It’s somewhere in Nebraska. I don’t know where, but several years ago I saw a photograph in a magazine of a scene so idyllic and memorable that I wanted to look at it and let it work its magic on me.
In the 1980s, I did quite a lot of traveling across Nebraska, from east to west, the first time in the Spring of 1984, following the route of the old Oregon Trail, a history buff’s dream trip. I got a very good idea of what the vast rural areas of Nebraska looked like.
So I did some research on the Internet, send off some e-mails, and made calls to Nebraska. A few weeks later, I had an 11 x 14 inch enlargement of that picture, from the original negative, hanging on the wall of my study, directly in front of my desk.
And so, when I look up, I can fix my gaze on that scene and be transported there for awhile, if I so choose. It depends on my mood and frame of mind.
For instance, even though I am writing now while sitting at the beach, I am picturing this: There’s a backyard way out in farming country in what is probably one of the most rural parts of central Nebraska. A gravel road stretches off in the distance on the right. A white picket fence surrounds the yard, and in back of that is a windmill. From an old oak tree hangs a swing.
And, if you could see me there, you would learn that I had just finished a midday dinner of fried chicken, green beans, rice and gravy, cornbread, corn on the cob and fresh tomatoes, iced tea and lemonade. (I’m imagining favorite noon-time country meals are pretty similar wherever you go). There was apple pie and ice cream for dessert (real home-churned ice cream, not low-fat ice milk of frozen yogurt).
I’ve come from the porch, bringing a cold glass of lemonade with me, and I’m standing in the back yard on this warm day in August. My shoes have been left behind on the porch, and the cool grass under the oak tree feels good on my bare feet. Ahead of me, off in the distance are undulating fields of corn, brown stalks dry and crackling in the wind.
I am full from the meal, as content as it’s possible to be, for a while anyway, and I spot that sturdy swing hanging from the oak. Soon, like the child I only briefly was, I am swinging up high, reaching toward that blue sky over the cornfields, almost defying gravity, as one invariably tries to do while on a swing. Then, I’m earthbound again, only to rise up higher in the other direction, gaining momentum. How delicious a sensation to feel free for a moment or two in that swing, up high and then back down to earth. Again and again.
I am a mere mortal trying, and almost succeeding, in shaking loose from Earth, suspended between land and sky, for just a split second. What will it be? To fly free or come down to Earth once again?
I can only think of the answer as I sit here writing, daydreaming at twilight, visiting another place that exists only in my imagination as well as in a photograph hanging on the wall.
(Written on August 12, 2000)
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