Rolling Plains

Remember in the book Sarah Plain and Tall when Sarah compares the ocean she loves to the wind blowing the tall grasses on the plains? I love that part. I used to think the plains were anything but special...but now I see their beauty and sometimes I long to be out on the open plains with nothing but the blue sky and yellow ocean of grass ahead of me. The mountains make me nervous, but when I'm out on the plains I feel a sense of peace.

It's hard to explain, but there's something about being among the tall grasses that makes me feel more connected with this Earth we live on.  It's perfectly silent except for the birds and the wind. I think because for a moment we are seeing our world the way it is meant to be seen.  Untouched.  

Last weekend we came across a restored cabin from the turn of the century...I wonder why they decided to build their house here?  We sat and listened to the wind and my mom told me again about the cabin my parents lived in when they were first married.  It was in a little Colorado town, far away from any civilization. My dad would go off to work on the plains and my mom would pass the time in her new home needle pointing and listening to the wind through the trees and grass.  One summer my parents took my sisters and I to their first home. There it was, a little cabin in the middle of overgrown grass and weeds.  My mom's curtains still hung from the windows...birds flew in and out from the open cracks in the walls. I asked my mom if she had been scared living in the middle of nowhere, but she hadn't been. She was on an adventure with her new husband.

 Maybe that's why I connect so much with these beautiful plains.  It's where my parents began their marriage, where my dad has spent many, many years working.  I tell Martin sometimes that I want to move back to Greeley...he laughs and thinks I'm joking.  Maybe I am sometimes, but I loved nothing more than being surrounded by the openness that seemed never ending.