It’s April 28th, 2007 & I’m high above some state in the western United States, where the land is flat and cut into huge yet precise blocks by roads – nothing exists here to break up human-imposed geometries. A grid state. Possibly Nebraska.
I’m currently sad, excited, scared, hopeful, wounded, content, anxious, fascinated, and oddly happy. I guess at 38, I can hold more than one at once. 🙂 . I’m thinking about my friend Greg’s book “Window Seat: Reading the Landscape From The Air”, global warming, a girl, human population (the *real* hockey stick!), wondering how attractive Cameron Diaz really is (inflight movie), and mostly, the beauty of it all. (Don’t think that you know which of the emotions tie to which of the subjects at hand, the combinations are remarkable and fluid 🙂 )
A while back (Nevada? Utah?) I passed a small wind farm. Maybe 10 giant white windmills, standing silently on a hill, motionless (slackers!). The future is here. It is going to be quite a ride these next few decades. Buckle up 🙂 I can’t wait. (wow! bravado? sarcasm? hope? anticipation!? bring-it-on-let’s-do-this-coz-i’m-tired-of-worrying-and-what-is-the-name-of-this-feeling-anyway?*)
Natural features have risen to contest the brute-force human ones of the grid state now past. The results, the combination of human geometry and natural diversity, are beautiful! (contour and strip farming – Thanks Greg!).
I never thought the Midwest was beautiful. Landing soon. The beauty has given away to standard farmland & now suburbia, but Chicago! Chicago is majestic in the afternoon light….I’m off on my latest adventure: a week in the south of France followed by three in the south of India, I guess there is a Southern boy in here after all. Hmmm… BBQ yes!, NASCAR not so much… ok so much for that thesis. My agenda:
- Eat every mango I come across.
- Avoid getting married off.
- Face time with mega-fauna.
- Observe humans in their natural habitats (both current & historical).
- Marvel at people’s ability to lead apparently functional lives without direct contact with ME
- Finally see India after all these trips, rather than just see relatives (god bless them and their kindness & hospitality nonetheless).
- Try to keep you people entertained!
To my peoples back home, I’ll miss you (I always do!). Please remember what I said about not having any fun while I’m gone. No. Really.
‘deep
*I bet the Germans have a name for that feeling, they always seem to…. with their easy to-make-new-words-without-needing-hyphens language. I bet they have a name for that too! Damn! 🙂
I was having fun for a couple seconds, but then I read this post and immediately curtailed the fun.
Then I found reading your post fun, and was confused. I suppose I can have fun reading your post? Can I please?
Deep,
Cameron Diaz is just as cute-as-a-button in real life, as I discovered just a few weeks ago in Hawaii. I was checking her out from behind (she has a nice one) and she turned around.
She also did the cute giggle-snort-falling over laugh for real, too.
Enjoy your wanderings, you global warmer.
I completely respect Cameron Diaz for leaving the house without makeup on. She must be complicit in having been caught by photographers looking merely human.
You must know that you are hitting India at precisely the right time for mangoes! Where in the South of France are you going- (I’ve biked across Provence a few times) and where in southern India? Susan Sontag has this wonderful passage in the Volcano Lover about how every culture has its southerners, but Shilpa says that the southerners in India are the exception.
Glad to see that flying high above makes others wax philosophical, too — perspective.
Maybe getting married off might not be so bad…It would at least make for a good blog entry.
love, aim
ps – sick husband, sick baby, live mouse in bedroom, cat piss in basement. Nope, no fun while you are away ; )