Flight Dreams: A Life in the Midwestern Landscape (Singular Lives)

569 Pages·1998·1.2 MB·English

by  Lisa Knopp

Flight Dreams : A Life in the Midwestern
title:
Landscape Singular Lives
author: Knopp, Lisa.
publisher: University of Iowa Press
isbn10 | asin: 0877456453
print isbn13: 9780877456452
ebook isbn13: 9781587291289
language: English
Knopp, Lisa,--1956- , Middle West--
subject
Biography.
publication date: 1998
lcc: CT275.K659A3 1998eb
ddc: 977/.033/092
Knopp, Lisa,--1956- , Middle West--
subject:
Biography.
Page i
Flight Dreams
Page ii
SINGULAR LIVES
The Iowa Series in North American Autobiography
Albert E. Stone, Series Editor
Page iii
Flight Dreams
A Life in the Midwestern Landscape
By Lisa Knopp
FOREWORD BY ALBERT E. STONE
University of Iowa Press
Iowa City
Page iv
University of Iowa Press, Iowa City 52242
Copyright © 1998 by the University of Iowa Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Design by Richard Hendel
http://www.uiowa.edu/~uipress
No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and
recording, without permission in writing from the publisher. All
reasonable steps have been taken to contact copyright holders of
material used in this book. The publisher would be pleased to make
suitable arrangements with any whom it has not been possible to
reach. In order to protect the privacy of some individuals who appear
in this book, names and other identifying characteristics have been
changed. Printed on acid-free paper
Library of Congress
Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Knopp, Lisa, 1956
Flight Dreams: a life in the midwestern
landscape / by Lisa Knopp; foreword by
Albert E. Stone.
p. cm.(Singular lives)
ISBN 0-87745-645-3
1. Knopp, Lisa, 1956 . 2. Middle West
Biography. I. Title. II. Series.
CT275.K659A3 1998
977´ 033´092dc21
[B] 98-25213
98 99 00 01 02 P 5 4 3 2 1
Page v
For my children,
Ian and Meredith
Page vii
Contents
Foreword ix
by Albert E. Stone
Acknowledgments xiii
Local Traffic 1
Outside 11
Not-Catholic 17
Last Rites 27
August Afternoon 34
Hearsay 40
Flight Dreams 55
Summer Reading 65
Sheet Music 87
Gainful Employment 104
The Imagined Gaze 115
Mistaken Identity 127
The Sidetrack 140
My TM Story 157
Unfinished 179
Flash and Wonder 199
Real Work 204
Writing Nature 219
The First Day 231
Walking with Meredith 247
The Edge of Perception 263
Spirit Walk 273
Omen-catcher 279
Page ix
Foreword
Albert E. Stone
On its face, any analogy between this American autobiography, Lisa
Knopp's Flight Dreams: A Memoir, and the Chinese classic Tao Te
Ching could prove far-fetched. If, however, we consult the ancient
Oriental definitions of the Way (the Tao) and Virtue or Character of
the Self (the Te), we can see how aptly the Chinese text serves as a
pattern for this midwestern woman's life story. The Tao is translated as
the Way in triple terms: first, along the traveled roads of ordinary life;
then, leading off into the realm of nature; and finally, escorting the
self beyond this world of time and matter. Te, too, proves a suitable
model, for it has been translated as character or moral force as exerted
externally by a self who feels virtue or rightness as a powerful internal
presence. Westerners could, therefore, read Te as the modern word
"identity." If so, Knopp's story of her self in its several worlds will
manifest both internal energy (will, desire, drive, dream) and external
actions in social and public relationships. Taken together, inside and
outside define the mature individual. Is this not a far more adequate
definition of the autobiographical enterprise than the now happily
outdated American notion of a self becoming wholly distinct from and
independent of others? Lisa Knopp testifies to this broader
understanding of a Singular Life. So, too, she argues, do most women
and many nature writers from Thoreau to Aldo Leopold to Annie
Dillard. Flight Dreams thus demonstrates how one midwestern life
story moves naturally (but never smoothly) from everyday experience,
to the realm of wild nature outside of town, and beyond both into
ineffable cosmic consciousness.
The circumstances and characters of Knopp's Way are both message
of and obstacle to her narrative. Talking too candidly about family and