A gloomy Sunday morning greeted the ‘Rose Day’ of the Valentine’s week mocking the apprehensive cold of a lazy boring day at home, here in Wichita. The sunshine peeped into my room through the half-open blinds and the first chapter of my novel craved for my concentration. The trees, having robbed off their fall colors were shinning in serenity as a sudden text around noon brought in a zephyr of happiness and love. I ran towards the door in my disheveled hair, putting on a long coat to hide my pajamas. Koushik was standing right in front of my house. And the very first thing I wanted to do was to introduce him to the lake, who has been my friend since the past two years and often gave me inspiration to weave words of poetry. A phone call from Subho and Cathrine transported us to a completely different dimension. It was decided. We were to go for a long drive, right away.

Mid-west never fails to amaze us, and even after visiting the enchanting Big Sur of California, I can’t help loving this place. Through Oliver we drove… the four of us, Koushik, Cathrine, Subho and me. We didn’t race against the wind. We were the elements of the wind ourselves. In the cold-studded barren weather, the harmony of life colored our Rose-Day. The chilly wind kept us warm, the ebullience sprinkling happiness, borne out of love and friendship. The changing speed of our car, lovingly called Urvashi (the name given by Subho), the exchange of words, and little wild flowers of silence etched a beautiful memory in the blank canvas of our lives.

If you come to visit Wichita, no site will tell you to take the road straight to Oliver for there is no State Park or official scenic spot here. But there is a life, here, in the rusty road, where the technology gave up to nature, in the muddy roads and naked grasslands. Peace. Serenity. Life. To pause the rat-race and look at ourselves. Just for once. To forget the hurry, the anxiety, the stress, to embellish our souls with happiness, in its purest form. The loving words of friends and the responsibility of the person who means most to you. Like the wind and the sun who protect the nature, without the cemented roads, without the interference of the state, where geography is just a mere word in the dictionary and a subject we were taught in high school.

Our feet tapped to the songs, emanating from the radio, from our hearts, in languages, in gestures, in silly banters and in the aurora of an unexpected happiness, the joy of running away from a protected shell, through the never-ending road, through the grasslands, glowing in colors of the gold, barren like the uncertainty of our lives, disseminating the aroma of a promising spring, of fluffiness, like us, like our lives, friends-turned family gloating a bond sparkling like the sunshine in the cold winter. The roses of Rose-Day bloomed in the clandestine beauty of an otherwise mundane road, a grassland, growing in the thorns of our perception, of shared feelings and bonds, unfurling the petals of love, friendship and togetherness, not one, but many, not ‘I’, ‘Him’, ‘Her’ or ‘Them’, but ‘Us.’ Mid-west is beautiful, perhaps the most beautiful places on earth; mid-west is a painter, who draws a new color from the shades of black and white. And I found the painting, through our lives, in the little journeys like this one, escaping into a world of our own, a world belonging to the mid-west and us.