LINES OF THE DAY

". . . But the past does not exist independently from the present. Indeed, the past is only past because there is a present, just as I can point to something over there only because I am here. But nothing is inherently over there or here. In that sense, the past has no content. The past -- or more accurately, pastness -- is a position. Thus, in no way can we identify the past as past." p. 15

". . . But we may want to keep in mind that deeds and words are not as distinguishable as often we presume. History does not belong only to its narrators, professional or amateur. While some of us debate what history is or was, others take it into their own hands." p. 153

Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (1995) by Michel-Rolph Trouillot

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Summer Roads

I see those roads, cut between the steep, deep, wide ditches which finally went dry from the winter melt and spring rain run-off. I smell the hot dust and gravel, that burn my bare feet when I stop peddling the bike. I hear the meadow larks and the grasshoppers. I can taste the inner stem sweetness of wild oats growing in the ditches, so high again the township mower will be along soon.

Country roads in summer must be universal nostalgia for anyone, anywhere, who grew up on a farm, whether in Japan or North Dakota or Africa.

6 comments:

K. said...

Take me home, country road... Check out Toots here.

Foxessa said...

Not to mention the only thing that narcissist crazy lady Lucinda Williams ever did that I could stand was "Car Wheels on A Gravel Road."

That cut even got me to a Lucinda Williams show -- out of which I walked about 40 minutes in because she was behaving like such a flake stupid unprofessional neurotic.

A guy couldn't have gotten way with that.

Oooops, wait -- George Jones? MJ?

Love, C.

K. said...

I'm not a Lucinda fan either, and I've tried. Car Wheels didn't even do much for me. The one time I saw her she opened for Bob Dylan at the Washington State Fair in Puyallup. She was kind of dull. He was awesome, though.

Foxessa said...

LW is one of the women that I am shamed to admit wants to make me use the c-word.

Love, C.

T. said...

I had one of those country road moments today, as we were speeding down the road to our Carrowholly house....(in the car).

I need a bicycle.

Foxessa said...

There must be many country roads' summer memories for those who know Ireland well, and who grew up there.

People who grew up in the country though, know what is nostalgia and what is a sea of mud in the wet weather and ruts hard as rocks in dry -- or else stinging dust.

But still, on those perfect mid-summer hot hot hot afternoons in July, in the kid-freedom hours between the after dinner (noon meal, not lunch, which happens around 3:30 - 4 pm) chores and the late afternoon chores, on the afternoons you aren't at the lake for swimming lessons, that IS summer distilled.

Love, C.