Country Mouse Returns
A slice of travel, a return home
I regrettably left the music loud. Naive enough to think the blank and hypnotic roads of Wyoming would stay open as I rolled into Colorado. Alas, that tiny daydream was smashed 10 miles outside of Fort Collins as Solange skipped repeatedly, accidentally, and for once I was the slow one on the road. My car and I stood still at times, clotted alongside massive trucks run through single lane construction sites, then burst through to three lanes as if a constricted vein was finally free to pump blood.
Then Nine Inch Nails came on and all his percussive threading throbbed through my temples into my hands on the steering wheel. I cursed Colorado - wishing to be out of the car and prone on a too-firm mattress in boring Longmont. And the exurb/town/suburb(?) held its promise — like most of the Denver metro area, the area once spoilt with beauty and mountains flanking the horizon, has drunkenly fallen all over the place and overloaded its frame with bulky and drab suburbs and strip malls. Yes, there are mountains, but to me this feature lets Colorado off the hook for its excessive “beige legos thrown on the floor during a tantrum” look that haunts its every corner. The character and charm of the place has been lost to time, wrong-headed development and bonkers traffic. I’d be happy to never return.
Turns out this country mouse isn’t cut out for the big city. A fact I’ve long suspected but ignored, thinking myself more urbane and polished than I really am. Of course, there are many Jacquelines, or Jackies for those who’ve known me long enough, but buzzing on the surface is a wild girl who sometimes misses the mark and more often the buzz of prairie birds. A too cheerful goof who will probably die with a toothy crowded smile on her face. She is sensitive and tries hard, sometimes too much.
So I rushed out of Denver into the arms of my “home state” —> scare quotes for the questionability of that claim. Before this reunion I stopped for gas in Limon, Colorado - got whipped by the wind and captured the melodious songs of the great-tailed grackle (wonderful name). A clutch of them lived in the big bush underneath the gas station and Wendy’s sign. As I was coming out of my anti-Colorado fog, these loud wonders pushed back, singing, “Aren’t you so glad you can hear?!”
A snippet of bird sound at a gas station on the state line ^
My first stop was Goodland, Kansas - cute as a button and too clean. The kind of clean that reminds me of a grandmother over preparing for guests - the rugs and tablecloths must be just so. The floors scrubbed. NO ragamuffins live here! The town’s cleanliness and partially closed storefronts, along with the music pumped over street light PAs gave the downtown an eerie feel, as if I accidentally stumbled upon a movie set. “Right this way to Western Town USA.” My short walk up and down Main Street (real name) culminated with The Cure’s “Pictures of You”. I stopped to take a video of myself and the town as we co-existed momentarily in this sweet space of seeing each other.
The further I drove into Kansas, the more I remembered how much I love its particular kind of beauty. My favorite parts are the roadside gulches of Burr Oak and Silver Maple - appearing as if unplanned, tangled together, limb and root climbing over one another in a contest to be most life-full. And the greens that buoy them are so saturated and dense. I’m hooked deep by the land and the sky here.
Tonight, in Wilson, I walk around and my nervous system reboots and smooths. Ah, this once familiar feeling nestled in a long ago heart of mine somehow revived by the soil and spirit of a place. My place. My legs thunk on the ground like those Oaks I know, step after step. My toes squirm and burn in the sun.
I am planted, for now.
This piece was written on a cross-country trip back to Kansas two years ago. Much has changed in that time, particularly in the past month, and I plan to return home for good. Stay tuned for fresh writing as I make the move.
Peace be with you.
Wow