Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Thought process

Prairie is pretty self explanatory. I considered "steppe" (a tad too exotic). Plains are just too plane. So prairie it is! Break is a little more complicated. Let's quietly tiptoe past the various sharp shards of connotation to the good stuff: everyone needs and wants a break from routine, from strain, from the hum drum. What you resist persists, so let's revisit the negative connotation ( let's grasp, however painfully, the thistle): every day represents a broken word, a broken promise, the shattering of a tiny illusion or of a grand delusion. More prosaically, every moment represents the anastomosis of eternity. Let's face it, nothing is made without breaking. Each moment pits or splits or splinters from the diminishing block of our imaginary futures bright hard tiny fragments of the past. 

More literally--and perhaps more practically--I was also thinking of those magical places on the prairie where the levelness ends: the Breaks! Cedar Breaks, the Missouri Breaks. These magical transitions, these ecotones are life's highlights and vantage points. As we break, vistas emerge and dense mounding cushion plants encrust the jagged sandstone, limestone bedrock. Kick your heels (as they dangle) over the edge and feel the cool breeze blowing upward into your sun kissed face.

As unlikely as it may seem, I happen to live on a prairie break.  Welcome!

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