Radios and road trips

Summers on the prairies of western Canada are short. But as they are short, they are also beautiful. I don’t think beautiful is quite the right word. They are more than that. They have their own voice, a voice that calls to one’s soul and speaks of life’s brevity and beauty. Perhaps it is the early morning dew on cool grass. Or the puffs of cloud drifting across the limitless expanse in the afternoon. Or the evenings under a star-dusted sky that require a campfire in the company of friends and family.

Prairie summers also require road trips. And on many occasions, I have heeded the call.

I have driven prairie roads that stretch out in asphalt grey ribbons that cut through fields bursting with canary-yellow blooms of canola and living-green oceans of velvet wheat. With my window rolled down I catch the sweet fragrance of sage and wildflowers growing in the ditches. Brilliant white clouds billow impossibly slow, and as the afternoon gives way to evening, the sinking sun paints them with a golden crimson luminescence.

Shadows stretch. Sky changes color: Azure blue to hues of gunmetal mingled with mandarin orange and cotton candy pink. The day surrenders as it melts into a wide horizon. The breadth and depth of it all makes one wish their eyes and their heart were large enough to

consume it all. And as the final light wanes, then the first pin-pricks of starlight herald the coming night in a sky that is neither truly black nor truly dark at this latitude.

I inhale and imbibe the cool clover evening air.

My car stereo is on. Just faintly. And for some reason it is tuned to a faraway AM radio station (FM stations have little reach on these rural prairie roads). As I drive, occasional icy-white flashes reveal silhouettes and shadows within the cumulonimbus clouds buried deep on the horizon and the snap and crackle on the radio testify to that far-off thunderstorm.

My attention is drawn to the song playing on the radio. Faint. Static. Distant. Interrupted by flash and crackle, it is a song that captivates me. I cannot name it. I cannot quite make out all the lyrics. But the beautiful chorus is hauntingly familiar and my heart quickens slightly with each chord. What is this song called? And who is the Artist? Perhaps I have never heard this song before. Or perhaps this song has been tucked away within the deep and long-forgotten regions of my soul. I long to hear it more clearly but the reception is poor. Then, far too soon, it is gone, evaporating into radio static. The final notes reverberate within me and I am left with both an inexhaustible fullness and an inexplicable yearning. Sorrow and joy.

And silence.

A warm awareness settles upon me: Sky and star. Cloud and thunderclap. Fields and floral breeze. The Universe is filled with Song. In stillness and in storm my soul hears it and it, too, sings summer’s chorus. ∆

---