bovine reflections in boogie wonderland

Friday afternoon I commuted home on the back roads. It has been a solid 2 months since I’ve taken this route. I’d forgotten its bucolic feel, the winding roads and open pastures and fields. I was lucky this time and didn’t hit the railroad crossing “in use”. I could see the last rail car pass in the distance as I approached and the string of cars clear before i reached the crossing. Good timing, Hartman, except I hit the highway light on ‘orange,’ so stopped for the full 3-4 minute cycle.

Thursday night our area had violent storms with intense winds, strong flooding rains and pea-sized hail. Perhaps this was the reason the air seemed so clean and clear, even with a strong wind. Stopped at a highway light, I saw the herd of Holstein cattle grazing in a field. The starkness of black and white cattle against the new greens of the spring landscape was striking, startling in fact. I took notice of the herd.

Often I can see cattle at a distance in a field along a highway or farm road. Rarely am I going slow enough or are the cattle close enough for me to take time to look at them. This time, I had the full span of a highway light to watch them.

Cows are immense, as big as my car. Okay, yes I do have a Aveo, and perhaps, pound for pound the car and cow are equal, but still, that cow looked way bigger than I remembered. Seeing them at a distance most of the time, I was amazed at their size. I’d also forgotten the sway of a cow’s head to and from as they walk. Back and fourth. . . back and forth. . .back and forth. . . .a cow crossed the field in rhythmic, choreographed steps.

A gust of wind whipped by, rocking the car in a disco-bump jiggle. Fur on the dancing Holstein ruffled, then went flat again. Other cattle grazed, ripping tender new-green grasses from the earth, grinding them with their jowls only to end up in one stomach or another. They left dark, wet footprints in their wake in the soggy ground. The entire herd, moving slowly as a large amoeba, across the landscape.

The light turned and I was off, making my way home.

I think that much of popular culture, our society in general, teaches us to be outline people. Outline meaning, just ‘give me the high level”, “executive summary’, “overview” or ” the 30 second news byte on yahoo or CNN” By keeping out of the weeds, by not ‘going down that rabbit hole” we miss much of the details in life, an astonish hive of activity everywhere.

Details at a stop light by a pasture on a back road.

Details in nature as it unfolds blows by on a windy day, rocking cars from tire to tire in a strange boogie dances.

Glimpses of the extraordinary in the everyday are the memories we keep, not the those big pictures and snippets of sound on the TV.

Take the long way home tomorrow. Take a blacktop or gravel road. Roll down your windows and listen to the dance of spring unfolding.

You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands. Isaiah 55:12