Positives and negatives
Cheryl Unruh
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
SOME outsiders fail to recognize the beauty of Kansas.
“There’s nothing there,” they scoff. “It’s treeless, it’s empty, it’s flat.”
As if those are bad things.
On Thursday, we celebrate the 148th anniversary of statehood. And I suppose it’s fair to examine the so-called negative aspects of Kansas as well as the positive ones.
Others may blast our open topography, but I say Kansas has atmosphere. And plenty of it. We have 180 degrees of atmosphere — from horizon to horizon — thanks to that flat land of ours.
Montana, part of which is heavy with mountains, slings the slogan “Big Sky Country.” But if you look above the Kansas prairie, I think you’ll find we just as much, if not more, sky here.
While the Rocky Mountains have the most breath-taking scenery I’ve encountered, the vertical landscape can seem claustrophobic; it’s like living between parentheses.
In the Colorado Rockies, unless you’re at the top of a mountain, you are offered only a fragment of sky. Direct sunlight is limited, available from about 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
In Kansas we may not have purple mountain majesties, but we lay claim to the spacious skies and amber waves of grain. There are no mountains here to cut into our daylight hours or clip away at our blue sky. We are giddy with airspace.
While other states are cluttered with forests or mountains or major metropolitan areas, we are blessed with a Zen-like landscape, the prairie.
Singer-songwriter Lisa Moritz grew up in Tipton and now lives in Emporia. Her song “Here We Know” describes so well what we appreciate in Kansas.
Moritz wrote, “Here a constant quiet beauty rises from a tall grass floor. Low hills move, a body breathing, under sky where less is more.
“Here we know the solid comfort that comes from living near the earth. Nothing here to scrape the sky but blade of windmill, wing of bird.”
Yes, less is more. We value our negative space.
In art, negative space is that part of a photograph or a painting that is not the center of attention.
Negative space is silence, background, an empty place where your eyes can rest. You may feel peaceful while gazing toward a grassy pasture, or you can rest your eyes upon the sky, that calming blue presence with its free-range clouds.
Here, we have the Flint Hills, a restful place for the soul, an open sanctuary in which the sky is our prayer book, the wind our hymnals.
After dark, we step into a cave of stars. In the big ol’ night sky, we draw our own constellations. We connect the dots, creating a Native American warrior or maybe a fearsome John Brown.
With our heads leaned back, we can count white lights till we’re dizzy. Out on the grassland we can almost hear the twinkling of those stars.
We Kansans love that feeling of distance when our eyes land on a water tower five miles down the road. Our broad landscape gives us a buoyant sense of freedom.
When Ian Frazier visited Kansas while writing his book “Great Plains,” he found that the topography contributes to our well-being.
Frazier happened to be in Nicodemus, an African-American community in Western Kansas during the town’s annual gathering of descendents. In the township hall, a crowd watched six sisters dance. He said, “Suddenly I felt a joy so strong it almost knocked me down.”
“Joy seems to be a product of the geography, just as deserts can produce mystical ecstasy and English moors produce gloom. Once happiness gets rolling in this open place, not much stops it,” Frazier wrote.
We’ve got a good thing going here in Kansas — the sky is big, the negatives are positive, and happiness just keeps rolling along.
Cheryl Unruh can be reached at cheryl@flyoverpeople.net.
madpoet (anonymous) says...
Nice! There's nothing like standing out in the Flint Hills with massive thunderclouds towering over you to inspire awe and remind you that you're a small piece of a very big puzzle. I suspect while Kansans are usually pretty practical people.
January 27, 2009 at 3:43 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
gardenman (anonymous) says...
Indeed the Flint Hills sky is our prayerbook, the wind our
hymnals. The warmth of the sun on our face is the touch
of God. Our souls are restful.
January 27, 2009 at 5:16 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
create (anonymous) says...
So nice! I've lived in Kansas since 1976, a transplant from Hawaii, and I've found those same wonderful wide-open spaces of the prairie as joyful as the those over the vast Pacific. I've never regretted moving here. The atmosphere, the landscape, and the people have been good to me. And with family in Hawaii to visit from time to time, I've got the best of both worlds -- certainly it is balanced.
January 27, 2009 at 6:26 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
josiesbar (anonymous) says...
Anyone can love a mountain, but it takes soul to love a prairie. -- John Muir
January 27, 2009 at 8:42 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
josiesbar (anonymous) says...
"I think it does not come easily to us to love such a land. It is easy to love a mountain, with its inherent grandeur, handsome profile and aristocratic air. But the prairie's charms take more looking. The prairie doesn't run off with your heart the way a mountain does. Its beauties are subtle, rooted in the hues of the grasses, the undulations of the land, the infinite sky. The prairie is a girl whose beauty lies in her smile"...
- Theodore Roosevelt
"This place could use some wind turbines..." -- Matt Slater
January 27, 2009 at 8:51 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
oh4theluvof (anonymous) says...
Never liked the mountains--too claustrophobic, not enough oxygen.
Love the wide open spaces with the air moving so freely across it. Beautiful sunsets (I've heard there are good sunrises to, but that's an oxymoron to me), longer evening light, more variety of trees, hot summer nights for walking or laying on the roof (wish I had a porch swing...).
As long as I'm upwind of the cattle............
January 27, 2009 at 9:54 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
whatever (anonymous) says...
Good observations, Cheryl. I'm a transplant (9 years ago), and have grown to love Kansas. I'm glad you mentioned Lisa Moritz's music. She sings so poetically about Kansas and her family. Folks, check out her website at http://www.lisamoritz.com/home.html. I have both her CDs and have seen her perform at Java Cat. Great songs from a great Kansas artist.
January 28, 2009 at 1:44 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
native_emporia (anonymous) says...
I have lived in Kansas my entire 48 years and have traveled extensively throughout the United States and the world. I enjoy my travels and the different scenery and I also have to say I love coming home to the Flint Hills!
January 28, 2009 at 3:28 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )