My Midwest Manifesto

The thing I've realized about blogging is that you stop once life becomes normal. You figure, oh hell, what's the point in writing if what I'm doing day in and day out is just as dull as what Tom is doing in the cubicle next to me?

Good news: I'm not in a cubicle and I don't have a coworker named Tom so my blogging can continue.

I've got 1.5 weeks of adult life under my belt. 8 full days of teaching behind me. 60 plus hours of lesson prepping logged. 15 hours of life wasted in traffic on the way. And 1 pulled hamstring from gym class dodgeball. And so I will write about the weather.

Disclaimer: if you are not from the Midwest, you may not understand any of the following.

Today is/was one of those days that Beauty has filled so full you almost choke on it. In typical Midwest fashion, summer left without so much as a fare-thee-well, and autumn has arrived. Rather, it seems as if autumn was already here, just waiting for the other seasons to desist in all of their busy distractions, waiting for us to just stop long enough to live. It is as if to say, hold. Stop talking, stop working, stop sweating through life at such a breathtaking rate. Simply be. Let the first cool breeze of autumn fill your lungs and remind you that it is enough to just breathe. That there is enough cause for bewilderment and joy in that act alone. The haze of summer has passed, lifting away with it the lazy weeds that have so long wrapped round our legs, holding us in its sticky sweet embrace. The fall winds have slapped us awake, biting through the slowness in our minds, reminding us that winter will be upon us before we know it. But it is not in a rude way, or a despondent way. It is not a foreshadowing of the dark to come, but simply a reminder of the dusk we are in. It is as if watching a fireworks show, when the petty cracklers and single blast rockets that have distracted us for so long give way to the grand finale. We immediately sit up, realizing in embarrassment how tame the show has been up until this point, how tawdry were those forays of sound compared to the chest squeezing concussions of now. And we know that in a mere matter of minutes it will all be over, that the sky will go black again, that all that will remain is the smoke and sulfur of the show. We will fold our blanket, store our lawn chairs in the trunk, driving home to the sweeping and dusting, the entertaining, the relatives, the dog scratching at the back door, the cooking and eating, the clutter that is life. But not for one second does that take away from the glory of the finale. Not one second do we consider simply getting on with what must be gotten on with and leaving early. Not once would we wish that the finale had never started, that the ordinary show had just lasted longer, or that it would be over already so we could hear once again, make small talk with neighbors once again. We become lost in the finale, our hearts beating in time with the blasts, imagining that this will be forever. The power of the present wipes clean the slate of the past, and pushes away any hopes for the future. It is enough to just be now.

Such is autumn in the Midwest. Live here for a lifetime, and you will understand. You will know days like today, days when you want to do absolutely nothing, shirking all responsibility and cutting all ties, not because you are lazy, but because the day is already full enough just being alive.

"Tears, idle tears,

I know not what they mean,

Tears from the depth of some divine despair,

Rise in the heart and gather in the eyes,

In looking on the happy autumn fields,

And thinking of the days that are no more."

-Alfred, Lord Tennyson