On the way to Alliance this week, I was reminded of a poem that Tom Mc Beth, a poet friend from Kansas, wrote about wheat fields that dance in the wind. Tom is more familiar with wheat fields than I am but the same effect is prominent in Sandhill meadows this time of year.
Watching the home meadow in June, my mother told me those waves were an exact replica of what the ocean looked like. As a kid, I couldn’t imagine ever seeing the ocean, and at that time, neither Mom nor I had ever been to the coast, so it was neat to know what it would look like if I squinted my eyes and imagined blue instead of green. Late in life, my parents took a trip to Oregon, and Mom was ecstatic about the view from a coastal highway. A couple of decades later, I got to Portland and understood her fascination. The same magic returned when Bruce and I traveled to Maine and Alaska.
One Sunday a few years after Dad died, Mom came home from church and said that a friend had invited her to go on a cruise to northern Europe.
“Of course, I told her I couldn’t go,” Mom said.
“And just why would that be?” I asked, rather rudely. “You can afford it, there’s still time to get a passport, and you’d get to see the ocean again.”
It took a bit of persuasion but I pushed her out of the nest and, once off and running, she was hooked. She and Arlene, who had been my sixth-grade teacher, saw Australia, Hawaii, Alaska, New England in the fall, and Tahiti twice.
The merry widows always went with a tour group that originated in Lincoln, but one year, they nearly didn’t. Arlene would take her car to Lincoln—by that time Mom’s eyesight wasn’t dependable—and they stayed overnight with Mom’s brother, who lived there, before departing. I think it was the Alaska trip they almost cancelled. Arlene, who was 80, fell out of her apple tree while trying to trim a branch, and broke her arm. They were on the verge of bowing out, but I drove them to Lincoln and picked them up when they returned. It was a nice chance to visit my aunt and uncle.
We used to think we’d travel when Bruce retired, but then my former brother-in-law captured him for twice yearly fishing trips to big water, so he deals with the waves while I worry whether they are taking too many chances.
About all we have time for is an occasion camping excursion to Fort Robinson or the Black Hills. It somehow was a lot easier to get away when Bruce had scheduled time off for vacation, and we didn’t have to feel guilty for leaving work on the home front.
I doubt I’ll ever see the ocean again, and there are plenty of other spots to explore, but for now I just sit on the deck and watch an ocean of grass dancing in the wind.