Beauty of the Ordinary

On my last full day in South Dakota, I woke up in Sioux Falls. On Tuesday I drove down to hang out with a few friends, had a good time, and ended up sleeping at Audrey's place rather than drive back to Brookings in the the middle of the night. Audrey and her family had to get up early and go to work, but she assured me that I could sleep as long as I wanted, so when I got up the house was empty and silent. (Well, not quite, since Adam was still asleep on the basement floor and Audrey's dad was in the shop in the garage, but the point here is the mood.)

I was ready to head out before 9:00am (to get back to Brookings for a shower and a lunch date with Katie), which in the city would be rush hour, but in the country is still a peaceful time.

When I stepped out the front door onto the front porch of the house, I was blindsided by the beauty of a misty country morning. The sky was solid cloud, so the light coming through felt more like early morning than mid-morning. There were no car sounds from the nearby roads, and the house is too far out of town for any of the Sioux Falls background bustle to reach the ears. Instead, all I could hear was the wind in the trees, the leaves dancing, the long grass swaying, morning birds chirping quietly. Such stillness that a small breeze could compose such a symphony.

My breath caught in my throat at the beauty of the moment and my feet froze on the porch, unable to move forward. It was an effort even to walk to the car, though I went slowly. My first instinct, which I had to ignore, was to make tea or cocoa and sit on the porch just to absorb the sound, smell and sight of the South Dakota countryside and store it up for the long months of city life ahead.

A moment like this is impossible in a city, even one so green and open as Boston. The noise never stops. And the sky is so much smaller.

The prairie may not seem as majestic as the mountains or the ocean or as picturesque as sheer cliff faces or giant glaciers to those who have never called it home, but it has a beauty I could never fully describe, and which my mother begins to capture in her amazing work. It is an unassuming beauty that seeps into the soul gradually and takes you over before you realize the scent of dirt has become a perfume. Am I biased because these open skies and seas of grass and grain have always been my home? Perhaps. But I will continue to proclaim their beauty.

As wonderful as my time in Boston has been, and no matter where I end up going from here, I think my heart will always belong to the ordinary beauty of the prairie.

-Kim