“Cherie, keep walking. Shut your eyes. We are headed for the bridge. We are going to cross it.”
― Joyce Carol Oates, After the Wreck, I Picked Myself Up, Spread My Wings, and Flew Away
Keeper of the Plains,
Wichita, Kansas
We Are Going To Cross It
Tag Archives: wichita
Man’s Heart, Away From Nature, Becomes Hard
“Wherever forests have not been mowed down, wherever the animal is recessed in their quiet protection, wherever the earth is not bereft of four-footed life – that to the white man is an ‘unbroken wilderness.’
But for us there was no wilderness, nature was not dangerous but hospitable, not forbidding but friendly. Our faith sought the harmony of man with his surroundings; the other sought the dominance of surroundings.
For us, the world was full of beauty; for the other, it was a place to be endured until he went to another world.
But we were wise. We knew that man’s heart, away from nature, becomes hard.”
― Chief Luther Standing Bear
Another view of the Keeper of the Plains sculpture, Wichita, Kansas
A Vision Was Given In My Youth
And I, to whom so great a vision was given in my youth, — you see me now a pitiful old man who has done nothing, for the nation’s hoop is broken and scattered. There is no center any longer, and the sacred tree is dead.
—-Black Elk, from Black Elk Speaks
Keeper of the Plains sculpture, Wichita, Kansas
That Student’s Letter As A Precious Treasure
“The poor girl ws keeping that student’s letter as a precious treasure, and had run to fetch it, her only treasure, because she did not want me to go away without knowing that she, too, was honestly and genuinely loved; that she, too, was addressed respectfully. No doubt that letter was destined to lie in her box and lead to nothing. But none the less, I am certain that she would keep it all her life as a precious treasure, as her pride and justification, and now at such a minute she had thought of that letter and brought it with naive pride to raise herself in my eyes that I might see, that I, too, might think well of her.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground
Woman writing in a notebook, Wichita, Kansas
Woman writing in a notebook, Wichita, Kansas
Woman writing in a notebook, Wichita, Kansas
I have a stack of Moleskine notebooks, going back years. In the times I didn’t have a blog – I wrote in them every day. Now, it’s more hit and miss – collections of thoughts, ideas, and stuff I want to remember. Some snippets of truth and more of lies.
It’s the slightly oily cover, the cream paper and the way that fountain pen ink feathers. A permanent part of a person’s mind – converted into reality and held there for posterity. Writing in a Moleskine notebook is a calming thing – maybe because of the way it holds the relentless advance of time at bay for a little while.
Bill Chance 