If North America were a living organism, and not merely a lump of inorganic rocks and non-meaning created by random chance, then its structure would tell something about its character, and its structure says that its' organism has a strong backbone, running right down the middle.
Now I'm not gonna get into an argument about it, the nature of "inorganic", but I'm just gonna point out that there are other viewpoints and whether or not there is any "truth" to the matter, I like to pick the cosmology that makes me smile, that draws me, that gives me a sense of betterness. And thus I choose the Indian way of thinking, that the land is alive and has a spirit and the spine *means* something. That's my choice, that's my reality. The Rocky Mts, it says on maps, and I remember the way I felt when I was five years old and living in Boulder, and could see the Rockies, up close and personal. It wasn't like the Sierras that I'm used to and to whose club I belong. The Sierras rise gently, a giant granite slab taking a hundred miles or so to get to the height that the Rockies achieve in a mile or less. You can stand at the base of the Rockies. In the Sierra you can only dwell in the embrace of the foothills. For a while. Standing at the bottom and gazing up is the more dramatic view, I judge. But life is for the living, not the drama, and I'm glad I'm back in my norcal hills and woods, where we bite off our granite in more managable and gentle chunks. At the same time, new perspective is always nice and that usually involves a bit of drama. Mainly involving me and cuz'in ed, stuck on the spine of the country, in early may, with a dead battery, no heater, an unknowable future involving a flakey cowboy "uncle marv" the marvelous, and abou $100 bucks in Reserve to get me to Custer, MT, where my aunt Ceci lives at the site of a certain famous last stand. Which got the white boy in me thinking, I can tell you, standing there at the rest stop on Elkhorn pass, and watching the traffic do exactly that - pass. Everyone anxious to get down the other side before some big-rig locked up going down that hill, with all that snow, and traffic backing up for miles. Shivers. The Californian in me was appalled. What kind of country are you people running here? Don't you know that this is MAY?? Blizzards are for January. I was interested in all kinds of warning signs and billboards to truckers near the pass - since I thought I was about to become one myself, But when I looked around at the rest stop, it was ONLY truckers who pulled over, and they didn't have any way of giving me a jump as I was on the wrong side of the the battery box. And anyway, something in my shied away from bothering a working man for help to a guy who'd just pulled in to contemplate their navel upon the spine of the country. Myself, I'm a contemplater. Can't help it, I always have been. Even in high school, on Mr. Eggers crew, while the other boys were studying and concentrating real hard on how to build and be a crew, I was often lost in contemplation and doing my work with one hand behind my back. Got yelled at a bit, but I couldn't change. I'm still that way, which makes it tough to compete in the modern job market. I never was one to take most employment that seriously. The top of Elkhorn Pass, I took seriously, because I was in its grip. I was locked onto the spine of the country, and till I got 'er figured out, I was stuck there. The mechanics of how I got stuck there, are not that interesting. Suffice it to say the RV had been sittin' for years and years, and its batteries were old and wore out. The mental aspect might take a bit more explanation. For just behind me, I had left my brother-in-law, deputy glenn, in Missoula, and a burned bridge and money flung back in his face cuz I didn't really like the condescension that came with the offer, and ahead of me I had in the immediate foreground, before Billings and finally Custer and rest, I had Bozeman in my path. And that was probably the source of %50 of my distraction, coupled as it was with the other 49% which was thinking about this great divide and what it means. What it means to be divided in two, east and west, classic and romantic, cowboy and indian -- no, make that "victorian" and indian. Cowboys and indians quickly became each other, as anyone can plainly see when you observe who is driving the pickup trucks and listening to the Hanks. <paranthetical aside > Late in the summer after all these adventures, I learned to love a reservation station while framing worker housing for a gas plant - the dj laughed a lot at his own jokes, played a lot of Hank Williams the 3rd and a group I'd never heard before, Backstone Cherry and they sing a song made me think of dmb<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSEovw5-bbU> </paranthetical aside > And there's a key point there. That country music in its purest form, is an expression of the land itself, through its people. And the guy who showed me all that. Who first unveiled the truth of this great divide of ours, came from a different area than me. The northern plains, the heartland - and no argument about it neither. The exact geographical of North America is in North Dakota, and if the heart is anything, it's the center. An area I've never really experienced until recently, having spent 47 of my 52 years out here on the edges. A ridge dweller, yes, but nowhere near the center. I've got some thoughts to share, on a subject Matt and I were discussing some time back, about the heart of the matter. And I can't get it all done in a day. But I'm gonna try and get it done indeed. Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
