unpopular
Been spending a lot of time on here!
... which I will likely never finish:
Chapter 1. There is a buzzing.
Looking towered the afternoon sky, a flock of geese fly overhead. And I think to myself how these geese fly back and forth in some preordained fashion; how much simpler it must be. I com to realize that this ay not be the case at all, and rather these geese, and their romantic rendezvous, through exotic locations, over mountain passes from some northern lake in british columbia or alberta to vacation over winter in southern California or Louisiana are not migratory at all - rather these geese are stationary, receiving all that they need from the nearby townspeople, year-round without needing anything more - generation after generation subsiding winter long on stale bread crumbs provided by the hands of enthusiastic toddlers as their parents nervously take photographs.
These geese know nothing of a desert oasis or southern swamps with those odd trees: the ones which rise with roots which resemble a bundle of a hundred legs. They know nothing of Alberta or the Canadian Rockies or The Cascades of British Columbia. They only know of this lake, as naturally formed as the Wonderbread which they are fed, and the plastic bags left behind, to litter their environment, as if the bags themselves are somehow any less natural than the dam that created this habitat. A dam created when the trains needed water to feed into steam engines; today, the lake serves no practical purpose. No need for water. No need for geese. These things remain only decorative, and without function.
At this time of year, late in the summer, the Kansas sky turns a brilliant orange as the sun sets. As is the case everywhere, but there is a certain quality to the Western Kansas sky that is no where else. I'd say that this sky makes living here almost bearable, if it weren't for the fact that it isn't true. Life in Western Kansas is fickle. A sense of something missing, a sense that there is an entire universe out there, but the horizon is so wide you wouldn't know it. Like there is something you're forever missing out on, but you have no idea what it might be. The world is a distant mystery, or a concept in our heads. You can feel the rest of it all around you, but no telescope or binoculars or any other instrument could ever be so powerful that you could see it, or even know if it's any better. If you try, all you would see is more wheat, more grass, more sagebrush, more of the same landscape before you, off into an existential infinite in every direction. The only way to know for sure that there is something else is to travel. It's a funny thing, travel, for those who are born and raised here travel is a temporary thing no matter how much your intentions are to make it permanent. People go out into the exciting world and always, without exception eventually come back.
I came here in the mid 1990's for no particular reason. The barren isolation which makes this place so unbearable provides exactly the contemplative, yet torturous self discovery I did not realize I was seeking. I'm not a new age psuedo-buddhist. I haven't given up my excessive lifestyle of eating animal products yet. I have no problem driving a Mercedes SUV. If I were, I wouldn't have come to the realization that I was seeking in the first place - I'd be too busy complaining about the narrow minded hicks that inhabit this place, longing for a decent sushi bar or a place to get a fat free chai latte. I'd be too busy seeing this place for what it's not than what it is, and paradoxically, the two are not mutually exclusive. The minds here are narrow. The people are typically judgmental, unfriendly and unwittingly under-cultured, each with a haircut unchanged since 1952. In truth, I will not make this realization for some time, long after I also, an outsider, pack my things and move on leaving this place untouched, as does everyone else who travels here. Unlike the locals, those who travel here never stay.
© 2012, Shawn Kearney
Chapter 1. There is a buzzing.
Looking towered the afternoon sky, a flock of geese fly overhead. And I think to myself how these geese fly back and forth in some preordained fashion; how much simpler it must be. I com to realize that this ay not be the case at all, and rather these geese, and their romantic rendezvous, through exotic locations, over mountain passes from some northern lake in british columbia or alberta to vacation over winter in southern California or Louisiana are not migratory at all - rather these geese are stationary, receiving all that they need from the nearby townspeople, year-round without needing anything more - generation after generation subsiding winter long on stale bread crumbs provided by the hands of enthusiastic toddlers as their parents nervously take photographs.
These geese know nothing of a desert oasis or southern swamps with those odd trees: the ones which rise with roots which resemble a bundle of a hundred legs. They know nothing of Alberta or the Canadian Rockies or The Cascades of British Columbia. They only know of this lake, as naturally formed as the Wonderbread which they are fed, and the plastic bags left behind, to litter their environment, as if the bags themselves are somehow any less natural than the dam that created this habitat. A dam created when the trains needed water to feed into steam engines; today, the lake serves no practical purpose. No need for water. No need for geese. These things remain only decorative, and without function.
At this time of year, late in the summer, the Kansas sky turns a brilliant orange as the sun sets. As is the case everywhere, but there is a certain quality to the Western Kansas sky that is no where else. I'd say that this sky makes living here almost bearable, if it weren't for the fact that it isn't true. Life in Western Kansas is fickle. A sense of something missing, a sense that there is an entire universe out there, but the horizon is so wide you wouldn't know it. Like there is something you're forever missing out on, but you have no idea what it might be. The world is a distant mystery, or a concept in our heads. You can feel the rest of it all around you, but no telescope or binoculars or any other instrument could ever be so powerful that you could see it, or even know if it's any better. If you try, all you would see is more wheat, more grass, more sagebrush, more of the same landscape before you, off into an existential infinite in every direction. The only way to know for sure that there is something else is to travel. It's a funny thing, travel, for those who are born and raised here travel is a temporary thing no matter how much your intentions are to make it permanent. People go out into the exciting world and always, without exception eventually come back.
I came here in the mid 1990's for no particular reason. The barren isolation which makes this place so unbearable provides exactly the contemplative, yet torturous self discovery I did not realize I was seeking. I'm not a new age psuedo-buddhist. I haven't given up my excessive lifestyle of eating animal products yet. I have no problem driving a Mercedes SUV. If I were, I wouldn't have come to the realization that I was seeking in the first place - I'd be too busy complaining about the narrow minded hicks that inhabit this place, longing for a decent sushi bar or a place to get a fat free chai latte. I'd be too busy seeing this place for what it's not than what it is, and paradoxically, the two are not mutually exclusive. The minds here are narrow. The people are typically judgmental, unfriendly and unwittingly under-cultured, each with a haircut unchanged since 1952. In truth, I will not make this realization for some time, long after I also, an outsider, pack my things and move on leaving this place untouched, as does everyone else who travels here. Unlike the locals, those who travel here never stay.
© 2012, Shawn Kearney