Missouri and Illinois: The Midwest and a Lesson on Perspective

All my traveling begins the same, and that is by asking one question that will guide my experience: What lesson will this trip teach me if I am open to it? For this journey to the Midwest, the answer didn’t hit me until the last day, but once I realized what it was, I saw its threads running through everything, waiting for me to notice, trusting that I would see.

On the flight across the country, I decided to get some work done, and so I read New and Selected Poems Volume I by Mary Oliver (one of the poets I am writing about in my dissertation). Oliver, I argue, sees the world from a chosen perspective, and this choice informs her perception and understanding of all life in the universe. In other words, Oliver’s poetry advocates this one basic lesson—we all have the power to choose how we see things, how we approach trying to understand this world, this universe. Here is an excerpt from Oliver’s “When Death Comes” to illustrate what I mean:

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:

what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything

as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,

and I look upon time as no more than an idea,

and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common

as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,

tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something

precious to the earth.

When it’s over, I want to say: all my life

I was a bride married to amazement.

I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

So on that flight to Kansas City, Oliver’s poems instilled in me a mindset, one that encouraged active choice about perspective and that promised a higher understanding as a result of that choice.

After arriving in Missouri, I headed straight for Liberty, where I was fortunate enough to participate in celebrating the 2015 cohort of Truman Scholars in what they call the Truman Scholar Leadership Week. Undoubtedly, I have never been in a room with so many movers and shakers, so many altruistic humans who have dedicated their lives to acts of service and to making the world a better place for all of us. Saturday evening ended with a talk from Professor Marcia Chatelain, former Truman Scholar who recently published her first book entitled South Side Girls: Growing up in the Great Migration. Though her entire talk was inspirational, the piece that stirred me most came out during the Q&A session after the talk. When asked how to handle a conversation with someone about an issue where the two views are entirely opposing (in this case, we were discussing the events in Ferguson), Chatelain advised this: ask the person what value guides that particular understanding or interpretation of the event or issue. She said, and I’ll do my best to get it right here, that we all have a frame of understanding that informs what we think, and in order to expand or deepen our understanding, we must shift the frame. Shift the frame, shift the perspective. To give a little more depth to her answer and to her talk, she was especially advocating the value of studying history and the total value of education in relation to this process of shifting one’s frame.

My next lesson came when Zachariah, his mom, Jami, and I arrived in Henry, Illinois. We were driving across some areas of tall grass, and I kept seeing little sparks of light in the distance, hovering over the grass. I assumed it was just flashes from the reflecting headlights approaching us, until Jami said that this was the first time this year she’d seen the fireflies out. I was amazed! I had never seen fireflies before, and to see them scattered out in the field at night was incredible. I was also stunned that my limited knowledge about these tiny creatures prevented my ability to fully comprehend what was real in that moment. I thought back to Chatelain and the value of education in terms of informing our understanding of all things, including the mating habits of fireflies. I was grateful for Jami’s wisdom that illuminated and made richer my own interpretation of those lights in the field. Unfortunately, I was unable to get a photo of this scene, but here’s one to give you some sense of what it was like, along with a photo of Jami, Zachariah, and me at the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum in Liberty and another of us with his sister, Molly, and her baby, Barret, in Henry:

A few days later, Zachariah and I walked all across his hometown, Henry, talking about his memories of the place and the events that occurred during his childhood there. We marveled at the difference in our perception of the little town. To me, it was idyllic, picturesque in terms of what I’d imagine quintessential summer in America to be. I imagined running through sprinklers on the lawn, swimming in the large river skirting Henry, watching the fireworks in the park on Independence Day. It seemed a place of innocence, of the good life, of small-town values. But to Zachariah, because of his not-always-so-fond recollections of the place, Henry was full of ghosts, of hauntings, of a troubled past. The town for him could never be what it was to me because of the vivid memories encroaching upon his perception. Though both of our perspectives were real and valid, time and the past shaped our views in a drastically different fashion.

Later in the week when Zachariah and I arrived in Chicago, one of our first destinations was Millennium Park to see The Cloud Gate, or what some unfortunately refer to as “The Bean.” Architect Anish Kapoor designed this art installation from stainless steel, and the effect is that viewers can peer into a mirror-like surface that reflects the self in middle of the city backdrop—to see one’s self in the context of the surrounding environment. As we explored the various curves and contours of The Cloud Gate, I marveled at the myriad ways the viewers interacted with the installation, how they engaged the art. Some lay prostrate on the ground with their feet propped up against the base, some made faces to see their expression reflected back, some rubbed the stainless steel to get the tactile sensation of the cool metal, some walked beneath the dome and peered up to see the seven or so versions of their self replicated back from different angles and in different sizes. The Cloud Gate was an artistic representation of differing perspectives.

Later that day, we ended up at The Art Institute of Chicago, which houses six paintings from Claude Monet’s haystack series. The story goes like this: in 1890/91, Monet painted stack(s) of hay during different seasons and during different times of the day. What I saw when looking at these paintings together was how much the natural environment changed the appearance of the stack(s). Monet’s work is among my favorite, and his paintings never fail to teach me valuable lessons in life, and in this case, the art reminded me of the power nature can have on our impression, or perspective, of the things around us. (For more info on Monet’s series, go here).

One evening, we took the super smart advice from my friend Raul and visited The John Hancock Center to catch an elevated view of the city rather than doing the skydeck and ledge at Willis Tower (formerly known as Sears Tower). Rather than paying $19.50 for a ticket at Willis, we bought a cocktail at The Signature Lounge in Hancock. Talk about a change in perspective! From the 96^th floor, the city changed completely. From my bird’s-eye view, I got a solid geographical and spatial understanding of the layout of Chicago. It was quiet and peaceful (the wine helped with that), compared to struggling along the hustling streets below. From that elevated point of view, my understanding of the space around me shifted the frame so dramatically that I fell in love with Chicago. I saw miles of beachfront, sailboats scattered across the Caribbean-blue water, the turning Ferris wheel at Navy Pier, the green of trees filling the gaps between buildings, the expanse of the suburbs reaching beyond city proper, the gardens and pools making use of the often-neglected rooftop space, and the outstanding architecture of each of the skyscrapers jetting up around and below me. It was breathtaking, and I probably wouldn’t have understood the city’s magnificence if not for seeing it from that height and from that perspective.

On the flight home, I returned to Oliver, and her words crystalized the lesson from this trip. Here is an excerpt from “The Ponds”:

        Still, what I want in my life

            is to be willing

            to be dazzled—

            to cast aside the weight of facts

            and maybe even

            to float a little

            above this difficult world.

            I want to believe I am looking

            into the white fire of a great mystery.

            I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing—

            that the light is everything—that it is more than the sum

            of each flawed blossom rising and fading. And I do.

What all of this taught me is simple. Perspective changes everything. But what I still haven’t quite figured out is what external or internal influences determine how we adopt any particular perspective. The lessons from this trip offer up a few philosophies. Oliver’s poetry tells us we have the power to choose our perspective. Chatelain’s advice encourages us to shift our frame to get a deeper understanding of things. Jami’s generosity in sharing her wisdom reminds us that everyone is a teacher. Zachariah’s view of his hometown illustrates the effect of past experiences in how we perceive things. Kapoor’s installation invites curiosity when approaching multiple perspectives. Monet’s paintings reveal how nature and the environment alter our view. The heights of The John Hancock Center allow for transcendence and seeing the world from a higher perspective. I suppose synthesizing these lessons gives us one hopeful possibility—that regardless of how we see things in any given moment, we have the power to change how we see things. In other words, if our understanding and approach to life is based on our perspective, then all of life depends upon the frame we choose to adopt. What will your choice be?