Driving alone to work that morning, I was dazzled, and couldn't believe my eyes. I was a little late and alone on the four-lane concrete highway, high above my little town. Was that really, Smallville below? It glittered and sparkled in morning sunlight in a way I hadn't seen before, and haven't seen since.
If anything, my hometown is a bit backward, even laughably so. Many years ago a flood came, and the town's only major industry needed rebuilt. The company decided against it, and I'll never know if it was the labor union or the declining market. But in 1972 when the high water hit, you could buy a new, 1973 flooded-out Oldsmobile right off the lot for $500. I knew a man who did.
Of course, when the local economy goes flat, people move out, and the town lost its movers and shakers. No one snowplows borough streets anymore, and the town in general has fallen into disrepair.
But, this morning from above town you'd surely never have known it. It was a stunning, moving display of sunlight reflected back at me from every single pane of glass. How that was even possible to see, when all of the glass was not turned toward me, I will never know.
It does, however, raise a question. Was the scene communicating with me?
Had this been my only such experience ever, I'd never have thought such a thing, but it wasn't.
I wrote once about an experience I had when I was out walking my dog. At that time I only had one pooch, and we had wandered from the cleared area of the township park, into the forest. I was struck by the apparent quiet, and I stopped, sitting down on a log.
The silence was such that, had a rabbit taken a step in dry leaves I'd have heard it. The sun made shafts of golden-white through open spots to the sky. Ash trees, killed by the emerald ash borer, were down like fallen matchsticks in every direction, and the odor was more of decay than of forest. I realized that forest was in decline, but also that it was okay.
That forest was once a rocky clearing. Before that, it was an ocean floor. Before that, who knows? But I could feel a heartbeat in the silence, slow and strong, and it was not my own.
I had once believed that my attitude shaped all of my perceptions, and sometimes, that may be true. But it surely isn't all of the time.
I recall driving near my home, and a young goat with an ear tag trotted across the road in front of me. That was very uncool. It meant the goat was lost, and the ear tag meant it had just come from a local livestock sale. Where it was headed was mostly brushy nothingness, and no surface water anywhere. Where it came from was a small farm, run by a man and his wife. Well I had someplace to be, but this pre-empted that.
The farmer and his wife followed me in his pickup, up a side road just near where I'd last seen the goat. The good news is that we found him, and after a merry chase, we caught him.
It was a beautiful day and a great outcome, but it had to be terrifying for the goat. He knew he was domesticated, he just didn't know all of these people.
So everyone there, including the goat, had perceptions based on the situation. Sometimes, however, the scene forms around you. It manipulates you.
The last example I'll give you came from a state park. I went there on a whim with my wife and children. We spent time swimming, canoeing, eating. As any vacationer knows, true relaxation is generally in short supply. "You know," my wife said, "we almost didn't come here."
Some times and places are forever, and that was one of them.
So was Sparkletown.
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