Despite being one of those distinctly earthy place, the Midwest seems inevitably ruled by air. It is not in the turbulent potency of tornadoes or the roiling brew storm clouds any more than it is in the soil and undulating tides of grasses and corn. To speak of a place or region being an air place rather than an earth place isn't to deny that everywhere is a balance of elements, but to elevate one characteristic to its distinct, prevalent, almost cognitively urgent quality. When one encounters the Midwest, one encounters the sublime breadth of air.
Driving through Nebraska and Western Kansas on our way to Comanche State Grasslands, farmland fanned out in all directions much of the way. In pockets of Kansas and then, later, in Colorado one could identify respectable stretches of prairie land, often but not exclusively near grazing cattle. Watching the populace stalks of corn or the medium prairie grasses, I felt some of that same satisfaction I have with the Midwest in its harsh, dry, windblown winters. This is not a warm or soft or even welcoming satisfaction; if anything, it is sharp.
Wind has that peculiar ability to cut. Metal and stone and wood and even ice have that potential to cut, but their wounds only go as deep as they are forced. Wind goes through you—if you are not careful—and carries something out with it again. The earnest airborne character of the Midwest is that it cuts, cleans, purifies its uninsulated inhabitants. A shoot of grass is, aesthetically speaking, a cleansed creature. (Here, I hope to adequately divorce the specifically [in]human connotations of cleanse or pure which may get in the way. The terms are intended to refer to some mode of sanctity; just as ablutions were intended to purify the person for sacred rights or ceremony, purity here entails a preparedness or clarity of character.) All of the grass is specific, simplified, pared down to just what it is. So much so that wildflowers in the Midwest act as veritable explosions, surprising the viewer with each splash of yellow, red, orange, violet, or white. Even the flowers generally exhibit a sort of respectful modesty about themselves—a calm demeanor, a particular size—as if the frills have been pruned.
Driving in the Midwest is more similar to sailing than it is to driving in, say, the mountains. The mountains force a vehicle—automobile, bicycle, feet, whatever—to yield and navigate and circumvent, but the Great Plains allow this grand, undiscouraged mobility through it. Albeit, a sail boat is determined generally by wind and the sails, one cannot help feeling a sense of riding rather than driving in the Midwest. One is on the move rather than just moving. I watched the sky as I tried to eke a few meager stretches of sleep that first day. Its blueness, its grandeur, its mature patience didn't grant me rest, so much as repose.
We slept in a park in Tribune, Kansas with two cyclists—Sara and Adam—making their way across the country nearby. Sara ate some of our food, happy to find something vegan friendly, while Adam found his own fare at a gas station down the road. They shared with us stories of elderly couples longing for their children and inviting in young strangers instead, of cross-country legends and rumors with pedals under their feet, of the ruthlessness of livestock truck drivers on their familiar two-lane highways. That night I slept poorly and dreamed anxiously, confusedly. The edges of the sky was lined with lightning storms, flashes and hard-edge bolts illuminating the soft, edges of clouds. In the morning, two women, on in their years, swam in the community pool.
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