New kinds of Magic

When you live in the rumpled hills of California, in a wide flung valley sprung up with grapevines, ancient oaks, near a town with its own distinctively romantic architectural style, minutes away from a cerulean sea you forget.You get big headed. Yes, there is a wealth of natural splendor where I live, yes the air in the morning is salt tinged and fragrant with sage and dry grass of summer. Yes the weather stays conveniently between 72 and 75 degrees and if it rains...well, it won't until October, and you can pretty much take that to the bank.
But you forget that there are other kinds of Magic.

I'm not talking about the vastness of Utah canyon land, or even the snow enveloped heights of the Rockies. Those are beautiful and breathtaking, and I'll admit, there is a letdown after you emerge from a steep rushing river valley in Colorado, cliffs studded with rock climbers to your right and left, bicyclists in hot pursuit of one another as they wind out the last of the narrow turns into the broad streets of Boulder or Loveland. The roadway flattens into a straight line, the ridge lines melt away behind you and you feel a sad regret that there will be no more grandiose displays of natural wonder until you hit the Appalachian mountains...and even then, it's no Pike's Peak or Estes Park Yes, I'll admit to loving the west with its drama and its untamed beauty.

But after a few hours driving east something sweet happens.
The land becomes soft, rounded, as welcoming as fresh baked biscuits. Green velvet fields roll out on either side, and with an imperceptible rise in the land each understated hilltop unfurls a view of gentle repetition. Silos dot the landscape, tractors wind to and fro. Quiet productivity and hard work, the heartbeat of agriculture thrums from all around.
Almost without noticing it, appreciation for something new is born. Or is it really new? Is it more a remembrance of something in my distant cultural history?

I thought about all of these things as we drove through Eastern Colorado and Nebraska.

We left the inter-state and headed north on the two lane ribbon of highway. Golden tipped corn grew high and dark, barns presided over neatly trimmed tiny kingdoms of farm buildings and kids bounded, warlike, in circles around lazy rotating sprinklers. It was as though the whole country had zipped back in time to the days of fried chicken and jello molds at Grandma's on Sunday afternoon. There is a feeling here that things are intrinsically more ethical, that if you showed up at church, you might get called "honey" or something.

We stopped in Wahoo, Nebraska, in 100 degree heat to get something to eat. Just for fun, Jeff looked it up on wikipedia.

"Did you know that this town sent David Letterman letters asking him if they could be designated as the home office of his show? They promised him all sorts of honors, clothing, animals, free medical checkups; they sent him a Ford Pinto with a sofa attached to the hood, and two of the town's teenage boys?"

 We looked at the sagging front porches, the community pool packed with screaming kids, the huge brick town hall that looked too impressive for the current size of Wahoo.

"Wow." I said, "That's something!" My heart swelled for the little community on a ridge among the cornfields of Nebraska, that had sent two of its teenage sons as a present to a talk show host. There was something wonderful about this. 

Three hours later, in the twilight of an extremely hot evening, the farmland still continued rolling by the wayside. We watched the heavy, molten ball of the sun drop onto the cornfields far, far away, and the car became silent. 

Just then, in the quietness of the dusk, on the edge of the road I saw it. 

Off the asphalt in the newly cut grass there was a glimmer and then it was gone. I waited, not sure if my eyes were playing tricks on me. Then there was another and another and another. I scanned the horizon and saw glittering lights everywhere, darting in and over the cornrows. Lilting above the grass they weaved dreamily.

We pulled off the road and watched them dance: thousands and thousands of fireflies. I heard a little gasp from the back seat and turned around to see Fiona, wide eyed and beaming. The air was humid and thick, the smell of the earth rose up around us, green and good.
And in the twilight of a Nebraska evening as we watched the fireflies dance, there was Magic.