different kinds of lovely

I had a realization while in Wyoming. i saw my heart in the land, and it gave fresh perspective. My writing skills are rusty as hey. but i'ma try to write it down at least for myself. it's been a few weeks, & I need to remember. 

the day before the funeral was freezing--literally, around 17f-- but I needed physical space to work my mental knots out. so Nate & I went for a walk in my aunt & uncle's neighborhood. it's the kind you'd expect to find on a prairie outside Cheyenne, Wyoming. no streetlights. no sidewalks. long driveways. acres of land between houses, usually with a barn & or round pens. the street signs seem out of place. as if the houses are there by permission of the prairie, but the street signs are intrusive. the land can be inhabited; but street signs bring a sense of taming & ownership that can never be truly believed. the prairie is not tame-able. that tangent probably doesn't make sense to anybody but me (which is why I'm not a writer). the point is, the land feels like an entity out there. real & vast & alive. fairly recent snowfall drifted about (everything in Wyoming is windswept within 15 minutes). 

{{I should probably add the disclaimer that I was there for my nana's funeral & therefore my emotions were heightened. it was very much a farewell, end of an era. & the start of the year. also I have a romanticization problem with the prairie...I even crave it at times.}}

there we were. I was trying to mentally let go, say my goodbyes to nana *before* the service so i wouldn't be an emotional wreck in front of people. that was a level my heart wasn't willing to get on. & I finally have up. & just...looked. enjoyed my brother's adventurousness. & breathed. I was simply ___there___. in the midst of this barren landscape. with wind stinging our faces & everything dead & looking as if it might always be. but there was delight of real snow & cold & vastness for our eyes...

the beauty of it surprised me. how barren a real winter looks! the wildness of the prairie in winter is empty, savage, lonely. its fascinating & intimidating. it feels feral, even with snow. but there's a loveliness. 

it just hit me. even a frozen wasteland has a lovely all it's own. so does mine. my own wilderness of spirit or whatever it might be, this seeming void that I just want to fast-forward my life through has a lovely to it. I've just given up. I haven't been looking so I haven't seen. My perspective has died. its like "wake me up when I feel again" "or things actually have a purpose" "or something that doesn't require faith to be seen as good happens". 

but God has beauty for me here. there's an expectation of change. there's wild & empty & barren; & the cold is a little frightening. it doesn't shout "full of possibility!" like a landscape. but it still is. there are delights I can't taste in other seasons of abundance & easy joy. {probably}

anyway. that's really all it was. the desert is lovely. or can be, if I'll let myself accept it & see it as such.