Prairie

Today we immersed ourselves in the childhood world of Willa Cather. Betty Kort was our guide through historic Red Cloud, Nebraska. The small town was the prototype setting for many of Cather's prairie novels. This morning we visited some of the prominent Cather-related buildings in town and heard all sorts of stories, but my imagination wasn't captured until we headed out to the prairie after lunch.

Just on this short little jaunt out into the prairie, I've scared up five whitetail deer and two hawks. All of them rose up out of the grass within 20 feet of where I was walking. The effect was stunning, it was as if the earth birthed them and they leapt out into life through the air. I sat and watched the hawks float on the air currents for a while. It's been a long time since I've had the time and stillness to be able to observe birds in flight. It is so peaceful and uplifting.

Most everybody is probably back in the van by now. In fact, I think I might even hear the horn honking. I should go... One more deep breath. . . . Okay.

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I ran through the grass, leaping and bounding like a deer. The cold air in my lungs hurt, but in a refreshing and vivifying sort of way. Stalks of red, gold, and brown bent and crunched under my boots. A small flock of birds, sparrows perhaps, rose up on my right into the cold blue sky. 

I followed the valley north down to the pond. It was frozen. Dark barren trees defiantly jutted up through the surface of the ice, challenging the prairie with their presence. I turned up the adjacent valley and sped back south towards the van. As soon as I got past the ice, I descended the western bank down to the skinny mud flat at the bottom of the valley. The mud was riddled with the footprints of whitetails and the wrinkles left by run-off water. 

Leaving my own trail of boot prints on the soft earth, I ambled up the eastern slope and tore across the open prairie. The van came into view as I crested the hillock, but I lost it soon thereafter when I dropped into one final steep valley. I climbed the opposite slope in five bounds, covering perhaps 20 vertical feet, and the van popped back into sight. I walked the rest of the way to catch my breath before I got back to the group, refreshed.

I have to admit that I am no Cather-phile. It's been a while since I have read any of her writings and many of the details and stories of her life inspired little of my interest. However, I did truly appreciate how our trip today and our discussion of Cather really romanticized the Great Plains. Today showed me that this fly-over state has produced stories of great beauty and gripping personalities. The challenge is to continue to see the romantic and the story-worthy amid the events of our own lives. Our perceptions, especially as we age, become trapped in the realistic and the mundane. It's not that our lives are void of stories. Rather it is that we are so often blind to the romance of our own lives. We fail to perceive our own importance in the world, and we think our stories to be boring and unoriginal. In doing so, we are robbing ourselves of the power of creation. I believe that within each person there is a great epic story. I just wish I could figure out what mine is.