In Wallace Stegner’s essay, Why I Like the West, he professes his love of meadowlarks with their “purest sweetest birdsong.” Meadowlarks are singing as I write these words. I can’t see them just now, but their songs permeate the area. Stegner declared “ anywhere meadowlarks sing… that will be a satisfactory place for this evangelist.” He claimed to be a self appointed evangelist to rescue “…unfortunate eastern heathens from climate, topography, theology, prejudice, literature, railroads, traditions, narrowness, and geographical ignorance…”, but I am sure he did it modestly.
Driving alone is the best place for solitude. As I drove into town today, an old Drive-by-Truckers tune came on the radio. I sang along, sliding into the nearly discordant harmony. I found the note and held it with them, feeling the buzz of its complexity. Stories are layered all around me just now: a new baby, a friend in prison, a wedding, a troubled relationship, a sickness, an eminent death, a new job, a lost job. One thing will always be on the edge of another thing, pleasure and pain a hairbreadth apart. Is it possible to feel each part of the cord and hear the entire cord at the same time?