The thing that redeems summer is the twenty minute span each day when the sun is falling lower and the land is bathed in golden hazy light. Sometimes, in the middle of it, I feel joyful. An emotional climax expressed internally as a confused chorus of voices and laughter and music and a pull, a strong pull, upward. Sometimes I feel I could stretch out over the earth and melt into it. I have been angry at it, I have felt grateful for it.
We were out in it Monday evening.
When my mom and sister were here, a stretch of highway was mentioned, and my mom expressed her dislike for that drive. I was startled. A few years ago, Jut and I were driving across the Midwest back to Wyoming, and we took a different route. We drove across this state on that highway, early on an October morning, and I fell in love with the land. I felt a peaceful connection to it, and grew more and more excited with each mile, more in love with each roll of earth, each white square house. That stretch of highway introduced me to this state, and I am fiercely protective of it–I feel that surely everyone must see it’s one of the most beautiful places in the world.
I know we don’t all see from the same eyes. When we’re driving down to visit my family, my mom will call us, and she always jokes, “Are you back in God’s country yet?” I remember people don’t share eyes, but it’s a shame I can’t give mine for just a few seconds.
I love these hills, I love the sun slipping away through thick warm air.
Love,
black sheeped
