Go West, Young Man

At home, the cardinal directions were just something I learned in school. They didn't mean much in suburbia, except maybe as a way to align the grid of streets. It's sad to admit, but for a long time I could never remember which direction the sun set in, east or west. What did it matter? Wherever the sun went, suburbia was its own world, closed off and directionless. I could never get lost enough to need to navigate my way back home.

On the prairie, the directions are still just concepts, but they are the concepts by which I can tether myself to some sort of order. When I'm running out on the trails, I will crest a hill and see Eagle Nest Butte in front of me, and know I am heading south, or I will see the sun start to dip and I will know I am heading west, and it's only these clues that differentiate my patch of grass from the endless rolls around me. Suffice to say I know now that the sun sets in the west.

The past few weekends I've found myself heading west just after sunset. At night the prairie closes in; headlights only pierce so far, and the darkness closes in over the road like a tunnel. But around 7:00 PM there is still a faint breath of light rising in the west, slipping over the contours of the hills. Even as the blackness closes in from the east, behind me, there is that hope of light still there, suggesting that the day holds out a little longer somewhere, even if I can't drive fast enough to get there. It's a peaceful sort of twilight that you couldn't get anywhere else.