east west

red clay halo

Surprise visit to the east coast this weekend. The leaves were flamboyantly doing their thing, gathering up against our shins while we walked through 19th century neighborhoods, as red as red could be. Everything seemed so wholesome and unpretentious. No contrived standards of coolness to maintain. Genuine people with drawn-out speech, patriotic to a T, support our troops, latte what?

The flight from Baltimore to Houston passed directly over Roanoke. It's cruel, to see familiar ridgelines and reservoirs from 32,000 feet. The predictable blue of the mountains, a Virginia sunset freebie. Here I am, but you absolutely can't touch me. Maybe it was the one time I thought that an emergency landing or plummeting to the ground wouldn't be such a bad thing. At least it would be on that red clay.

I talked to both Laura and Peter about this. Laura likened a desire for old land to the ease of old friendships - there's something more emotionally rooted there that isn't present in newer friendships, no matter how good they are. And though Oregon may be aesthetically amazing in every geographical way, that emotional attachment doesn't run as deep. Peter said that I was a seed borne out of red clay, and nothing changes that, no matter how long you're gone. He said he would have felt the same way if a plane took him directly over the Nebraska farm that eventually shaped the course of his life.

I saw those mountains. I actually saw them yesterday. But didn't breathe that air, didn't lay on that grass, didn't stain my hands with that soil.

posted by jessica @ 10:56 AM