There is a
goose sitting on the end of our dock and it appears that he has decided to
stay. He seems to have taken a fancy to the water lilies just starting to
sprout nearby. His mate is securely settled in a nest on an island across the
way, but our friend is comfortably seated on our dock. I wonder why? In his
book Bridge of Sighs, Richard Russo
has a 10 year old boy say, “I discovered I could think things on a new
landscape that never would have occurred to me at home.” I wonder if that goose
has discovered a new landscape from his perch above the water. Does he see his
world differently? More to his liking? What does his mate think? Does she scold
him or just shake her head in amusement? I can identify with the bird on the
dock.
When I was
seventeen, I went off to college only forty miles from my home on the farm, but
it might as well have been to the moon. The people, the books, the ideas
changed everything about my view of the world. It also helped me understand and
appreciate my own background better. When I was young, I could never understand
why city people wanted to come and wander around the farm. We had arrowhead
hunters, boy scouts, nature lovers, and canoeists who found sanctuary in the
fields and streams and woods of our farm. Why would anyone wander around
looking for rocks in a farm field? My college landscape helped me better
understand why we all do silly things. (It
also helped me identify with the significant other shaking her head in
amusement.)
Perhaps the
urge to think new things is the reason some of us are drawn to travel. I don’t
think I ever really thought about what our pioneer ancestors confronted until I
stood in front of an abandoned log cabin on the lonely plains of North Dakota.
Or the sense of awe I discovered on a Colorado mountain peak outside Durango. This
helps explain why I have always liked rivers and motorcycles. Each makes it
easy to move from place to place.
Of course,
some new landscapes are more psychological than physical. When we venture on to
new emotional or intellectual terrain, we find new things to think about, too.
Those of us who have worked as teachers all have stories of students
discovering new ways to see the world without ever leaving home. And many
times, we have gone on those internal journeys, too. We move on to a new
landscape – sometimes by choice, sometimes not – and we think new things. Sometimes
these moves can be difficult, but just as often they are exciting and
invigorating. As this new spring erupts in sunshine and clover, I hope – just like
the goose - you find a new landscape to think new thoughts.
