Joy of Not Knowing Where I’m Going
Being an introvert, I value my alone time. As a kiddo, I would use up daylight hours exploring fields and woods alone. These were Big Adventures. Throughout my adult years I have been engaged in sojourns to nowhere in particular. Now in my mid-70s, these free-form travels continue to be one of the biggest blessings of my life. Left or right? What’s over the next hill? It’s the joy of not knowing where I’m going that matters.
One particular getaway comes to mind. It was February 2017…an unusually moderate winter, and I caught the itch. My wife, Alberta, was used to these impromptu diversions and even encouraged them. I packed all my camera gear and essentials, and with a kiss and promise that I would be back sooner than later, off I went.
I had been exploring the Flint Hills off and on for a few years, and there were areas to the south I had not traversed yet. This broad, sweeping plain, its flint rock time-molded by weather and glaciation, spans an area in east central Kansas from the north near the Nebraska border and south into Oklahoma. This land beckons me…its landscape blanketed with long blue-stem grass that rolls like waves in stout winds and birch, sycamore, cottonwood, and other trees that cluster in the draws and along the rivers and streams. There are fences, power lines, massive wind farms, and oil rigs here and there, but still, the landscape is mostly primal and has the feel of being undisturbed for centuries. There are some relatively substantial cities along pass-through highways, but mostly small hamlets, like Matfield Green, Alta Vista, Beaumont, and many more, where people live in uncomplicated, relative solitude.
On the third morning of the trip, after spending the night in a tidy little motel in Winfield, I pointed my Jeep Wrangler alternately east and south, staying off the grid, knowing eventually I would end up in Oklahoma. Somewhere east of Tisdale, I got myself lost along the flint rock roads in Cowley County. My phone’s GPS lost connection. Not that it mattered—I had nowhere to go and no time to be there. Along the way, I snapped some photographs, among them the flint rock ruins of an old homestead on a sweeping hillside and a group of Texas longhorns, their wide antlers spread prominently, where they were lying in the tall grass. (I titled that image The Eat More Chicken Steering Committee.)
The roads were meandering, and I was taking lots of time. It was a calm, sunny day and comfortably warm. I came to a creek bed crossing and pulled to a stop on the rock bed amidst the shallow flow. Both my door windows were open, and I could hear the water gurgling over stones. The wind rushed through a tall sycamore tree, its bleached white branches creating a stunning contrast against the fallen leaves, brushwood, and clusters of red cedar on the slope ahead of me. I stayed there a good long time, and my mind clutched onto a curious thought. What was it like for the indigenous people who populated this land centuries ago? Day after day, season after season, year after year—perhaps in this very spot—they listened and saw and smelled and felt this ecosystem, learning its movements, its rhythms, its nuances, and understanding in their way that this land did not belong to them, but that they belonged to it.
Sitting in my jeep that morning, straddling the creek, the daydream had become intimate. In these conceived memories, I felt a harmony and connection with this land and its native people. A pair of blue jays jeered urgently nearby, and a strong gust caused branches above me to creak and groan. I was in no hurry for this to end, and I let it play out as it would. And, eventually, as I moved on, I felt not lost, but found.