Written Saturday morning:
I write this reclining against my backpack (aka “Rick Steves”), waiting for a flight, my laptop splayed on my thighs. But I am doing something that NO ONE DOES. I am outside the Wichita airport, outside in the ornamental grass planting display, by the flagpoles. I’d much rather wait out here than inside. Why? The tiny blip-town of Wilson was 2 hours away from Wichita, and my colleague had the rental car, and his flight was much earlier, so there I was waking at 3:45am to get here to wait. I think I’ve learned over the years that it's not worth worrying about things like this. Rather, sally forth and sit by the grasses and spend time writing.
I was in Wilson for a conference on the perennial grain, "Kernza" (Intermediate Wheatgrass), hosted by The Land Institute. I've been reading about TLI for years, fascinated by the hugely sustainable prospect of a "perennial" grain, and thrilled when my lab group at Cornell started to work with Kernza. And then Professor Boss said he was sending me to this conference.
It was pretty magical for me to visit the Land Institute, but also in that way where something that has seemed so awesome and mystical actually shrinks a bit, becomes less impossible and more accessible. To be in the greenhouse, full of perennial grain plants, and realize that very greenhouse was the backdrop to photos I’d seen on the Land Institute website or in bulletins. Eat dinner next to the famous researchers there, chatting with them about Ithaca (small world) over a beer, seeing the research plots. I even bought a T-shirt (which I also don’t think I’ve ever done) because I am so excited about their work and want to be a flag for them.
I may be only a “technician” (although Professor Boss referred to me as a "SuperTechnician" recently), paid so much less than the professors, and with less future hope than a PhD student, but I feel I am still fully contributing to the work on this crop. I wrote most of the grant that got us funding last year to work on this. After two days of this conference—which felt much like summer camp with us staying in the same historic building, eating meals together, and then all hanging out with Kansas-made beers on the patio—I feel like I have so much of a better idea of the “bigger picture” of Kernza, this first best stab at a truly hopeful perennial grain. Wes Jackson (TLI director) thwapped me on the shoulder and said how happy he was that I was there. Of course he had no idea who I was probably, but I think he’s just thrilled to have researchers all coming together over his dream.
There were about 30 people at this meeting, and we all gave a little talk about our work with the crop. Everything from researching the QTL gene, creating genetic maps, testing fertilizer needs, trialing it in baked goods, and brewing it for beer. I spoke about agroecology and the plans for our new grant. So you could say I was “an invited key-note speaker at the first international Kernza Conference.” Which is to say, they asked me to give a talk, and there were guys from Australia and Canada there.
I took the evenings to go on bike rides or walks around the pop. 781 town. The bike was “rented” ($1 per day!) from the hotel: a “cruiser”, meaning it had tires like oatmeal, a seat like a parking lot, and handlebars spread wider than a longhorn’s. I dug into muscles deep in my hamstrings, muscles that should not be used for biking ultimately (the thing was not ergonomically effective), and creaked along at 2.5 mph. But I could ride out of town, along the empty roads, gazing at clouds and fields, just enough rolling to create contours in the landscape viewing. I met a Horny Toad, saw dead snakes, wondered at the native weed species in the ditches, and reveled in the huge sweeping glory of the windmills. One wouldn’t think there would be a fantastic way to pass time, out there pedaling about on a slow bicycle, but I saw all these little notes that would be otherwise missed.
With the sun setting down into the endless stretch of the interstate, I stood on an overpass and did that activity that I love abashedly so much, no matter whether I’m 14 or 28. It's called “Overpass Truck Honk Inducing.” International pump your arm sign, honk the air horn sign! Woooooo! I love how truckers so easily oblige this, I can see them reaching up and yanking down as they fly beneath me at 70 mph, TONK TONNNNNK! The Doppler shift in the sound as they shoot below. I like to imagine it adds a particle of interest to their endless drive too.
Pedaling around the town of Wilson, however, was silence. House after house, all the little roads in a grid—east-west, north-south—little yards, maybe some worn bikes leaning in the grass, maybe a small garden. One bar, one squat library, one antique shop, one Grannie’s Soda Fountain. The houses were so still, blinds drawn, nobody on porches, nobody in yards, nobody walking. It felt like being on an empty theatre set for a play. I did see one woman in bright pink workout top, slowly riding her bike around town, I imagined for her nightly constitutional exercise. And a guy with a cigarette mowing his lawn. But where is everybody else? How do you spend your time in rural central Kansas? What do you look forward to? What makes you happy? Is it truly all that different from my Ithaca town experience or does it just appear to be?
An old maroon sedan floated past, two young males in the front. They rolled down the window. No matter, I’ve been hooted and honked at and questioned all over the world from car windows, and usually its worth no more than an eye roll. But these two leaned out the window a bit and simply said “good evening.” And drove on. That was it. A polite simple greeting. Incidentally, just about every other car that passed gave me a little wave as well. “Look Mary-Joe, a human walking!” I could imagine Farmer Hank saying to his wife.
A conference, experiencing a different place, and the little ways of traveling. Even though mundane, the little support systems I set up for myself while traveling I find indeed satisfying. The little planned-ahead details, the home-making while mobile, the provisioning for travel with that quiet pleasure in self-sufficiency. I’ve always had this, whether it was a bag of tuna fish in the Seattle airport (“I’m saving space and getting protein!”) or sneaking into a continental breakfast on a road trip (“how scandalous and I don’t need to buy breakfast!”). Today its my little stash of snacks in my bag, as I take issue with spending money on food at an airport (I do it occasionally, when pantingly desperate only, for, say, a weakly-warmed piece of $7 pizza, or a foamy plastic-wrapped apple). But yesterday during the conference I thought ahead all day, and since I know too much about food and know that leftovers will be wasted, I happily started gathering. Two pieces of bread gleaned from breakfast. An extra trip from the lobby to bring a load of tangerines to my room. Eating only half my pesto-pasta last night to save the rest for today.
I got the vegetarian option last night (we were doing set-plate, not off-the-menu) and instead of chicken, the vegetarian option was pesto pasta. Which means: I had pasta with a side of rice. Would you like a carb with your carb?
But the other night it was off-the-menu, and I asked about the Large Salad vs the little Side Salad, how big it was. “I don’t know”, said the server, “nobody’s ever ordered the Large Salad before.”
No comments:
Post a Comment