In Their Shoes: In Their Shoes

1: The Beauty of Space

I: :lIe gjeauly 0/cfpace«The only form ofthing that we directly encounter, the only experience that we concretely have, is our own personal life." -William James«We live only to the extent that we face up to the world with all ourfaculties and as directly as possible." -Rene Dubos cLe people travel to the area the early Spanish explorers called the llano estacado or high staked plains of West Texas and say they see nothing out there, yet I always found mystery and beauty in space. Being born in a place where there was little except space had advantages. Who, I might ask, am I, amidst this infinite expanse? Not distracted by skyscrapers, television or a city's teeming masses, I early on felt a reciprocity with natural forces, especially wind. It was a moody companion, often vindictive, uprooting houses and trees. Then lonely, soul-searching, with shrill, plaintive moans, crying itself to sleep, leaving the ground swept clean. Unseen, it demonstrated that what is most real is most hidden, inaccessible. I am a product of that open expanse, a flat barren land with vistas wandering off like a child's imagination. And born a part of me came a built-in locomotive itch, a fugitive impulse, a driving urge to move across the plains. Age five, I inserted the steel bit of a bridle into the mouth of a small horse, a mare I called "Tony." Not owning a saddle, I leaped onto her bareback and, giving free rein, raced over the bald endless expanse, feeling the har5 6 In Their Shoes mony of my body blending with the onrushing mare. From the time memory serves, I experienced this joy of motion, feeling lifted above the earth, suspended yet sustained by the wind. I would ride to areas where there was no sound other than the occasional buzz of an insect or the burrowing of a prairie dog. I saw no birds, no plants, no trees. Only the parched plains and the tumbleweeds. Once, at dusk, looking toward the darkening sky and observing the appearance offirst one, then myriads ofstars, I slid from the small horse, and standing, holding her head, I silently asked: what is the meaning of all that at one moment seems empty, then appears vast, never to end? It did not often snow in West Texas. And when it did, I studied newly planted pyramids and stars on our window panes, each pattern fragile and unique. I lived in a world of fantasy, and fantasy, said Einstein, means more than any talent for absorbing positive knowledge. We had few books, no radio or television, little or no cultural events - no opera, ballet, symphony orchestra or even a museum. Yet I was embarked on that greatest of all adventures: viewing the universe, participating in its rituals . I would dig a hole, drop a seed and in time behold a miracle: rambling vines and strange, crinkled, round-lobed leaves reaching out; later I saw the first fruit. I lay on a pallet at night, overwhelmed by space, attempting to count the stars. I watched a caterpillar transform itself into a butterfly. Might I, also, experience such a metamorphosis, actually change my skin? On another day, I saw a mare's belly shrink and watched a strange bundle drop from her backside and a wet, improbable creature on thin, wobbly legs instinctively hobble to his mother's tits and suckle there. I saw a bull impregnate a cow. And saw that it was the male on top of the female. The sight was thrust upon me with the force of a sudden flash of lightning or a clap of The Beauty ofSpace 7 thunder. I attempted to avert my eyes, as the animals in copulation left me feeling guilty as if party to a crime. In my childhood, I was learning about a subject that was taboo, not discussed by parent to child or in open society. Once a cow was having trouble giving birth, and my father went to assist her. He returned with his clothes bloody with the afterbirth. No one discussed "life," how it began or how it might end or if one might find or give meaning to the awesome mystery. In the year of 1928, I wore dresses Mother made from bleached Blue Bonnet flour sacks with bloomers reaching to my knees. My hairstyle was short, in a bowl style...