youneverknow

Scot dropped by last night around 10:45. He said there might be meteor showers. I grabbed my umbrella and we left. Given that Scot's latest nocturnal activity is sleep deprivation, due to his twelve month old daughter, Amelia, I thought it somewhat odd to be going out at this hour..."on a school night". Scot quickly took his little red Honda to the nearest county road in search of darkness....in which to illuminate the comets. As we were on our stellar hunt, he had cued "Tangerine Dream" and their version of space music.....lots of synth and annoying dischord....at times it sounded as if we'd found the monolith, other times incidental music to the likes of "The Outer Limits" and "Dark Shadows". We drove down long dark channels... the low slung Civic dwarfed by the towering corn fed by the deluge of summer rains. As we pulled over, the muffler, "pft-pft-pft-pft-pft" as if the long stiff roadside grass was a playing card on bicycle spokes. You couldn't even see the corn just a car length away, for the darkness. The music still loud and unsettling, Scot opened the "moon" roof. I tilted my head back on the seat to look at the nearly midnight stars....they were faintly lit. With the high pitched pulsing tension of the music, I half expected to see a hockey mask peer back at us through the opening in the roof...or a mysterious, disgruntled, bib-overall-wearing hulk to make its way from the corn. But they didn't. Nor did the meteors seem to be any more real. We moved on, driving through a giant corn maze in the dark of the night. Scot seemed to know where this was going. I didn't. Nor, did it really matter. There didn't seem to be any talk of the search for meteor showers...and before long we were on top of the Missisinewa dam. Below us on the dry side was a furious sound...water. The spillway was open and the torrent of water bursting forth commanded we get a closer look. Back in the car, we snaked our way down to the spillway. As we got out of the car we could feel the mist of the Missisinewa although we could not even see it yet. This was to be ants, who stood close, as a backyard pool was draining. We stood on top of the giant pipe at the base of the dam as the water jetted out at an uncomprehendable pace, and with a power that made you pause. Just past the pipe was an incline up to the river, and there was where the battle was fought. The force of a river trying to fall back as gravity would dictate, met with the onslaught of the pressure of an entire reservoire being freed, as man would dictate. At that point were monumental clashes....river versus man...water versus water....netting walls of white water shooting into the night sky...like liquid fireworks...spilling up over the banks...wetting our feet....misting our spectacles....confined rage for us to see....hypnotic...humbling....so close as to see, hear, and feel...so close as to realize your mortality in the fury of nature....we were ants. As humans, we need these kinds of encounters....to give us perspevtive. In the day to day living that is our lives, we make mammoth, the annoyances, the conflicts, our shortcomings, the relational challenges. At the foot of nature's tempests, we become small...and our problems are downsized along with us....and all we see is the water....at least for a little while. I think Scot found what he was looking for....he wasn't looking for meteors, or even the intriguing torrents we happened onto. He was looking to be small, and his relational crap along with him....to escape...for awhile...to find a sign that could remind him of the wonder of the small boy seemingly lost inside him....too often eclipsed by the man of responsibility...of a father...of a husband....of an employee...We all need to be ants sometime....I suppose dams not only hold things back...but can set them free.



	Aug 10 '98 10:05 You never know where a road trip will lead... -Morgan Young Scot dropped by last night around 10:45. He said there might be meteor showers. I grabbed my umbrella and we left. Given that Scot's latest nocturnal activity is sleep deprivation, due to his twelve month old daughter, Amelia, I thought it somewhat odd to be going out at this hour..."on a school night". Scot quickly took his little red Honda to the nearest county road in search of darkness....in which to illuminate the comets. As we were on our stellar hunt, he had cued "Tangerine Dream" and their version of space music.....lots of synth and annoying dischord....at times it sounded as if we'd found the monolith, other times incidental music to the likes of "The Outer Limits" and "Dark Shadows". We drove down long dark channels... the low slung Civic dwarfed by the towering corn fed by the deluge of summer rains. As we pulled over, the muffler, "pft-pft-pft-pft-pft" as if the long stiff roadside grass was a playing card on bicycle spokes. You couldn't even see the corn just a car length away, for the darkness. The music still loud and unsettling, Scot opened the "moon" roof. I tilted my head back on the seat to look at the nearly midnight stars....they were faintly lit. With the high pitched pulsing tension of the music, I half expected to see a hockey mask peer back at us through the opening in the roof...or a mysterious, disgruntled, bib-overall-wearing hulk to make its way from the corn. But they didn't. Nor did the meteors seem to be any more real. We moved on, driving through a giant corn maze in the dark of the night. Scot seemed to know where this was going. I didn't. Nor, did it really matter. There didn't seem to be any talk of the search for meteor showers...and before long we were on top of the Missisinewa dam. Below us on the dry side was a furious sound...water. The spillway was open and the torrent of water bursting forth commanded we get a closer look. Back in the car, we snaked our way down to the spillway. As we got out of the car we could feel the mist of the Missisinewa although we could not even see it yet. This was to be ants, who stood close, as a backyard pool was draining. We stood on top of the giant pipe at the base of the dam as the water jetted out at an uncomprehendable pace, and with a power that made you pause. Just past the pipe was an incline up to the river, and there was where the battle was fought. The force of a river trying to fall back as gravity would dictate, met with the onslaught of the pressure of an entire reservoire being freed, as man would dictate. At that point were monumental clashes....river versus man...water versus water....netting walls of white water shooting into the night sky...like liquid fireworks...spilling up over the banks...wetting our feet....misting our spectacles....confined rage for us to see....hypnotic...humbling....so close as to see, hear, and feel...so close as to realize your mortality in the fury of nature....we were ants. As humans, we need these kinds of encounters....to give us perspevtive. In the day to day living that is our lives, we make mammoth, the annoyances, the conflicts, our shortcomings, the relational challenges. At the foot of nature's tempests, we become small...and our problems are downsized along with us....and all we see is the water....at least for a little while. I think Scot found what he was looking for....he wasn't looking for meteors, or even the intriguing torrents we happened onto. He was looking to be small, and his relational crap along with him....to escape...for awhile...to find a sign that could remind him of the wonder of the small boy seemingly lost inside him....too often eclipsed by the man of responsibility...of a father...of a husband....of an employee...We all need to be ants sometime....I suppose dams not only hold things back...but can set them free.