I got up early this morning so that I could go out while the sun was still rising. It’s very often that I’m still awake when the birds begin to chirp but not so common that I’m actually awake and moving about outside with them as they do. I took a bike ride around the neighborhood and ended up down at the corner store. Everything looked fresh and clear in the morning-wet air. A crystalline blue sky filled full with misty cloud-whispers covering a heavy and damp dew humid air. It’s so clear out though. The sun is up but not out yet, not yet high enough to shine over the thicker clouds that coat the Midwest horizon in faux white cap mountain peaks.
Traffic is only a low rumble still and the loudest noise around me is the hydraulics of a truck cab and the hum of it’s refrigerated load. “Rolling Rock” it says in big beautiful letters above a panoramic blue-green rocky mountain scene I’ve never been to. I’d like to go out west, to the real west that lies past this old thought Midwest. I don’t especially like the idea of the West Coast, but I’d very much like to see the Pacific Ocean and those mountain ranges. The idea of the ocean doesn’t particularly impress me because of its size and grandeur, the great lakes ruined that for me at a young age. Never again will any body of water be anything more than a lake to me; I’ve peered out across lakes and seen nothing but more lake on the other side. And, I’ve done it from both Chicago and West Michigan looking back across at myself. I’d like to see the Pacific Ocean because of the name I imagine. I’d like to see a peaceful sea and imagine the orient on its other side. Worlds divided I guess. I’ve seen the Atlantic Ocean already and when I did I had all the salt that’s ever been a part of it stuffed right up my nose and down my throat. When I swam in it I was still so young that I had trouble opening my eyes underwater and it sure didn’t help me any. It was nice though, like going to a grandparent's house; someplace you know your family came from, seeing where your father slept and shared a closet for a room with his brother, seeing that vague place where your mother’s mother’s mother sailed over and on. In all the pictures I’ve seen of the west the mountain line in the background is what strikes me the most. Frontier land doesn’t stretch out forever in every direction; it’s cut up by ridges and pitfalls as far as I can see. Seeing pictures of those blue and white mountains is deceiving when you’re a child; there isn’t any way to tell where they end and because of that every town you see can give off the impression that it’s in a cradle of American bounty, set up and protected in a basin of God’s country’s very own best rocks. Where I grew up things looked to be in a basin themselves, surrounded on all sides by old industry. Steel mills, salt hills, burning blue-flamed oil towers; after a while it starts to look like the rest of the land, like it too was thrust up from the soil and rocks when the earth was still young and eons cooling. It’s hard to say if it’s any older than the rest of this place, especially when it was all already here by the time I showed up.
I rode my bike back home and left it in the garage on its kickstand. Looking at the red-lined clouds is like looking at the delicate red blood veins in a milky white eye. Everything just looks so clean and clear before that. The sky is infectious and all the air in my world is the same muted pale blue it’s been all morning and I start to wonder, “Is this God’s country?” Walking back inside I notice one last thing: those same road side gnats I picked off my shirt last night after running are stuck all up and down my arms now in the red blond downy hair. I pick them each out, one by one flicking them back in the direction of the road before I walk back inside and begin taking off my shoes in the front room of my parent's house. Oh happy new day.
caleb
Traffic is only a low rumble still and the loudest noise around me is the hydraulics of a truck cab and the hum of it’s refrigerated load. “Rolling Rock” it says in big beautiful letters above a panoramic blue-green rocky mountain scene I’ve never been to. I’d like to go out west, to the real west that lies past this old thought Midwest. I don’t especially like the idea of the West Coast, but I’d very much like to see the Pacific Ocean and those mountain ranges. The idea of the ocean doesn’t particularly impress me because of its size and grandeur, the great lakes ruined that for me at a young age. Never again will any body of water be anything more than a lake to me; I’ve peered out across lakes and seen nothing but more lake on the other side. And, I’ve done it from both Chicago and West Michigan looking back across at myself. I’d like to see the Pacific Ocean because of the name I imagine. I’d like to see a peaceful sea and imagine the orient on its other side. Worlds divided I guess. I’ve seen the Atlantic Ocean already and when I did I had all the salt that’s ever been a part of it stuffed right up my nose and down my throat. When I swam in it I was still so young that I had trouble opening my eyes underwater and it sure didn’t help me any. It was nice though, like going to a grandparent's house; someplace you know your family came from, seeing where your father slept and shared a closet for a room with his brother, seeing that vague place where your mother’s mother’s mother sailed over and on. In all the pictures I’ve seen of the west the mountain line in the background is what strikes me the most. Frontier land doesn’t stretch out forever in every direction; it’s cut up by ridges and pitfalls as far as I can see. Seeing pictures of those blue and white mountains is deceiving when you’re a child; there isn’t any way to tell where they end and because of that every town you see can give off the impression that it’s in a cradle of American bounty, set up and protected in a basin of God’s country’s very own best rocks. Where I grew up things looked to be in a basin themselves, surrounded on all sides by old industry. Steel mills, salt hills, burning blue-flamed oil towers; after a while it starts to look like the rest of the land, like it too was thrust up from the soil and rocks when the earth was still young and eons cooling. It’s hard to say if it’s any older than the rest of this place, especially when it was all already here by the time I showed up.
I rode my bike back home and left it in the garage on its kickstand. Looking at the red-lined clouds is like looking at the delicate red blood veins in a milky white eye. Everything just looks so clean and clear before that. The sky is infectious and all the air in my world is the same muted pale blue it’s been all morning and I start to wonder, “Is this God’s country?” Walking back inside I notice one last thing: those same road side gnats I picked off my shirt last night after running are stuck all up and down my arms now in the red blond downy hair. I pick them each out, one by one flicking them back in the direction of the road before I walk back inside and begin taking off my shoes in the front room of my parent's house. Oh happy new day.
caleb
