A Comic Strip Sense of Place



For Better or For Worse (8/26/05) by Lynn Johnston.

Cleaning out some previously cut-and-pasted image files, I came across the For Better or For Worse comic strip above from August 26, 2005. Though I haven't taken the opportunity to read the most recent "re-worded" strips by Lynn Johnston, I always enjoyed checking them out in the local newspaper during the strip's original run.

I recall saving this particular one because it evoked how I felt about the West during my visits there, in particular Wyoming. When the character (April, I believe) notes in the last panel: "Do you think the word 'prairie' comes from word 'prayer'?" I couldn't help but recall walking with my wife in Wyoming at dusk, in the middle of an open plain, as a lightning storm approached.

Truth is, any environment, regardless of the perceived impressiveness of the forms that cover it, can be "beautiful." I just felt (and continue to draw on these memories) a connection to that open prairie during the time we were there. For me, Johnston's strip captures for me a recognition of the sacred connection one can feel when in the right place at the right time.

A picture taken during our 2005 trip to Cheyenne, Wyoming.

Tumbleweed

Last October, while in Cheyenne, Wyoming, for my brother-in-law's fuenral, my wife and I were diving back to my sister-in-law's when I stopped the van to let a tumbleweed roll across the pebble and hard pact dirt road. We waited for a few moments during which time I reached into my hoodie pocket for my small Canon camera.

Being a lifelong upstate New Yorker, I had never seen a "real" tumbleweed before and wanted to take a quick picture. Because I have five thumbs, no pictures came out (like, not even close), as I had inadvertently flipped the function to "video." As a result, all I captured of that tumbleweed by is a single second of it rolling out of view down a slight hill.

It was a pretty cool tumbleweed to watch roll along.

Cheyenne Sky

Early in the morning on 10/28/12. Despite being coal country, wind farms have
been part of the horizon for a number of years here.

While we were by no means on vacation this past weekend in Wyoming (actually, quite the contrary), I couldn't help but find a few minutes to go out on the deck, check out the sky and occasionally snap a picture or two. Only after downloading a this morning, four days later, do I realize that I snapped a picture (each in a slightly different direction) from my brother-in-law's back porch, of the Cheyenne "skyline" at three different points during the day. It doesn't really mean anything, but I thought it beautiful enough to share...


Late afternoon (judging from the location of the sun) the same day.

Evening sunset, 10/28/12.

Big Sky Recollections: 8/14/08

The view directly outside my brother-in law's back door in Cheyenne, Wyoming, circa 2008.

Digging through old blog post drafts seeking inspiration, I came across these pictures which were originally uploaded to Blogger a little over three years ago following one of our trips west to visit my brother-in-law. He and his wife live in Cheyenne, Wyoming, an area best described as "the middle of nowhere." We have not been back to Cheyenne in a few years, opting last year to visit him in Aspen, Colorado instead. Some days, I find myself missing Wyoming.There is something calming (humblin?) about the big sky; it seems a very different space from the one I inhabit daily in upstate New York.

This is me at one of the Curt Gowdy National Parks off Happy Jack Road.

The view just down the road from his house.

Some might say there is nothing to do in Wyoming.... I would usually just go out and walk...

... and then walk some more.

Wyoming Recollection 5: Farming

As "Cheney (as in the current Vice-President of the US of A) Country," Wyoming has long been recognized for its contributions to our national energy reserves, particularly oil and coal. Over the past six years during which we have traveled to Cheyenne, Wyoming, it has been heartening to see wind added to that portfolio of energy sources. From my brother-in-law's home, we can see one wind farm (pictured above) run by the local government, as well as two turbines used to help generate energy for the nearby naval base.

Breathe in, breathe out… YOU AND I ARE ALIVE!W

Wyoming Recollection 4: Shift

"The empty blue sky of space says 'All this comes back
to me, then goes again, and comes back again, then goes again,
and I don't care, it still belongs to me'--
The blue sky adds 'Don't call me eternity, call me God
if you like, all of you talkers are in paradise:
the leaf is paradise, the tree stump is paradise,
the paper bag is paradise, the man is paradise,
the sand is paradise, the sea is paradise, the man is paradise,
the fog is paradise.'"~Jack Kerouac

Almost one week removed from our trip to Cheyenne, Wyoming, and already I feel the energy from the experience begin to fade, almost as if any temporary "change" or shift in perspective gained from being briefly part of the big sky land, is currently dissipating due to the congestion of the buildings, traffic, and people... the "it" is still there, I need only embrace the "big-sky-land" within.

Breathe in, breathe out… YOU AND I ARE ALIVE!

Wyoming Recollection 3: Run

Though at first I felt a little selfish in doing so, while in Wyoming, I managed to run in the mornings before the rest of the house woke up. As Anne and I were still accustomed to Eastern Daylight Savings time, this made our biological clocks continue to remain two hours behind everyone in Cheyenne (who were "on" Mountain time).

One way I would use these two hours, in addition to reading, was walk the 400 meters out to the unpaved roads within my brother-in-laws "community" to begin my runs. I could get in a good 4-5 miles alone just staying on the tchk-tchk-tchk rhythm of the gravel between each foot strike. Hungry for more distance I would also occasionally travel out to the paved, two-lane roadways to run side-by-side with the eighteen-wheelers and recreational cyclists who made up the majority of the traffic.

Breathe in, breathe out… YOU AND I ARE ALIVE!

Wyoming Recollection 2: Green

This past weekend was the third time Anne and I had been to Cheyenne together and the first time we have taken an airplane rather then drive across the five states (Pennsylvania, Ohio, Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska) separating New York from Wyoming.

Flying entailed one layover in Detroit, Michigan, before finally landing in Denver, Colorado. From there, we rented a car and drove two hours North from Denver to Cheyenne, Wyoming. One clear difference in the landscape this time, as compared to our previous excursions West, was just how green the plains looked.

In the past, the grasses were much drier in appearance; a mixture of browns, golds and tans... while there has always been precipitation (the weather changes very quickly--with lightening and dark clouds often floating menacingly over the plains), whatever rain had fallen usually quickly dried up. For whatever reason, on this trip the grasses were greener than we've experienced in year's past, adding a bright green hue to the expansive horizon...

Breathe in, breathe out… YOU AND I ARE ALIVE!

Wyoming Recollection 1: Burn

Though Montana is more commonly thought of as "Big Sky" country, that phrase always comes to mind when driving through, and thinking fondly of, Wyoming. There is never a shortage of patterned clouds and bright blue sky...

Pictured above is a photo that, upon developing, my wife called, "really beautiful." Upon further inspection, we both had an olfactory flashback, recalling that, directly in the center, just above the horizon, is one of the many oil refineries in Cheyenne. Then came the jarring recollection of how the air in the neighborhoods surrounding the refinery reeked of burn: oil and gasoline...

Breathe in, breathe out… YOU AND I ARE ALIVE!