentions of being tied to it again, except through my own family, immediate and extended. It also does help immensely that our families are concentrated in Illinois. When we had to travel to see family, we were often in the same state as they, or passing though it to get to other family and so seeing those in Illinois on our way to the next states. They were both in a central location, or roughly so. I had no idea I would be moving nearer to them in the future; the job market decided that.
I just made a decision to see what I could, camp when I could, walk in the woods when I could, and soak up the history of the Eastern states as much as I could, and it lead to today—us living in Iowa.
While in West Virginia, we saw West Virginia and Southern Pennsylvania; Pittsburgh is nice and close to Morgantown, and we got over to D.C. and Gettysburg, Antietam, Harper’s Ferry, the Appalachian Trail, Assateague, and the Outer Banks while we were much closer to them then we are now.
We could have seen even more. And hopefully we will again someday.
Now, we are in Iowa and trying to have the same goal we had before. Money and time are factors of course in being able to travel. The academic life in West Virginia gave us the money and time to travel. Previous to West Virginia, I was a student, which meant little money, even if the time existed to travel. And a transition in jobs, with half of us a student again and half us looking for employment, means the travel has slowed a bit too. But, I said when I started this blog, travel could be as close as the restaurant next door, and I am going to hold myself to that idea again.
I have not been posting. I have been working a bit, but not enough to mean not posting. And money was tight, but we use our money from West Virginia University wisely, so we are okay. I can only guess I was not in the mind space after our move to write on the blog in the way that I did before. I am back to that space again. It helps to have a job again; one that is temporary again, but enough to give us some breathing space in terms of paying bills. It takes my time, but I am making room for writing in my life again.
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
In the Pines: Part 2
When I moved to West Virginia, I was excited about the hills. I had been working that summer with a group of Geologists in Tulsa. Within seconds of telling them I would be leaving them for West Virginia, they whipped out the geologic maps of the area and explained the geology of the area to me.
Hills again. I was excited.
I did not know that West Virginia and Arkansas share a history. The Appalachians are old, old. They are at least 460 million years old and were there when the continents were all together as Pangaea. They went through a lot of uplifting, folding, volcanic activity, and then erosion as the continents crashed into each other and the separated again over many, many years. At one point they were higher than the Himalayas and the rivers today cutting through the valleys are as old as the hills. They saw that height. (They probably never dreamed of coal barons blowing them down after experiencing all the damage the wind and rain unleashed on them and continues to unleash on them today. At least the wind and rain respect them by slowly letting them get used to the idea of wearing down. There is not a lot slow about being blown up.)
In Southern Arkansas, we have the Ouachita Mountains, which where once a part of the Appalachian chain, long ago, and then, they were separated by geologic history. They are cousins to the West Virginia mountains.
I should have known. I should have recognized it.
I loved waking up in Star City and heading down the hill to go to work seeing the layer of cloud resting on the Monongahela River. I loved walking through the woods and was mesmerized by the moss and ferns that grow wild in those wet hills. It rains and snows more often in West Virginia than in Arkansas, so the ferns do not exist on the forest floors of Arkansas. They cover the forests of West Virginia. I had gone from hills experiencing a drought to hills that did not know what a fire ban was. In fact the year we left West Virginia was the driest I have ever seen the place. And a burn ban was in effect. The brown and crunchy sound was uncommon in West Virginia until that summer. At it was down right weird experiencing that in West Virginia.
The same mysterious presence also existed in both places. The sense of being alone int he woods, of not being able to rely on your cell phone, of taking off down a dirt road and seeing something beautiful beyond the next turn, beautiful and unexpected. Those things existed in both sets of hills.
Both were difficult terrain too. In Arkansas I once encountered rugged weather; we camped on a mountain top and got caught in a thunderstorm in the Ouachitas. I felt exposed on that rock that night as the wind whipped the tent and pulled at the stakes. There was not a lot of soil to hold those stakes, so mainly we held the tent down with our suppose-to-be sleeping bodies.
It was also difficult to walk and hike in the Appalachians. It took effort. I had the same feelings of effort and ruggedness in the Ouachita Mountains when I hiked there. On the Appalachian Trail that meant an ingrown toenail. In Arkansas that meant sore muscles the day after a long backpacking trip, which made walking incredibly painful if I sat still for 10 minutes or more.
In Arkansas we met some women and her child burying something she kept telling us she had permission to bury. We did not inquire further. And I slept with my knife close that night. On the Appalachian Trail, we encountered nude male hikers on a narrow trail in broad daylight. We heard later it is a tradition on the Summer Solstice. Tradition or not, it seems dangerous to me.
The camping in West Virginia is excellent, as it is in Arkansas. West Virginia is covered in parks. Hiking was harder in the humidity and tougher in the rugged hilly hills of West Virginia for me, but the views, the ancient rivers, the rocks were all worth it. The history was interesting too. It is rare in the mid-west and west, particularly in the north, to find civil war battles, but not in the East. The signs in the east proclaim every battle of it. The Western signs proclaim a different war and a different slavery and removal of people. They mark The Trail of Tears, the Native history that makes up the history of the West. Native history exists in West Virginia, too, mainly because of the people who keep it up and in their memory, but you have to ask them to see it. It is not on their license plates like in Oklahoma.
Moving to Iowa meant saying goodbye to a period in my life when I lived primarily in the wooded hills, but I had been in flat lands before and knew my experience with hills and woods would be in me for years to come. The memories, as long as my mind stays relatively intact, mean that I can go back to them again and again, as I wish.
As studying literature has taught me, memory is tricky. We change it. Gloss it over with nostalgia. Look back in anger. Turn a moment into poetry, even a moment of death or irreversible change to our bodies and souls. Repress and forget. Re-imagine, re-cast it. Memory can bring us far from truth or reality. Memory is creation. And creation is magical. It can make us happy beyond belief. It can lead us to truth and reality, even when it is fiction. When that fails, what is left?
I will keep the woods of my imagination with me always, and hopefully forever. They are a part of me and I have been a part of them.
Hills again. I was excited.
I did not know that West Virginia and Arkansas share a history. The Appalachians are old, old. They are at least 460 million years old and were there when the continents were all together as Pangaea. They went through a lot of uplifting, folding, volcanic activity, and then erosion as the continents crashed into each other and the separated again over many, many years. At one point they were higher than the Himalayas and the rivers today cutting through the valleys are as old as the hills. They saw that height. (They probably never dreamed of coal barons blowing them down after experiencing all the damage the wind and rain unleashed on them and continues to unleash on them today. At least the wind and rain respect them by slowly letting them get used to the idea of wearing down. There is not a lot slow about being blown up.)
In Southern Arkansas, we have the Ouachita Mountains, which where once a part of the Appalachian chain, long ago, and then, they were separated by geologic history. They are cousins to the West Virginia mountains.
I should have known. I should have recognized it.
I loved waking up in Star City and heading down the hill to go to work seeing the layer of cloud resting on the Monongahela River. I loved walking through the woods and was mesmerized by the moss and ferns that grow wild in those wet hills. It rains and snows more often in West Virginia than in Arkansas, so the ferns do not exist on the forest floors of Arkansas. They cover the forests of West Virginia. I had gone from hills experiencing a drought to hills that did not know what a fire ban was. In fact the year we left West Virginia was the driest I have ever seen the place. And a burn ban was in effect. The brown and crunchy sound was uncommon in West Virginia until that summer. At it was down right weird experiencing that in West Virginia.
The same mysterious presence also existed in both places. The sense of being alone int he woods, of not being able to rely on your cell phone, of taking off down a dirt road and seeing something beautiful beyond the next turn, beautiful and unexpected. Those things existed in both sets of hills.
Both were difficult terrain too. In Arkansas I once encountered rugged weather; we camped on a mountain top and got caught in a thunderstorm in the Ouachitas. I felt exposed on that rock that night as the wind whipped the tent and pulled at the stakes. There was not a lot of soil to hold those stakes, so mainly we held the tent down with our suppose-to-be sleeping bodies.
It was also difficult to walk and hike in the Appalachians. It took effort. I had the same feelings of effort and ruggedness in the Ouachita Mountains when I hiked there. On the Appalachian Trail that meant an ingrown toenail. In Arkansas that meant sore muscles the day after a long backpacking trip, which made walking incredibly painful if I sat still for 10 minutes or more.
In Arkansas we met some women and her child burying something she kept telling us she had permission to bury. We did not inquire further. And I slept with my knife close that night. On the Appalachian Trail, we encountered nude male hikers on a narrow trail in broad daylight. We heard later it is a tradition on the Summer Solstice. Tradition or not, it seems dangerous to me.
The camping in West Virginia is excellent, as it is in Arkansas. West Virginia is covered in parks. Hiking was harder in the humidity and tougher in the rugged hilly hills of West Virginia for me, but the views, the ancient rivers, the rocks were all worth it. The history was interesting too. It is rare in the mid-west and west, particularly in the north, to find civil war battles, but not in the East. The signs in the east proclaim every battle of it. The Western signs proclaim a different war and a different slavery and removal of people. They mark The Trail of Tears, the Native history that makes up the history of the West. Native history exists in West Virginia, too, mainly because of the people who keep it up and in their memory, but you have to ask them to see it. It is not on their license plates like in Oklahoma.
Moving to Iowa meant saying goodbye to a period in my life when I lived primarily in the wooded hills, but I had been in flat lands before and knew my experience with hills and woods would be in me for years to come. The memories, as long as my mind stays relatively intact, mean that I can go back to them again and again, as I wish.
As studying literature has taught me, memory is tricky. We change it. Gloss it over with nostalgia. Look back in anger. Turn a moment into poetry, even a moment of death or irreversible change to our bodies and souls. Repress and forget. Re-imagine, re-cast it. Memory can bring us far from truth or reality. Memory is creation. And creation is magical. It can make us happy beyond belief. It can lead us to truth and reality, even when it is fiction. When that fails, what is left?
I will keep the woods of my imagination with me always, and hopefully forever. They are a part of me and I have been a part of them.
Monday, April 11, 2011
In the Pines: Part 1
I heard this stereotyping of people, places and culture again when I moved from Tulsa to West Virginia. Lots and lots of teeth jokes. Perhaps more than I heard when we moved from Illinois to Arkansas. So, I knew they were entirely wrong and unhelpful when it came to pondering what I would encounter in West Virginia.
For me, West Virginia and Arkansas shared many similarities, including the stereotypical ideas others have of the people in those states. They both have a lot of hills and woods. Arkansas also has some flat land that is not valley land because of the Mississippi River. But, the part I knew and loved was hilly and rocky, like West Virginia.
I had been living in a flat, green place—Tulsa—that was drier and hotter than Arkansas. Oklahoma does have some hills in the south and as you get closer to Arkansas and rolling grasslands even on its eastern side. Beautiful country. Driving back Arkansas from Oklahoma is a beautiful drive on 412 made easy by the Cherokee Turnpike. As you get closer to Siloam Springs, it gets a little hilly and then flattens into ranches until you get to Springdale and highway 71. 71 took me to Rogers and highway 62.
This was when I got excited. The moment you get out of Rogers, past their little airport with a museum and a giant plane banking but attached to the ground, you start to get into the hills. I would roll down my windows and immediately the breeze was cooler and sweeter. It was an escape from the warmth of Tulsa and the concrete of the Springdale, Rogers, Bentonville area. As 62 twists and turns and dips and rises, past small towns like Gateway, Garfield, and the Pea Ridge Civil War park, I felt like I was home. The tension left my body and driving became fun.
Traffic was generally better too, unless some visitor was slowly making their way to Eureka for a weekend visit. There were only two places to pass, unless you were suicidal, so you had to have luck and timing. Tourists never did the nice thing and pulled over for you to get by. But, I had my landmarks of passage that meant I was close to the empty road, 187, which would take me home to my parent’s house.
When we moved to Arkansas 62 was snakier. They cut a pass through a hills and cut out 5 U curves and about 30 mins of time. They had to blast through the rock and my parents would talk about hearing and feeling those blasts. When I got to the pass, we affectionately called ‘Howard’s pass’ (after a neighbor), I knew I would be home in 20 mins more or less. And that soon, I would be turning off of 62 to 187.
That turn to 187 was my favorite. I have always wanted to live off that road. Houses sit back in the hills off their gravel and dirt lane road, and one of the farms has a bunch of goats that you get to see when you drive around a huge wall of rock and there they are. I am a fan of goats. Beaver is the next town and one I like a lot. It has about 95 people, a post office, and a store. They have a one lane bridge they made historical so the government wouldn’t ruin it and make it an ugly, tourist letting in two lane bridge.
I had spent much time on the river that the bridge spans, high on rocks above it, with the trees leaning over me, thinking. It is a special place for me. It was clear I was almost at my parent’s door.
Driving those roads at night is not as fun. The turns are demanding even in the day and I found this to be true of the best places in West Virginia too. It is the nature of living in the hills I think. They demand time and attention, even when not driving through them. They can be best friends when Iwake up to their beauty or hike through them and get my excercise. And they can be dangerous. Deer jump out in front of you. Bears, bobcats, snakes, and cougars live in them. I even got stuck in them when a winter storm makes the roads impassable and the trees fall in the paths from the heavy ice.
But, they are worth keeping as they are and I learned from good West Virginians fighting to keep their hills intact, that lesson. target is nice, but the wildflowers are too and much more fragil and a concrete target that levels a hill.
I mourn those 5 U curves in Arkansas cut off from their road and those one lane bridges. Everytime I pass those curves I can no longer take, I want to turn and follow them despite the gate in front of them. But, I don't even stop the car and get out and walk them in my hurry to get to my destination. So, I miss out on those views I have seen them give of the valley below.
For me, West Virginia and Arkansas shared many similarities, including the stereotypical ideas others have of the people in those states. They both have a lot of hills and woods. Arkansas also has some flat land that is not valley land because of the Mississippi River. But, the part I knew and loved was hilly and rocky, like West Virginia.
I had been living in a flat, green place—Tulsa—that was drier and hotter than Arkansas. Oklahoma does have some hills in the south and as you get closer to Arkansas and rolling grasslands even on its eastern side. Beautiful country. Driving back Arkansas from Oklahoma is a beautiful drive on 412 made easy by the Cherokee Turnpike. As you get closer to Siloam Springs, it gets a little hilly and then flattens into ranches until you get to Springdale and highway 71. 71 took me to Rogers and highway 62.
This was when I got excited. The moment you get out of Rogers, past their little airport with a museum and a giant plane banking but attached to the ground, you start to get into the hills. I would roll down my windows and immediately the breeze was cooler and sweeter. It was an escape from the warmth of Tulsa and the concrete of the Springdale, Rogers, Bentonville area. As 62 twists and turns and dips and rises, past small towns like Gateway, Garfield, and the Pea Ridge Civil War park, I felt like I was home. The tension left my body and driving became fun.
Traffic was generally better too, unless some visitor was slowly making their way to Eureka for a weekend visit. There were only two places to pass, unless you were suicidal, so you had to have luck and timing. Tourists never did the nice thing and pulled over for you to get by. But, I had my landmarks of passage that meant I was close to the empty road, 187, which would take me home to my parent’s house.
When we moved to Arkansas 62 was snakier. They cut a pass through a hills and cut out 5 U curves and about 30 mins of time. They had to blast through the rock and my parents would talk about hearing and feeling those blasts. When I got to the pass, we affectionately called ‘Howard’s pass’ (after a neighbor), I knew I would be home in 20 mins more or less. And that soon, I would be turning off of 62 to 187.
That turn to 187 was my favorite. I have always wanted to live off that road. Houses sit back in the hills off their gravel and dirt lane road, and one of the farms has a bunch of goats that you get to see when you drive around a huge wall of rock and there they are. I am a fan of goats. Beaver is the next town and one I like a lot. It has about 95 people, a post office, and a store. They have a one lane bridge they made historical so the government wouldn’t ruin it and make it an ugly, tourist letting in two lane bridge.
I had spent much time on the river that the bridge spans, high on rocks above it, with the trees leaning over me, thinking. It is a special place for me. It was clear I was almost at my parent’s door.
Driving those roads at night is not as fun. The turns are demanding even in the day and I found this to be true of the best places in West Virginia too. It is the nature of living in the hills I think. They demand time and attention, even when not driving through them. They can be best friends when Iwake up to their beauty or hike through them and get my excercise. And they can be dangerous. Deer jump out in front of you. Bears, bobcats, snakes, and cougars live in them. I even got stuck in them when a winter storm makes the roads impassable and the trees fall in the paths from the heavy ice.
But, they are worth keeping as they are and I learned from good West Virginians fighting to keep their hills intact, that lesson. target is nice, but the wildflowers are too and much more fragil and a concrete target that levels a hill.
I mourn those 5 U curves in Arkansas cut off from their road and those one lane bridges. Everytime I pass those curves I can no longer take, I want to turn and follow them despite the gate in front of them. But, I don't even stop the car and get out and walk them in my hurry to get to my destination. So, I miss out on those views I have seen them give of the valley below.
Friday, April 8, 2011
In the Hills
In my last post ages ago, I wrote about my last day in the woods of Appalachia. Since moving to Iowa, I have been in the woods one or two times. This is the least amount of time I have spent in woods since I can remember and I miss them. But, this is mostly my fault. There are woods here, even hills. I know. Everyone hears Iowa and thinks flat land, horizons, and corn fields. I did too. But, I know from moving many times to many states that what you hear about a place is mostly all untrue.
When I made my first big move, from Illinois to Arkansas, I was 18, I heard all the jokes about Arkansas out there—about people with no teeth, with heavy dialects, who were hillbillies etc. I had of course been to Arkansas previous to moving to it and I did not see these kinds of people. In fact, they seemed like Illinois people only friendly.
They said hello to me as I walked all over the campus of the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. And they did not know me. They made eye contact too. It was different, but I liked it. And they had good teeth, clear speech, and if they were hillbilly, I had a good feeling about them. They were cool. You could eat vegetarian anywhere, and they sold incense and coffee everywhere. They were hippies. One walk down Dickson street past the restaurants, bars and the best used bookstore ever and I was sold. I was moving to that school. And I did.
And I never did find those stereotypical hillbillies everyone in IL said I would find. I saw the caricatures all over for sale to tourists in Ozark stores. But, never in the woods, even the back of beyond woods. Sure, sometimes the Locals were unique, but they were better than the Missouri hikers who tramped down the trails loudly and announced their presence in the Ozarks woods a bit too grandly for my tastes. Maybe they thought if everyone knew they were there, so would the bears, cougars and bobcats. Maybe the Locals wanted to see the bears, cougars and bobcats. I think I am somewhere in between. The Locals did have guns, not sure about the Missourians, and I knew I did not. I just relied on the animals not wanting me to see them and followed the ranger’s advice about what to do if I met up with one. Besides pee in my pants.
My parents had moved to a small retirement town near Eureka Springs, AR and I adopted Eureka as home. There is something about the narrow streets, the winding hills, the trees, the rocks and the art galleries that feels like home to me. The Ozarks, and a bit further south and east, the Boston Mountains called to me to walk in them—to explore them. And I love waking up in them: clear blue skies, green trees, rocks that seep water, clouds in the hills above rivers in the morning.
Fayetteville was a retreat for me. High school pretty much sucked and college in Arkansas was turning out to be what I had wanted and never received in high school. I lived in Gibson Hall, a small female only dorm, right in the middle of campus on the hill. It was across from the English department, so perfect for me. I made great friends there that I still love today. Later, I moved to an apartment across from campus. I remember one day that sums up my feelings for this time in my life well.
Our apartment was near a green line bus stop that went right to the union and meant a short walk past Gibson to Kimple Hall, the English building. I took it everyday to get to my classes, but one day sticks out most in my mind. It was my birthday, my senior year, and a Tuesday, which meant I was going to my Shakespeare class. I crossed the street to the bus stop and got on the bus. Two of my friends were also on the bus that morning, a pleasant surprise. I was standing because the green line was popular. The bus climbed the hill and I looked out the window towards the football stadium. Everything felt perfect.
I was excited about going to my class. I had the best teacher who read Shakespeare like it should be read: sexy. His voice lulled me as he read. He wore bowties, had a shiny head, and was one of the smartest scholars I have met in my life. He knew Shakespeare and he gently demanded we do too. I liked that about him. His tests were not easy, but they were so good. I learned so much from him and I saw how much he loved what he studied. It was inspiring and wonderful, so I looked forward to that class every Tues and Thurs. It was also the only class I had that day, so the heavy Riverside edition in my bag was not a drag to carry.
As we climbed that hill, I knew this was a moment I would never forget: standing in the bus, holding the rail above me, my bag gently knocking against my leg, the book in the bag a hard lump against my leg as it gently swung with the movement of the bus shifting as it climbed the hill, the clear blue sky, the stadium glinting in the sun, my two friends standing next to me on a packed bus, the excitement of going to a class I loved. I knew it was a moment that would last only a short time, but I was in it and I realized I was happy. Content. I could ride that bus up that hill forever. But, I also knew it would not go up that hill forever. So, I took a deep breath and was there, hoping I could come back again and again to that moment after it was gone.
I was not in the woods, but I was happy. And I knew I would be in them again and would be in them in a way that would allow me to return to them again and again when I needed to but could not get away to them.
When I made my first big move, from Illinois to Arkansas, I was 18, I heard all the jokes about Arkansas out there—about people with no teeth, with heavy dialects, who were hillbillies etc. I had of course been to Arkansas previous to moving to it and I did not see these kinds of people. In fact, they seemed like Illinois people only friendly.
They said hello to me as I walked all over the campus of the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. And they did not know me. They made eye contact too. It was different, but I liked it. And they had good teeth, clear speech, and if they were hillbilly, I had a good feeling about them. They were cool. You could eat vegetarian anywhere, and they sold incense and coffee everywhere. They were hippies. One walk down Dickson street past the restaurants, bars and the best used bookstore ever and I was sold. I was moving to that school. And I did.
And I never did find those stereotypical hillbillies everyone in IL said I would find. I saw the caricatures all over for sale to tourists in Ozark stores. But, never in the woods, even the back of beyond woods. Sure, sometimes the Locals were unique, but they were better than the Missouri hikers who tramped down the trails loudly and announced their presence in the Ozarks woods a bit too grandly for my tastes. Maybe they thought if everyone knew they were there, so would the bears, cougars and bobcats. Maybe the Locals wanted to see the bears, cougars and bobcats. I think I am somewhere in between. The Locals did have guns, not sure about the Missourians, and I knew I did not. I just relied on the animals not wanting me to see them and followed the ranger’s advice about what to do if I met up with one. Besides pee in my pants.
My parents had moved to a small retirement town near Eureka Springs, AR and I adopted Eureka as home. There is something about the narrow streets, the winding hills, the trees, the rocks and the art galleries that feels like home to me. The Ozarks, and a bit further south and east, the Boston Mountains called to me to walk in them—to explore them. And I love waking up in them: clear blue skies, green trees, rocks that seep water, clouds in the hills above rivers in the morning.
Fayetteville was a retreat for me. High school pretty much sucked and college in Arkansas was turning out to be what I had wanted and never received in high school. I lived in Gibson Hall, a small female only dorm, right in the middle of campus on the hill. It was across from the English department, so perfect for me. I made great friends there that I still love today. Later, I moved to an apartment across from campus. I remember one day that sums up my feelings for this time in my life well.
Our apartment was near a green line bus stop that went right to the union and meant a short walk past Gibson to Kimple Hall, the English building. I took it everyday to get to my classes, but one day sticks out most in my mind. It was my birthday, my senior year, and a Tuesday, which meant I was going to my Shakespeare class. I crossed the street to the bus stop and got on the bus. Two of my friends were also on the bus that morning, a pleasant surprise. I was standing because the green line was popular. The bus climbed the hill and I looked out the window towards the football stadium. Everything felt perfect.
I was excited about going to my class. I had the best teacher who read Shakespeare like it should be read: sexy. His voice lulled me as he read. He wore bowties, had a shiny head, and was one of the smartest scholars I have met in my life. He knew Shakespeare and he gently demanded we do too. I liked that about him. His tests were not easy, but they were so good. I learned so much from him and I saw how much he loved what he studied. It was inspiring and wonderful, so I looked forward to that class every Tues and Thurs. It was also the only class I had that day, so the heavy Riverside edition in my bag was not a drag to carry.
As we climbed that hill, I knew this was a moment I would never forget: standing in the bus, holding the rail above me, my bag gently knocking against my leg, the book in the bag a hard lump against my leg as it gently swung with the movement of the bus shifting as it climbed the hill, the clear blue sky, the stadium glinting in the sun, my two friends standing next to me on a packed bus, the excitement of going to a class I loved. I knew it was a moment that would last only a short time, but I was in it and I realized I was happy. Content. I could ride that bus up that hill forever. But, I also knew it would not go up that hill forever. So, I took a deep breath and was there, hoping I could come back again and again to that moment after it was gone.
I was not in the woods, but I was happy. And I knew I would be in them again and would be in them in a way that would allow me to return to them again and again when I needed to but could not get away to them.
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