A Special Kind of Beauty

Midwestern farm fields, gently sloping hills, and muddy river banks create a backdrop of unusual beauty. I don’t mean “unusual” in terms of rare or extraordinary. In fact, it’s almost the opposite. It’s an “every day” sort of beauty. And, beyond calling the plain, gray brown grasses beautiful because that’s what nature bestows upon us this time of year, during my Galena getaway, I really felt a special quality of beauty in the way the season’s muted tones made so many other things seem more beautiful.

To start our second day in Jo Davies Country, Adam and I had the equivalent of a Grand Slam breakfast at the Broken Spoke, a cash-only, family run diner along Route 20. It was brimming with southwestern styled bric a brac and served a bottomless cup of coffee. Afterwards, we visited a potter’s studio in Elizabeth. Why Paul Eshelman decided to set up shop in this spot of the world, I don’t know. His studio was full of very sophisticated, Asian influenced crockery; tureens and over-sized mugs. He even had an assistant working for him. On wire shelves only a few feet from his firing room, he had stacks of heavy duty boxes so he could ship his ceramic art anywhere.

After a short stop at the county’s conservancy office, we headed for the hills. Actually, we headed for the mounds. Mounds, raised fields, usually used for burial or ceremonial purposes, are located across North America where Indian communities (In this case, most likely, Fox or Sauk tribes) flourished. One of my friend’s favorite things to do is to dig in the dirt around these grassy bumps on the plains and look for arrowheads and remnants of pottery or tools.

Well, digging in the dirt was never an activity I sought out, but the weather was not nasty cold, and the terrain was easy, so I walked. I walked. I walked in a big circle around what might have been a village a thousand years ago. I don’t normally think of anything in Illinois as being that old, but communities from the Woodland Period date anywhere from 2000 years ago to 1200 AD.

Occasionally, a hawk flew overhead. Adam seemed happily engaged. He had an uncanny sense for spotting ancient arrowheads from twenty paces away.

I looked around. I was able to pick out a squirrel, colored to match the tall grasses, scampering across the mound on his way to explore an abandoned trailer home nearby. It was amazing how well this speeding fur ball with tail blended in so perfectly with everything around him. It was heartening to think that this made his life safer. I looked at how the very nondescript, anything but vibrant grasses looked against a shamelessly blue Midwestern sky. The contrast made the pure cerulean sky pop. And, as I noticed, the bluestem and switch grass shoots sway in the wind, I thought about how their movements actually enabled me to see the wind.

It seems that in any group of people, there is usually someone who makes the group function better. In a feast, a palette cleanser can transform the first taste of the next course. Background music at an event can stir your emotions and actually help imprint details of an experience in your memory. Here, it seems the plain grasses, the grasses of the plain, drew me in to a sense of place that made me aware of a special beauty.

Recognizing the special beauty of something that allows you to better see the beauty of something else is no small thing

Changing Like the Seasons

The first of the month, I went to Galena with a friend. “Oh Galena, Oh Galena,” as the old Jim Post song goes. “You’re such a pretty little riverboat town…”

Just under three hours west of Chicago, the drive lets you absorb real changes in landscape in a compressed ball of time. With city skyscrapers just a few miles behind us, we pulled away from my Lakeview neighborhood, rolled past the concrete clover leafs and suburban shopping malls of Schaumburg, sped past Rockford and Belvidere tollway exits (most notably marked by the behemoth Chrysler plant, a strangely beautiful tribute to our Midwestern blue collar legacy), then turned onto State Route 20.

It seemed as if the earth and everything spinning on our axis slowed down. Once you get onto Route 20, the flow changes to a slow and easy roller coaster ride. In my little Honda Civic, we undulated with the curves and dips in the road, wending our way through hills and valleys, skimming across black and rich farm fields, lesser known rivers and Indian effigy mounds on our way to Jo Davies County.

Galena is a quintessential “picturesque” small town built into a hill overlooking the Galena River. It’s only a few miles from the Mississippi and years ago, riverboats could turn off the Mississippi and cruise on the Galena River. With a population of only 3500, it boasts a great number of tourist attractions. It was home to Civil War General and state favorite son, Ulysses S. Grant. Its streets are lined with quaint antique stores, the studios of working artists who chose a rural lifestyle, and several successful wineries. It’s a great getaway spot.

For my travel companion, the main attraction was the chance to see bald eagles fly overhead (we saw two) and dig in the dirt for arrowheads and pottery shards from ancient Fox or Sauk villages. The conservation office in the tiny town of Elizabeth was more than helpful in supplying us with maps.

The first of March might seem like an odd time to take a road trip in Illinois. The weather is unpredictable and, in this case, the route is hilly and unpredictable too. For me, it was perfect.

We stayed at an inn that had a wood-burning fireplace, whirlpool, and fridge in the room. It seemed like the days were just starting to get longer, and, for the two days of our visit, I would enjoy cheese and wine in front of the fireplace and watch the sun set on the horizon at nearly six.

The inn was at the top of a hill, less than two miles from town. I took a special delight in noticing the seasons change right in front of our eyes. The white gazebo on the nearby pond was dusted with snow on the day we arrived. The pond was sealed with an uninterrupted crust of ice. The next day, when we left, ripples shuddered across the water. The ice had melted completely and the pond was simply a muted blue color.

Isn’t it wonderful, I thought, how the seasons change; putting up a little resistance at first, almost out of respect to what was, then surrendering to what is to come next. You could see this in the way the pond’s frozen bonnet became gentle ripples that skipped along with the breeze the following day.

Honoring the past, without withholding a heart-felt welcome for what’s to be is no small thing.