Reflections on Sunsets in Western Kansas

I have had the pleasure of crisscrossing, bisecting, and dissecting the numerous highways that interconnect the 2,800 miles of America. I remember on a drive from my parents’ home to my undergraduate in the Heartland, I had gotten this free Audible audiobook for download, and the options were limited, but they did have one of Colin Cowherd’s books available, so as a casual listener to The Herd for most of my life as a fan of sports radio, I said, What the hell.

I don’t remember a lot from it. The book or the drive. The drive through middle America is not particularly memorable when you do it regularly. Reaching the Mississippi is really it. (which I do take small reverence in each time I do). That drive in particular was nothing special. The book did give me two statistics that have stuck with me.

The first seems harder now to find the legitimate source he used, but at least one spot has it in Britain: 1 in 5 sports-playing men think they could have gone pro if they had not had an injury or a coach who held them back. Around the same time, a study from the NCAA said 75% of Men’s college basketball players thought they would go pro. (1.6% did at the time).

I remember my mom sitting me down when I was 14 years old and telling me in the firm, cold way that moms can sometimes deal in.

“You’re not talented enough to be a pro hockey player or football player. You’re handsome to me, but you don’t act or sing. So you’re not going to Hollywood. Books—school is the thing that’s going to open doors for you.”

The other stat that has stuck with me was that most Americans don’t move more than 25 miles away from their hometown. At least how I remember it. My cursory research shows that the actual number at that time was 18 miles. Chicago, for reference, is 10 square miles end-to-end.

The drive through Western Kansas and Eastern Colorado is one of my favorite drives I’ve ever done. There is something serene about enjoying the Flint Hills as the sun sets across large swaths of grain and corn. When you're in a plane, you can see all the nice grids laid out across the middle of farmland neatly organized; it feels so… orderly. Like each plot of land was specifically created in the American puzzle to be put in these neat plots outlined and connected by the threads of highways that make up the tapestry of America.

When I drive west, I think not infrequently about Manifest Destiny. The divine right of the United States to stretch from sea to shining sea. We played a live version of the Oregon Trail in my 5th grade class. We had to create bios for our families we drew out of a hat, and there were different activities that we had to do each day that gave us different tribulations or successes. The only one I remember doing is to keep my wagon train alive and skip something like 7 days of travel to get to the end of the Trail. It was to flip a quarter from one end of the room to the other—into a small side-of-desk trash can. (I nailed it.). When going west now, I think of the ease with which I am able to do it. My little 4-banger has the power of 145 horses. The months-long journey west during the first 100 years along the dozen or so trails that, if braved, lead to the promise of new life. I think about what my ancestors were doing to make their story. How I have navigated large swaths of this country. Seen the sunset on the Columbia River Gorge & Puget Sound, Miami’s beaches, and the City that Never City. My favorite sunsets are on the plains and Flint Hills of Western Kansas.

Manifest Destiny. What a reptilian notion.

When the Cheyenne and Arapahoe people lived freely on the land, they would get to see the end of the day from their settlements and could see no end in sight on the horizon for hundreds of years, and then suddenly and viciously, it was ripped from them and Frankensteined back together in a patchwork vaguely recognizable as what it should be, but a monstrosity nonetheless.

It is hard, for me, to not be romantic about the sunsets on the prairie. Even as the mile markers pass, each enumerating the scars of the railroad sutures laid long ago. I know there’s passage of the trails that still show the deep cuts of wagon trains long treaded over and over that deepened the lacerations of violence, displacement, and promises. Blood and sweat long spilled and soaked into soil and fertilized it again, so the next generation is able to realize the failed covenants of those preceding them.

I have long held that the center of the universe is when you are among the dizzying displays that New York City has to offer. I posit, if aliens were to come down tomorrow, NYC is a pretty good bet for where they would start. The flow of people, the towering structures, the cacophony of sounds. It is an incredible reminder about how small we truly are.

Though it feels like you are the center of the universe, that comes as the pastures and grains whip by the window, only being broken by the bright yellow lines that remind us of the throughway across the body of the country and the large green signs letting us know how many miles to an oasis, and the sun begins its encore number. It starts slow; the waning yellows begin to slowly, reluctantly give way to smoldering vermillion and crimson bands of light in the canopy above. The horses in the engine of the car create a hum as they keep the pistons pumping—precisely in time. The whine of the engine breaks with the clouds, and hues change to a rosy pink and lilac palette. They spill in the rush for creation. Across the vista they coalesce in burgundy pools that quickly extinguish into black as the sun plunges below the skyline. The descent creates an explosion of promise and rains down invisible showers of possibilities to be realized. The final strokes of the sun's brush are small dabs, flecks, and puffs that come about like the curtain closing, catching ever so slightly on the supports that abut the tract as it rounds across the stage.

The world is mine—if I want it.

The latent desire for more. That sensation deep in each of your cells, when activated, comes to life in an overwhelming buzz—the frequency of desire forms a low vibration on the edges of your skin. You wonder if you misread the weather reports because it feels like a storm is coming. The static electricity is tactile. The horizon is forever; how am I not forever? I know I won’t live for eternity, but can’t I build something that forces me to return once I am long gone? No life is the same life lived twice, but shouldn’t it be possible to chisel your own mark into the world? I believe the sky opening up to infinity means I am infinite. I refuse to not leave a mark somewhere. That even once my name is long forgotten, my presence will be felt. The marching to be something more than I am is to make sure I am able to stake my claim. Drive yet another spike into the ground, setting a fence pole, bringing the vast expanse of the horizon to heel. The call of the prospects of the future is terrifying but sweet. It is a siren that sings in melodies that are only heard by me.

Nevertheless, they’re not only heard by me; the siren song that excites my heart has stirred hearts across generations. Sometimes, for good, the drive to seek freedom and to give something better to those around you is noble, but this rousing emotion in men's hearts can override the most good-natured amongst us. Man, asking for more is natural; it seems almost evolutionary. I am not here to argue whether or not it is; I don’t know. Early humans developed agriculture and then agrarian societies and then larger and more complicated settlements and then cities to conquer and to spill blood in the name of More. The iron was laid to stitch this Frankenstein’s monster together. When our (white) forefathers came West, the melody of More was their motivation. More land, More space, More opportunity. Did the beat of the march rise to a crescendo when the sun began its dance on the skyline and propel them forward, further, flung into the Great Unknown? They held a steadfast belief that God had divined this magnificent country just for them. If I stake my name and bring about what is for me and mine, then where is there anything that speaks about why I cannot build cathedrals to the Self? Laying down the roots, wherever desired, and beginning to construct the hell of their choosing. The pandemonium in their breasts trounces any chance of understanding and responsibility. Destiny lies just beyond the horizon. There is toil yet to be had laying track, picking gold out of the split veins of the loam, and tilling the earth to give a hint of better circumstances, even at the potential cost to them.

This must go somewhere.

I see the Sun setting on the open country, and I can release a deep exhale. The moment that comes after the vibration of More is a sublime calm. A realization that if this world turns out to be all that there is, we should be so lucky to get to see something so spectacular. I wish there was a way to capture that feeling. It is shocking to me how over the last century and a half we haven’t found a way to extract, brew, filter, or ferment this feeling and sell it to the masses. Humans have fashioned a fake sun, captured a fraction of the power of the behemoth, and trapped it in cylindrical glass tubes that can be used to grow and burn, but we still haven’t found a way to bottle sunsets.

I’ve been to the Coors factory in Golden—the thing that impressed me most was the efficiency. The precise, calculated machinations whirling and spinning hundreds of thousands of ounces of processed aluminum and liquid cheer. If it were possible to pluck a handful of rays from the sunset, a single strand of lilac, a thread of burgundy, and a line of rosy pink, it could be processed and synthesized for consumption. Somehow the process would create a recipe. A Coca-Cola-style formula that can be marketed to the masses. The industrial taps would soon pulse and discharge concentrated sunset into neat cans or bottles. Soon after, the orderly rows of vessels will wind their way through the manufactory. Siloed and organized by size or cure, each barcode scanned corresponds to which ailment or moment. An instant panacea. When feeling anxious, a nip of Sunset will instantly set you at ease. When sick, 1 tablespoon as needed, and it will remind you there are worse fates than being sick. Depressed? The sunset recommends 3 tablespoons every 4 hours, and you will remember that each day allows for something splendid. An instant hit of hope for almost all of life’s ills.

No doubt the process would be corrupted as the maximization of profits and machinations of capitalism persist. Even our most basic necessities fall prey to the daunting appetite of free enterprise. The sun is an unlimited resource in our lifetime and several million years time, but if we slowly began to deplume the sunset’s filaments, it is almost a scientific inevitability that there is something humans would find a way to wring every molecule of money-making - More from it. Until the sun was no longer able to set across the globe. All that would remain would be a husk that would twitch and tremble at the end of each day.

There is a litany of reasons for not bottling sunsets. If there was, we would have. Since there is not, we must venture forth and see the sunset that stirs our hearts fiercely. I don’t claim to be an authority on what you should feel during sunsets; I can only speak for myself. The taste of freedom on the edge of tomorrow is palpable to me. The colors break, the earth spins, spilling the colors over the sky, and as the sun settles into its nightly spot, there is nothing that cannot be mine. What drives this lust for More. Why can’t everyone have this? Is there something special about me? My life, my station, is laughable in the scheme of a sunset. Who am I in my caveman thinking to deny anyone this feeling of freedom and then the feeling of serenity? I do not.

The sun I witness across the plains of Kansas is the same sun that set on the Cheyenne and Arapahoe as night fell on their peaceful existence. I do not have a cure-all for the wicked gardens sowed in the times preceding me. I am grateful to be able to see the sun close a day on the prairie and keep my tender heart. I want for More to not be hindered by someone else. The sunset that moves me profoundly also moves others. The vibration in our fingertips is the march of thousands of souls before us all trudging a course of happy fortune.

The world is ours—if we want it.

I am reminded of John Brown. As he was led to the gallows, allegedly, he smiled and said, “This is a beautiful country. I had not seen it before.”

I hope everyone gets to see the sunset of the Plains of Western Kansas and tactile freedom in their fingertips because of it.