Sunday, October 01, 2006

Black is beautiful


I never thought I’d find myself, at any time or in any place, singing the praises of asphalt. On Friday, the chalky white gravel road I’ve tasted for months was steam rolled with black oily goo in preparation for some kind of hard surface. How my heart praised pavement! After four months of trying to orient myself toward the charms of dust, I confess total and absolute defeat. Perhaps I spent too many years dwelling in versions of Sonny and Cher’s paved paradise, perhaps I’ve regressed to my childhood Tony Randall-ish prissiness which spurred many a mud stained friend’s irritated mother to demand of mine how she kept me so clean, perhaps I fear a diagnosis of dust lung disease. But whatever the reasons, I have lost patience with drought induced road dust of Biblical proportions. Now I know why there are so many DUST references in the Bible and now I UNDERSTAND them. You could write the Gettsyburg address on our dashboard. You could plant ivy in the dust that falls on my counters when I unload the grocery bags from inside the car. You could achieve instantaneous gray hair for your Halloween costume by opening the air vent on the way to the General Store. This is not the dust born of human skin that lingers in curtains and carpets causing asthma, allergies and cute little dustbunnies under the bed. The Sisyphusian battle to conquer such dust explains perfectly how a band from neighboring Kansas could pen the lyrics, “all we are is dust in the wind” and “nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky”. I would argue that nothing lasts forever but the earth IN the sky. But fortunately for me, just before I succumbed to certain dust ridden existential despair, the department of road paving stepped in to save my dusty soul. Sorry Sonny and Cher.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Poor Joni Mitchel... eh, who cares. She probably lives in L.A. and doesn't know Biblical dust from fairy dust. Hooray for you, Allison.

J. Mark Bertrand said...

Now you won't be able to see guests arriving by the column of dust on the horizon!

Anonymous said...

While Joni Mitchell may have written the song, Sonny and Cher had the cool animated cartoon that still rolls around my head of them outrunning the steam roller as all the trees are plowed down. But who knows, next week I might drive past a pink hotel or a swinging hot spot. I wonder what would pass for that around here.

Perhaps the guests will yet be visible when they pull up in their big yellow taxis...

Anonymous said...

Better change the 'erl' in your car, deer. It's been in a dry, dry, dry, dry year

Anonymous said...

i hear the shopping malls, target, sams, walnuts, a mega-theatre, etc will all be installed by end of next week. they will of course be following a country theme just to sure they dont KILL the country setting.

concurrently, the legal daisy spacing police will be out to ensure there is a code resticted distance between all trees and anything that exceeds these requirements will be summarily yanked right out of the ground.

and soon there after, thousands upon thousands of sub div houses will flock to the area. advertising the pastoral "feel" and the schools will brim over with lovely little sticky fingers, new box shaped churches will pop up so they may worship and our serenity will be just what we were looking for.

im a little bit country, shes a liddle bit rock an roll.

an thass whadd makes the whirled go round and around and around and around and around and around and around and around - tebby nok niffle shwan shwoohn - plop!