Melani Blazer

The trip was long, time mesmerized by the hum of tires on the road. The night sky was lit up by reflections of the dash on glass. Stars watched us, fighting for our attention with the multiple color lights of a modern highway.

There was little to see until dawn, when the first light cast everything gray, including the wide stretches of water, trees reaching upward from hidden roots, telephone poles stoic in midst of still ponds. The grand Mississippi seemed ten miles wide, it’s greedy mouth eating up farmland, threatening roads, erasing property lines and landscapes.

I love the hills. As we crested each, I held my breath, waiting for the vision that would be laid out before me. A ribbon of black road curling past farmland, wet and dry. Homes dotted the view, as did horses and cattle, longhorn and domestic. At times, the mountains had risen up to reclaim their land, giant teeth of rock closing up over the roadway. We might claim to have tamed nature, but nature’s glory remains for us to see, to honor and to take our breath away.

A backyard of rocks, stepping stones to a twisting creek. Cool water rushed over colorful stones, pieces of earth from when it was young, rocks lined with color, strata of forgotten times. I witnessed a snake curled in clover, the sun glistening off its scales. Further down, in the creek, tadpoles danced to the hypnotic rhythm of cascading water. We made our own waves, resonance of skipping stones to the opposite bank. Later, we listened to stories of the animals seen, standing where we’d stood, mountain lion, coyote, raccoon, deer and even the occasional panther. Those memories will be imbedded in my mind and in the stones I brought home with me, where time and nature had carved their mark in the solid pieces of earth I could now hold.

We drove for miles, visiting family, creating bonds, sharing laughter and smiles. Warmed by the gentle sun and crushing hugs, we continued our journey, visually absorbing the landscapes. We slowed near a one room house, long abandoned to the wildlife. Memories of one who had been through before erased the colorless wood and gave the home life, a name, a face. Now it was shelter from the flooded fields for a family of gray rabbit who peered at us curiously from the doorless frame.

We past skeletons of once aligned white picket fences, making me wonder about the dreams of those who had lived there, and hoping they’d achieved them. I felt sorrow for the old barns, some weary with age, some having surrendered to the elements and now crumbled, gray and used. One made me smile, a patchwork of repairs, colorful but practical made new what nature dared to reclaim. It’s upper windows, open, seemed like giant, smiling eyes as vehicles flashed by on the highway, it said, I will not be defeated.

Silver towers full of harvest reached upward from the earth. Fields, still winter dormant stood in wait, some dry, some with rows filled with water, some completely submerged between the swollen river water.

We visited a cemetery to bid goodbye to loved ones lost. We walked the rows, daring to remember those we didn’t know. Ghosts came alive as we read their name, their dates of birth and death. Their lives were whispers of history we cannot know, and hopefully someone will never forget. Another graveyard, barely holding on to the tiny bit of land, wedged between rusted railroad tracks and a highway, with a dusty gravel road cutting neatly across them. Only a few remaining testimonies to those who settled the land remained, tilted and broken, their once white memorials grayed and faded. Dates reaching back to 1830. Lifetimes ago. There on the edge of oblivion, neither forgotten nor remembered. Everyone knows the corner, but no one knows their names.

There were dozens of tiny towns, clusters of homes with a few central stores. Their populations minimal, some less than five hundred, few more than five thousand. A world I could not know, have never experienced. A place where strangers wave at one another, all greetings are positive and cheerful and a smile makes you kin. A pace slower than this northern town, a quiet peace that eeks into your blood after only a few moments of breathing the crisp, clean air. It’s borne upon the sound of the birds, the taste of the water.

There were no tourist traps, no giant amusement parks. No fancy restaurants, shows or itineraries that dictated our days. Each was ours to embrace, to use as God gave us ability to do so, and to enjoy in a way to remember and cherish.

I’ve placed a few pictures on the pics page, if you’re inclined, check them out.