Mixed Moss

This was originally a response to Parke’s post, “Spiritual Meditations on Country Music.” But the sentiments needed to be shared in more than a passing comment. They needed a more permanent record. They needed a shrine.
It’s easy to miss. Fly-over country. The American heartland. The place where farmers and blue collar workers carved out a nation. From Minnesota and Wisconsin down through Tennessee and a tiny, mountainous corner of North Carolina; from Iowa and Missouri over to Ohio and the Western part of Pennsylvania. Not really the East, but not the plaines of the West either. Some of it shakes hands with Canada; some of it kisses the South.

Long fields of corn and soybeans. Hills covered in trees and mountains covered in mist. Factories and refineries. Forests and mills and mines. Fields of cows and horses, sheep and hogs. Dairies and butchers and corner bakeries. The occassional center of art and culture that neither of the coasts will ever acknowlege. Pockets of the last two centuries’ handicrafts and folk music and cooking tucked away in small towns and back woods. Old landings where barges are still loaded down with coal and the occassional Steamboat, used now only for pleasure cruises and tours, dock. Abandoned railway spurs where children play and grandparents grow old. Brand new highways crossing the state as quickly as possible, and back roads exploring it, searching it, embracing it, missing nothing. Good, hard-working people with common sense and a sense of humor. Salt of the earth. Lakes and rivers; rivers running through everything, cutting the land, guiding the people, charting the rise and destinies and fortunes of states and cities and towns.

How I love it. How it has crept into my blood. How it snuck up on me I’ll never know. I only realise that although I feel within my bones that I must leave, it will follow me and haunt my dreams and one day, call me home.

Home. This is my home. This is where I come from. And “a river runs through it,” and that river, like the river in New England I was born beside, which flows into the other great river I now live beside, guides my steps and shapes me into who I will one day become; and every once in a while, when I’m lucky, sweeps me off my feet. Sometimes, I believe that geography is destiny. Sometimes. On a good day.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 13th, 2006 at 12:52 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.