Monday, March 31, 2008
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Pennsylvania
The sun is setting over Pennsylvania. I haven't seen the streaks of bright orange across a translucent blue sky in a long time, cold harsh deep blue gray clouds streaked across the scene and large tall silhouetted pine trees are heaving in heavy winds. It is towards the end of March but feels and has felt wintry all day. I saw flurries this afternoon when I sat in the sunroom, a green thick blanket wrapped around me as I typed while Harriet said, no less than three times, to "Ignore your father and just turn the heat on already!"
But it felt good to be warm in a blanket instead. I don't want something pumped out of pipes - not yet at least. I want the natural feeling that was the only favorable part of living in Niger. Remember picking our own lettuce? Or the vegetable seller down the street from the hostel with his onions and tomatoes spread out on mats on the ground?
The wind in Niger didn't blow as consistently fiercely as it does here in PA. Here the wind is an entity. It speaks. The trees mutter with it, acquiese to what it wants. How does something 20 feet tall bend to the will of something we can't even see? But they do - a whole line of them, big strong Pennsylvania pines swaying rhythmically and strong to the gusts that are screaming outside the glass. It's a welcome back to America wind. It's a wind that doesn't exist is Niger. It's a northeastern American wind, a wind that I grew up with and didn't realize until now.
The orange streaks continue to hold on, not letting go of their small and decreasing strip of horizon until they must, until they're run out of town by another night of darkness and cold. I'm glad I came back at the end of winter; I like cold weather, how brisk everything feels. I like how it enters your nose when you step outside and you sneeze, how it makes water run out of your eyes and you become blinded by upper western hemisphere winter sun. I love this feeling. It's so temporal, so unlike summertime. I like my winters painful to a certain degree; the same with my summers. I like experiencing seasons because they change. I like watching it and living it and breathing it in. I like watching the last strips of orange finally give up and fade away.
Cold outlines of pine trees become spooky at night, when they dance against a gradated and indefinite blue sky. Why didn't I realize Pennsylvania for what it was before? It's an odd state, the eastern part full of mountains and rocks. Dad explained that over the course of millenia it formerly was the part of Africa that broke off and smashed into what it now North America - the crash resulted in eastern PA's odd and off-putting terrain. The geological makeup of eastern PA is different from the west. Where I was born and raised was part of Africa several million years ago. How odd that I'd go back there again for 14 months, only to return to PA and feel the same feelings again. The sky is now completely dark; the trees are hardly visible against a sky so deeply blue I haven't seen anything like it in months. Welcome back to America, I say to myself. God it feels good to be home.
But it felt good to be warm in a blanket instead. I don't want something pumped out of pipes - not yet at least. I want the natural feeling that was the only favorable part of living in Niger. Remember picking our own lettuce? Or the vegetable seller down the street from the hostel with his onions and tomatoes spread out on mats on the ground?
The wind in Niger didn't blow as consistently fiercely as it does here in PA. Here the wind is an entity. It speaks. The trees mutter with it, acquiese to what it wants. How does something 20 feet tall bend to the will of something we can't even see? But they do - a whole line of them, big strong Pennsylvania pines swaying rhythmically and strong to the gusts that are screaming outside the glass. It's a welcome back to America wind. It's a wind that doesn't exist is Niger. It's a northeastern American wind, a wind that I grew up with and didn't realize until now.
The orange streaks continue to hold on, not letting go of their small and decreasing strip of horizon until they must, until they're run out of town by another night of darkness and cold. I'm glad I came back at the end of winter; I like cold weather, how brisk everything feels. I like how it enters your nose when you step outside and you sneeze, how it makes water run out of your eyes and you become blinded by upper western hemisphere winter sun. I love this feeling. It's so temporal, so unlike summertime. I like my winters painful to a certain degree; the same with my summers. I like experiencing seasons because they change. I like watching it and living it and breathing it in. I like watching the last strips of orange finally give up and fade away.
Cold outlines of pine trees become spooky at night, when they dance against a gradated and indefinite blue sky. Why didn't I realize Pennsylvania for what it was before? It's an odd state, the eastern part full of mountains and rocks. Dad explained that over the course of millenia it formerly was the part of Africa that broke off and smashed into what it now North America - the crash resulted in eastern PA's odd and off-putting terrain. The geological makeup of eastern PA is different from the west. Where I was born and raised was part of Africa several million years ago. How odd that I'd go back there again for 14 months, only to return to PA and feel the same feelings again. The sky is now completely dark; the trees are hardly visible against a sky so deeply blue I haven't seen anything like it in months. Welcome back to America, I say to myself. God it feels good to be home.
Cows Grazing In The Rumpus Room
I'll be starting grad school in August, getting a doctorate in American Studies from the University of Maryland. My focus will revolve around foodways (google it), and while I have not yet collected my thoughts into a cohesive enough pattern to start espousing either serious reports or thoughtful witticisms, here's a link to an article I found totally and completely thrilling today in the NYT.
http://arieff.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/19/cows-grazing-in-the-rumpus-room/index.html
Maybe things are turning around. Reclaiming wasted suburban sprawl space and reintroducing agriculture, sustainable development, and natural habitats is... words can't describe how wonderful it is. It's just wonderful. Wonderful wonderful wonderful.
Also interesting is SAGE, Edible Estates, and the growing containers atop apartment buildings. We don't need to let everything be taken away from us, let ourselves be shoved into these atrocious little plastic houses, and call it a day while America loses everything that once made this wildly sprawling country unique. Bring back heterogeneousness. Bring back locational differences, regional foods, culture that's unique and interesting and isn't covered in Targets and Wal-Marts and Cucina Italiano's. I need to stop before I become inane. But read the article. Seriously. It's good.
http://arieff.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/19/cows-grazing-in-the-rumpus-room/index.html
Maybe things are turning around. Reclaiming wasted suburban sprawl space and reintroducing agriculture, sustainable development, and natural habitats is... words can't describe how wonderful it is. It's just wonderful. Wonderful wonderful wonderful.
Also interesting is SAGE, Edible Estates, and the growing containers atop apartment buildings. We don't need to let everything be taken away from us, let ourselves be shoved into these atrocious little plastic houses, and call it a day while America loses everything that once made this wildly sprawling country unique. Bring back heterogeneousness. Bring back locational differences, regional foods, culture that's unique and interesting and isn't covered in Targets and Wal-Marts and Cucina Italiano's. I need to stop before I become inane. But read the article. Seriously. It's good.
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