epikivel

Sweet Silence

Here it is, Monday night...I just had the most incredible weekend ever. It was
totally a weekend of firsts, I did so many things for the very first time. I went to
Nebraska for the first time, and that's about a 1300 mile trip for me, and I probably
learned more there than I did my entire senior year of highschool. It was just
amazing.

I had never seen terrain like that before, I thought it would be mostly forests, but it
was just rolling hills of golden sand and green yucca plants and bright blue water
everywhere. I had never really seen cattle grazing in such open fields before, and
I swear I didn't see one cloud for four days. It was gorgeous. I live in a really
wooded area so it was so strange to be in a place with so few trees, there were
hardly any, everything was just so open and you could see for miles. I had never
seen a real tumbleweed before either, hehe, so I brought one home as a token of
my trip.

We stayed on this tiny ranch in the middle of nowhere, and there were kittens and
horses everywhere, and they even had two pet deer which would come right up
to you and were really nice. I got to make friends with real cowboys, people who
lived a life that I had only barely gotten a glimpse of in the movies, and it was just
so amazing to me. All of the guys wore cowboy hats and button up shirts and the
famous boots...I feel like a small child the way I'm just so in wonder about
everything, but always living near a big city, this is so new for me. One of my
favorite parts of the weekend was meeting Ckye, a hunting guide from Montana.
He was awesome, he took us out to look for antelope and he let us shoot his rifle.
I never shot anything before, and needless to say, I missed by a long shot, but I
felt very empowered. He was just really nice and funny too, and he might come
out East and visit us sometime cuz he's never been here.

I feel like I am really sheltered now. I feel like there is this whole huge world that I
have never even tasted yet and I want to. I just want to take so many road trips
and meet so many people. The people I met this weekend, perfect strangers,
were so incredible, they were so hospitable and warm and accepting. They had
such great stories to tell of how hard they worked and their dreams and the rough
things they go through. I met a woman who rips the balls off calves, throws them
right onto the grill, and eats them fresh. She made fun of my friend for wanting a
wedge with his tequila in front of the whole bar. She is fighting a harsh disease,
but still working to provide for her family. And she sat down and talked to us and
answered all our questions and was just so nice. She is the toughest lady I ever
met.

I am so depressed to be home, where everyone is rushing and too busy to be
nice to you....where the strangers you are naive enough to befriend come and
stab you in the fucking back while you're away...where there is noise and
commotion and horns. Man, in Nebraska, I never heard such silence...you could
stand outside and hear nothing...no impatient people honking their horns because
they were delayed for three fucking seconds...no rude little children screaming
bloody murder because their parents got them healthy juice instead of chocolatey
goodness...I could just stand outside for hours listening to the wonderful superb
excellent silence...sometimes you can hear the occasional horse chewing from
hundreds of feet away...sometimes you can hear a furry little kitten meow
softly...sometimes you could hear the deer frolicking in the yard. It felt like a TV
show, surreal, like paradise.

I feel so silly for being so excited about fucking Nebraksa. But when you deal with
the kind of people I deal with on a daily basis, you would be this excited too, to
meet such decent and honest and caring people. I just want to live in a world
where people say what they fucking mean and don't play stupid games. I will
write more later.