Kansas Day Dreaming

Windmills pull not only water up from below the earth but they also break a seemingly endless horizon to pull the eye toward heaven and optimism. In a stark, dry landscape, such attractions nurture not only bodies but also spirits. Just the memory of spinning blades drawing thin streams of cool water to spill into a tank is enough to send the mind back in time to recover damp earth scents and the sensation of green buffalo grass curling under bare feet. This ability to reclaim the past explains why so many paintings and photos of isolated windmills hang in Great Plains homes and galleries. This prairie icon means survival to anyone connected to this place for generations.

Wind has powered human life since early civilization. Confining it and making it work isn’t unique to Americans, but it has made homesteading and agriculture in Flyover country possible. Before these skinny towers lured  the eye upward from rolling waves of blue stem, Indian, and grama grasses, the arid nature of the place meant only nomadic people could survive here. Once Nathaniel Halladay invented the self-governing windmill, stickers—people who put down roots to stay through the good times and the bad—could claim homesteads and make dreams come true.

Once hopeful settlers declared the boundaries of their land, they drilled into the ancient underground lake beneath their feet to find water for themselves and their livestock. Those fortunate enough to tap into the aquifer no longer had to depend on live springs or the capture of unpredictable rains in a cistern. Where native occupants packed and moved when a water source vanished, this new technology permitted incoming settlers to create their own oases in what people east of the Mississippi called the Great American Desert.

This newly patented device promised more than it could deliver to many would-be ranchers and farmers who headed west to claim free land. Now days, poets, artists, historians, and the curious cruise dusty country roads to look for crumbling telltale towers silhouetted by collapsed ruins in the distance. Sometimes bullet-riddled vanes still spin in the wind, emitting a haunting banshee cry. Ironically, greenery growing at the base of these relics hints at still present underground treasure.

What these backroad wanderers find are stories written in dreams, sweat, and imported resources. Anyone who stops long enough to let their eyes wander over a former homestead in the middle of a current farmer’s wheat field or pasture has a decision to make. Do these ruins reveal the prelude to the lovely brick home and giant metal sheds up the road a few miles, or do they tell instead the sad tale of a forgotten family who left during hard times? Too often, the second version is the truth, but few of us find that romantic or memorable. We prefer the first, a tale of expectation and success.

Hope is what Halladay and his competitors’ windmills delivered and what makes them iconic prairie images even now. As long as some of us call these isolated plains home and long to remain here, someone will keep photographing or painting bent and tumbling towers that pierce the horizon and tell us dreams can come true.

“A Baby Is God’s Opinion That Life Should Go On.”

Anyone reading or listening to news over the past few weeks must, as I do, long for comfort and continuity to counterbalance life’s new normal. What better way than to root ourselves in customs that go back enough generations that they’ve withstood the test of personal and national distress. Our family honored such a tradition recently with a shower to celebrate the birth of our youngest daughter’s first child. As I put away a dish passed from my grandmother to my mom and now to me, I thought about the generations of women who’ve gathered to celebrate an impending birth.

The women who used this dish immigrated from greener landscapes to the arid plains of western Kansas. Some lived through the Civil War, the Plains Indian wars, The Spanish American War, WW I, The Great Depression, WW II, The Korean Conflict, Vietnam, and recent events. My mother who was born in the midst of the Dust Bowl worked only a few blocks from Murrah Building in Oklahoma City and drove past its ruins and later the monuments to those who died that day. When I want to shut my eyes and ignore things that terrify me, I remind myself I come from sturdy stock. We do what is necessary to survive and thrive in a difficult world.

The poet Carl Sandburg states many families’ optimism in the future, explaining why it’s necessary to rejoice when a child is born. He wrote, “A baby is God’s opinion that life should go on.”  As I watched women who love our daughter delight in giving handmade quilts and leatherwork, practical gifts, and books, several thoughts ran through my mind. I appreciated the hours of labor those crafters spent creating heirlooms that will comfort this child and pass to future generations. I’m grateful for the gifts that ensure the safety and wellbeing of our new granddaughter and for the thoughtfulness of mothers who’ve already raised kids and know what a new mom needs to ease that first year. The growing stack of books next to the mom-to-be’s chair told me how this group valued the ties of language and ideas and wanted to pass on their favorites. One Great-Aunt touch all our hearts when she included a favorite book she received as a little girl. Each of these presents warmed my heart and validated Sandburg’s message.

While the adults enjoyed visiting and remembering their own early parenting experiences, toddlers attending helped pass out gifts and make sharp observations. One cousin-to-be wants that baby to come out to play. Others were more interested in the immediate delight of raiding the mint and nut bowl.  Each of these little ones reminded all of the adults of how swiftly infancy passes.

This long practiced custom of giving gifts to prepare new parents for their long awaited child states so clearly that our hearts cherish the hope new babies offer. Those of us who’ve raised our own, enjoy helping expectant moms and dads get off to a good start. It’s also a needed reminder to savor every moment and to work to leave a better world for the next generation.

Four Letter Words

Most of us have heard about four letter words. The minute you mention them, many immediately think naughty words. But this time of year, hope is a four-letter word. As is soil, seed, rain, bird, root, stem and grow. Four letter words-- every one. As I roamed about my yard planting hollyhocks, bachelor buttons, sweet William, zinnias, and other butterfly attractors, I kept thinking, I hope for moisture and that the hard little hulls I tucked in the earth would sprout roots and stems to unfurl skyward under warm, spring sun.

With the advent of t-shirt and shorts weather, I see people walking about area towns with a spring in their steps. All of us are tired of winter’s leafless silhouettes. We’re weary of seeing only sere grass and stick-like bushes. Our senses ache for hues of green and brilliant blossoms.

Even birds agree. Those not yet on the nest warble noisy courting songs, perform antic dances, and ruffle feathers, hoping to attract mates. Who can help but smile while watching such crazy expenditures of energy, knowing it’s one of those four letter words—hope-- that drives each of us to do all we can to make the most of these few perfect days of spring.

During a painting class I recently attended, students explained to our waterlogged Wyoming teacher that we need rain. Unlike us, she’s seen an excess of moisture recently, so she struggled to relate to our craving for wet stuff. While we enjoyed the mild temperatures and balmy days with her, she treasured 24-hour sequences that didn’t require use of snow shovels. She  wasn’t looking forward to the predicted rains and snow on her homeward journey. Despite her dismay at the weather reports, we were giddy, hoping precipitation might move our way.  

Without moisture, we look forward to more blowing dust, bare fields, dirty cars, as well as stunted vegetables and blossoms if we can garden in our communities. Rain brings optimism for green yards, wheat, and a harvest. Those clouds building on the horizon have no idea when they pass us by and sprinkle on another town what they do to those thirsting for water-laden droplets.

We’re so dry here that folks normally indignant when rain ruins their plans behave gleefully when they have to move track practice or outdoor picnics inside. Those of us wearing spectacles relish coming indoors from the sprinkles to wipe our glasses dry.

Not only have the few little dribbles we’ve received perked up spirits, they’ve also jolted dormant perennials into production. Bushes that were tawny canes days earlier have sprouted hordes of pale green buds. A wheat field behind my house turned lush blue-green and grew at least two inches in nothing flat. I should have set up a stop action camera on it. I’d have captured amazing footage of high-speed growth.

Yep, this time of year, four letter words rule. Dirt, bird, seed, rain, and hope are important elements of spring. I’m all for saying as many of those words as I can in mixed and unmixed company.

It's Not Good to Want a Thing Too Much

One of my favorite novels to teach was John Steinbeck’s The Pearl.  I loved his use of landscape, the very human ways the main character Kino and his young wife Juana faced ills that befell them, and truths about human nature the author unfolded in quotes that emerge from my memory at odd times. One of those instances occurred last week.

Ever since we moved, I’ve anticipated planting a garden behind our shed.  A neighbor used his tractor to till well-rested soil to crumbly powder that sifted through my fingers like sand through an hourglass. After gardening on a rocky hilltop for almost two decades, I was giddy thinking about tucking seed potatoes and onion slips into fertile earth.

While some folks use an almanac to tell them the best time to plant, the weather channel’s rain predictions guide me. There’s nothing like a heaven-sent soaking to get seeds off to good start. Based on the report, it looked like Mother Nature would aid me in christening my new seed plot.

According to the internet, I could expect a 90% chance for moisture. That offered good odds even in these dry times, so I cut up seed potatoes, prepared onion slips and bulbs, and organized packets of early season seeds. The whole time I loaded my garden cart with supplies, words rattled inside my head like seeds in a dry gourd—“It is not good to want a thing too much. It sometimes drives the luck away . . . .”

Those syllables haunted me because I couldn’t remember where I’d heard or read them. In my imagination, I saw an Indian woman saying them, so I started a mental inventory of books, movies, and  TV shows I’d read or seen, hoping to come up with a source. Finally, I recalled John Steinbeck penned them decades ago when he told the parable of a young man and his pearl of great value.

Straddling rows of freshly planted Yukon gold, Kennebeck, and red Pontiac potatoes, I wished mightily for rain and remembered Steinbeck’s words. Surely the weatherman was more correct than a long dead author. When I rose from popping onions in fresh-plowed earth, a desire for sprinkles crossed my mind only to have that repeating quote attack. 

It made me wonder if a similar superstition drives farmers to understate their dreams for good harvests. I don’t know that I’ve heard an agriculturist boast about the quality of a crop in the field.  Too many factors can drive either production or prices south to make a person with expectations still rooted in dirt voice hope. 

Sunday dawned damp and gray. Perhaps I hadn’t wanted rain too much. Surely I had wished just enough. I turned on my computer to search the weather report. Rain was north and east of us, not over us. We’d had a hint of moisture, but not the real deal. 

This experience helps me understand why farmers are cautious. Steinbeck must have learned this restraint growing up in an agricultural region. Perhaps words he attributed to a young mother living beside the Sea of Cortez initially emerged from the mouth of a farmer visiting John’s father’s feed and grain store in Salinas.