I identify with the dying things. The story of the American Chestnut never ceases to bring me to tears. That these trees were once so numerous as to fill whole valleys, then gone in 20 years. Technically, the blight killed them, but we didn’t help by chopping every single one (including possibly genetically immune specimens) we could find down as soon as we saw the writing on the wall. There are still blight-free stands and some cross-breeding experiments look positive. The Carolina Parakeet was heartbreakingly beautiful, and once flew in flocks so numerous as to be blinding. But the feathers looked better on hats.
At the Museum of Natural Sciences today, I wanted to linger in the mountains. Even the thin plaster-cast facsimile of a mountain stream was enough to make me want to sit my butt right down on the carpet to feel the air change. I’ve never been able to put into words the difference in the air between my new home and the old. Asheville is cooler, and friendlier, and more pleasing to the eye, but it’s something else as well. I feel cradled by the peaks, but also buoyed. You can see a long way in the flat-lands, but nothing compares to climbing a peak and looking out for miles, over towns in valleys and the pinched pie crust of the Appalachians. And I could talk this way for hours and still not put my finger on the feeling.
Its alot like being in love, that. You can talk about how great the other person is for hours and hours, and everyone will understand that you are indeed in love, but you still won’t have been able to adequately express the feeling. But maybe if you can talk about it, and they know what you mean, that’s all that’s needed.
How does a colorblind person know that their red looks like everyone else’s?
