The Ghetto
March 2015
Washing Arugula
December 2014
*Only in AZ do we talk about the “winter” planting season. :)
To the Guy Who Told me I was the Hottest Girl on the Dance Floor
September 2014
I'm sorry you were offended/angry/hurt by my response to you when you leaned into my personal space at the end of the bar and brought your face close to mine so you could shout your pick up line over the music. “You know,” you said, your sweaty voice cracking with strain and your skin beading with perspiration, “You're the hottest girl on the dance floor.”
Let me back up and set the scene a bit. We're at a sports bar in the 'burbs. There's a local band with a hugely loyal following, playing there for the first time after their home of over a decade closed down a few months back. The band's here to break in the new digs, and I'm here to support them. I came to say hi to familiar faces, to give out hugs and cheek kisses, to drink beers and throw back whiskey. Mostly, I came to dance, to sway and twirl and roll my hips in time with the beat. Wanna make a band feel awesome? Go to their show and dance.
I was the girl in the long purple skirt and flowery blouse, with tortoiseshell glasses and curls peaking out from under a colorful kerchief. You were the heavyset older man in a Harley Davidson button-up and dad-jeans. I noticed you staring at me when I turned and walked off the dance floor and to the restroom during the first set. Your eyes followed as I strode past the bar and into the ladies room, and when I rejoined my friends grooving near the stage, you were still looking in my direction. You watched as I moved my body to the music. Our eyes met, and I smiled.
I do that, you know. As if to make up for years of teenage sullenness, I have grown into someone that smiles a lot, even at strangers. I laugh frequently (because life is HILARIOUS,) and if I'm feeling blissed out and happy, I tend to include anyone that crosses my path in that unique sunshine. So when I was out there on the dance floor, stomping and shaking and spinning so that my skirt flared out around me, and experiencing so very much joy in that moment, I was smiling. I was smiling inside and out, at my friends around me, at the band, at the bartender, and when our eyes met, at you. I smiled and let my glance slide away as I shimmied in a slow circle.
I didn't mind your stare. I stare at people all the time; beautiful men and women draw the gaze and hold it, and I find so many people beautiful. Add a little rhythm, and there's no averting one's eyes. Bodies dancing are hypnotically lovely; I'm not a skilled dancer, but I know my body and I know music, and I dance without inhibition. I don't mind if people stare.
Fast forward an hour or two, and I'm at the end of the bar standing next to one of my tribe. He's ordering a round from the bartender, and I'm waiting to help carry the half dozen drinks back to our waiting crowd. You walked behind and past, then circled back to place your 6ft 220lb bulk next to me. And that was your moment.
“You know, you're the hottest girl on the dance floor.”
Dude. Seriously.
It took me a few seconds of looking at your greasy grin to really process what you said, and when I was sure of what I heard I gave you a tight sarcastic smile and a double thumbs up. In an overwhelming display of perception, you threw your hands skyward in a sign of surrender before growling at me and turning away. “Oh forget it,” you snarled, smile replaced by a scowl. “Bitch.”
That hurt my feelings.
Jesus man, what was I supposed to say? Look, I'm not someone who's difficult to engage in conversation. I'm outgoing and social, and I like to talk to people. But “you're the hottest girl on the dance floor”? How were you expecting I would respond? What would have been the right answer?
You: “You know, you're the hottest girl on the dance floor.”
Me: “Oh my God, thank you so much!! Let's make out right now!!”
You: “You know, you're the hottest girl on the dance floor.”
Me: “Wow, really? You think I'm hot? No one's ever told me that before... Let's get married!”
You: “You know, you're the hottest girl on the dance floor.”
Me: Immediately starts stripping my clothes
Enough sarcasm. Compliments are enjoyable, and I'm not ashamed to admit they make me feel good, even when they come from strangers: the gentleman in the grocery store after I shave my head, who tells me I have a “right pretty face underneath that haircut,” a little girl in the park who says she likes my dress, a grandfatherly bloke that looks at me straight on and says my green hat perfectly matches my eyes. These are lovely sentiments and they make me blush, they make my heart feel full and they make me giggle. But it's a superficial pleasure, these compliments on my appearance, and it suffuses me with a warm glowing feeling that while very nice, is shallow and fades quickly. Only skin deep, it evaporates like steam.
Some compliments aren't sweet. Some don't make me feel admired and pretty; they make me feel objectified, as if I've been put on display as a idol of sexuality, as if my sex is the most obvious and valuable part of me, the only thing noteworthy. As if every moment of my existence is some twisted burlesque, a tease of what I have under my clothes. Catcalls, pursed lips, the shout of “Damn girl!” while I'm walking to the coffee shop; I'm not asking for this attention, but there it is, men feeling like they have to express to me they find me sexually attractive from thirty feet away. And so they do, leaving me uncertain and awkward, and sometimes a little fearful. Strangers, announcing in front of God and everyone they have taken an interest in my physical form - they don't see me as a person, they see me as a body, and when an individual is seen not for one's humanity, but for one's physicality, one becomes no more than an animal, a sack of meat and bones. People treat animals differently than they treat people, with an air of mastery, of ownership, and of superiority*, and they don't in general take an animal's thoughts, feelings, and needs into account when that animal is desired. People don't give animals choices, and when men objectify me they aren't giving me any choices either.
And so went your commentary, good Sir. You didn't tell me you liked my hair or my skirt. You didn't say you liked the way I double step on the ball of my left foot when dancing, and you didn't say you liked my smile. You didn't ask my name or if I was having a good time or what I was drinking. You didn't even say hello.
You didn't even say hello.
I don't like being treated like an animal. I don't know how to respond in a way that provides me any footing, and I certainly don't feel inclined to delve deeper into the interaction. I generally wish to shut down the experience as fast as possible, with as little conversation as I can manage.
Thus, the sarcastic smile. Thus the goofy insolent thumbs up. Thus the total rejection of any connection you might have been trying to cultivate.
You looked hurt for a second, then mad, and then you called me a name. I'm sorry you thought I was rude. I'm sorry if I injured your pride or your feelings, but my friend, you gave me no other option.
I don't know if you were looking for a chat, a pal, a quick lay, a steady girlfriend, or wife number three. I don't know if you were a little drunk and blurted out the first thing on your mind, or if you thought I'd be flattered by being declared “the hottest,” as if my Sunday afternoon of music and good vibes was some sort of pageant, the floor tiles from dance floor to lavatory a kinked catwalk. I don't know what you were expecting from me or what you were hoping for, but I know the way you approached me was a non-starter. It made me feel uncomfortably small, stripped of any humanity and reduced to a photo you might tear out of a magazine. It made me fearful of finding out what other thoughts you might be harboring.
I wasn't the hottest girl in the room that day (not by a long shot.) And I wasn't a bitch either. I was a grown woman defying my own objectification. Maybe you thought I should have said thank you. Well, I think you should have said hello to me. You should have asked my name, offered yours. I would have talked with you. I would have been nice. I would have treated you like a person.
*See also: Racism.
Gardenia
March 2014
March 2015
I am so fucking tired of living in the ghetto. For ten nights in a row, there's screaming coming from the house across the street, or the house to the east, or the one caddy corner across the alley. Angry, unhinged, male and female voices come clearly through the dark and land on my stoop, where I am sitting with my back against the door frame; it's 10:30 or 11 o'clock at night, and I am just trying to unwind from a twelve hour workday, every bit of it on my feet. I go inside and shut the door when I hear a vicious shriek followed by the sound of glass shattering.
There's a house behind me that has a motion activated security sensor. When it detects movement, an audio alarm rings out in the guise of a man's voice, declaring "Warning, you are under surveillance! Warning! You are under surveillance! The neighborhood cats trip it every twenty minutes, and so I am reminded, again and again throughout the night, that there's a mechanical man watching me.
The liquor store on the corner - it's three houses down from me, on the same side of the street - takes food stamps for alcohol. So I'm told - I've never been inside. But I believe it, because come the first of the month, my street sees an influx of the transient population, all of them emerging from the little corner shop swigging from paper bags and then passing out on the sidewalks. When they come to they walk slowly past my place, sometimes shuffling round my chain link fence to investigate the contents of my trash bins before moving on.
Every week my mailbox reveals a new sex offender notification. A mugshot, age, height, weight, the details of his (occasionally, her) crime: Sexual conduct with a minor older than 16, known to the perpetrator. Sexual conduct with a minor under 16 unknown to the perpetrator, sexual assault on a victim known to the perpetrator, kidnapping with a deadly weapon and sexual assault on a victim unknown to him... These folks have moved into the neighborhood, registered their new address, and now I'm being warned that danger's moved in two houses down.
It's dusty here, and dirty. The ghetto bird circles every night, it’s hum crescendoing until it rattles my windows, then fading as it moves away. Four times in the years I've lived here, the neighborhood's been blocked off by the police. I pull into the barricaded streets and roll down my window to talk with the police offer urgently approaching. "Ma'am, we are conducting a man hunt. You can't drive through here," he says. "But I live there," I answer, pointing. "Right there." He steps away from my car. "Ok," he replies. "Go inside and lock your doors. Don't come outside." I think about my dog door; I wonder if I remembered to deadbolt my back door.
I have a big dog. When someone tried to pry my window open last summer my german shepherd grabbed the man's hand and shook it the same way he used to kill squirrels. The man ran, and now I feel mostly safe.
I can afford it here. My job that keeps me just above poverty in exchange for fifty, sixty, sometimes seventy hours a week, catering to the privileged class that lives in mansions of scottsdale, or in the foothills around camelback, or the Phoenix high rises that overlook south mountain also allows me to cut a check each month for this space in the hood, which is not without charm and advantage, despite the lack of views and square footage. The original wood floors glow warmly, the crown moulding scrolls in lovely arches against the ten foot ceilings. When my feet hurt, I soak them in the enormous clawfoot bathtub.
I have a big yard with an amazing garden; everyday I spend some time outside, in the sunshine, cultivating and growing. I couldn't do that in the apartment that would be financially attainable for me in a nicer part of town.
I get to live alone. I have my privacy and my autonomy, the ability to leave dirty dishes in the sink or bring a lover home without worrying about whose routine I might be upsetting. I would have to have a roommate to live on one of the streets without yelling, without the tweakers that rush past, muttering and yanking at their hair.
I don't want to live in an apartment. I don't want a roommate. And there are many moments when the sun shines, when the neighborhood kids fly past on their bicycles shouting their childhood against the sound of tejano music and the smell of tortillas, when the phoenix skyline is framed against the most epic blue… I am happy, safe, and content.
But when night falls this sweetness goes away. It’s replaced with screams and sirens, dark figures and wasted souls. And I want to leave. I want to find a place where the golden daylight is replaced by nighttime calm, where I am not suspicious of who might be walking past my front door, and what they might want. I open my door to the warm night and sit down on my stoop, scanning the street through the haze of smoke spiraling off my cigarette, and I am so tired. So fucking tired of living in the ghetto.
Washing Arugula
December 2014
I’ll never stop loving the feeling of water over my hands as I wash them. These bright, vibrant, leafy greens from my backyard come clean of dirt and dust and the occasional whitefly as I shuffle them under the cold water, gently massaging each length with my fingertips, so as to prevent accidental ingestion of the stray garden hitch hiker. Some are as long as my forearm, and I tear them into bite size pieces before dropping them into the colander. Some are only an inch long, and so tender; I rinse those carefully, and can’t help but bring most of them lips, wet and fresh.
The feeling of gratitude is new, overwhelming, each time. The earth straight up opened herself and gave me a gift, coaxed only by a little water and my scattered, sporadic attention, and now, on a random Monday, I am receiving a bounty that would be $6.99 at the local AJ’s. I’ve been lavished this same amount of arugula three times a week for the past month. And though I wouldn’t begrudge Mama Nature a sudden stinginess, I anticipate she’ll keep offering up these jewels, slavishly, for at least another 6 weeks. The arugula will go eventually, of course, but the chard in the next bed over is looking quite lovely…
Everything came from seed this season. Don’t be impressed, it’s not some great act of intention or purism. It was out of necessity; when the time came to start thinking about what was going in the ground this winter*, I was poor. Destitute. Broke. It happens…
I didn’t have the fifty bucks it might have cost me at Baker’s Nursery to plant my ever expanding annual boxes. But I had seeds. Lots of them, bought or gifted or somehow collected, until there’s a whole shoebox full. Arugula, chard, parsley, romaine, broccoli, sugar peas and carrots; little packets of dna no bigger than a period, clasped in neatly folded envelopes and stashed in my closet.
I sowed. I grew. With the help of some t5 fluorescents and five dollars of plastic trays, I conquered.
The arugula was tough enough to go into the ground at the end of October, when the idea of a sudden return to 109 degrees was firmly dismissed, and I ruthlessly pulled out last spring’s withered peppers along with the zucchini and melons that never really prospered. I dug out little cavities in the soil with my fingertips, then tucked my seedlings in as if for a long, safe night, pressing the soil around their tender stems like a kiss.
And now here I am. Standing over my sink, handling the leaves that came from that shoebox in my closet.
This is the moment. This is why I garden. A Phoenix December is streaming through my open side door and the smell of tortilla shells and lime is lingering in my kitchen. I’m going to eat these leaves with cheese and avocado, rolled up in a taco with diced tomato and a little of the cilantro from the clay pot next to the front gate. I wash them and feel thanks. I bruise their ends and bring them to my face to inhale the peppery aroma, and I settle them inside their corn wrappers with my heart racing.
They’re going to be delicious
*Only in AZ do we talk about the “winter” planting season. :)
To the Guy Who Told me I was the Hottest Girl on the Dance Floor
September 2014
I'm sorry you were offended/angry/hurt by my response to you when you leaned into my personal space at the end of the bar and brought your face close to mine so you could shout your pick up line over the music. “You know,” you said, your sweaty voice cracking with strain and your skin beading with perspiration, “You're the hottest girl on the dance floor.”
Let me back up and set the scene a bit. We're at a sports bar in the 'burbs. There's a local band with a hugely loyal following, playing there for the first time after their home of over a decade closed down a few months back. The band's here to break in the new digs, and I'm here to support them. I came to say hi to familiar faces, to give out hugs and cheek kisses, to drink beers and throw back whiskey. Mostly, I came to dance, to sway and twirl and roll my hips in time with the beat. Wanna make a band feel awesome? Go to their show and dance.
I was the girl in the long purple skirt and flowery blouse, with tortoiseshell glasses and curls peaking out from under a colorful kerchief. You were the heavyset older man in a Harley Davidson button-up and dad-jeans. I noticed you staring at me when I turned and walked off the dance floor and to the restroom during the first set. Your eyes followed as I strode past the bar and into the ladies room, and when I rejoined my friends grooving near the stage, you were still looking in my direction. You watched as I moved my body to the music. Our eyes met, and I smiled.
I do that, you know. As if to make up for years of teenage sullenness, I have grown into someone that smiles a lot, even at strangers. I laugh frequently (because life is HILARIOUS,) and if I'm feeling blissed out and happy, I tend to include anyone that crosses my path in that unique sunshine. So when I was out there on the dance floor, stomping and shaking and spinning so that my skirt flared out around me, and experiencing so very much joy in that moment, I was smiling. I was smiling inside and out, at my friends around me, at the band, at the bartender, and when our eyes met, at you. I smiled and let my glance slide away as I shimmied in a slow circle.
I didn't mind your stare. I stare at people all the time; beautiful men and women draw the gaze and hold it, and I find so many people beautiful. Add a little rhythm, and there's no averting one's eyes. Bodies dancing are hypnotically lovely; I'm not a skilled dancer, but I know my body and I know music, and I dance without inhibition. I don't mind if people stare.
Fast forward an hour or two, and I'm at the end of the bar standing next to one of my tribe. He's ordering a round from the bartender, and I'm waiting to help carry the half dozen drinks back to our waiting crowd. You walked behind and past, then circled back to place your 6ft 220lb bulk next to me. And that was your moment.
“You know, you're the hottest girl on the dance floor.”
Dude. Seriously.
It took me a few seconds of looking at your greasy grin to really process what you said, and when I was sure of what I heard I gave you a tight sarcastic smile and a double thumbs up. In an overwhelming display of perception, you threw your hands skyward in a sign of surrender before growling at me and turning away. “Oh forget it,” you snarled, smile replaced by a scowl. “Bitch.”
That hurt my feelings.
Jesus man, what was I supposed to say? Look, I'm not someone who's difficult to engage in conversation. I'm outgoing and social, and I like to talk to people. But “you're the hottest girl on the dance floor”? How were you expecting I would respond? What would have been the right answer?
You: “You know, you're the hottest girl on the dance floor.”
Me: “Oh my God, thank you so much!! Let's make out right now!!”
You: “You know, you're the hottest girl on the dance floor.”
Me: “Wow, really? You think I'm hot? No one's ever told me that before... Let's get married!”
You: “You know, you're the hottest girl on the dance floor.”
Me: Immediately starts stripping my clothes
Enough sarcasm. Compliments are enjoyable, and I'm not ashamed to admit they make me feel good, even when they come from strangers: the gentleman in the grocery store after I shave my head, who tells me I have a “right pretty face underneath that haircut,” a little girl in the park who says she likes my dress, a grandfatherly bloke that looks at me straight on and says my green hat perfectly matches my eyes. These are lovely sentiments and they make me blush, they make my heart feel full and they make me giggle. But it's a superficial pleasure, these compliments on my appearance, and it suffuses me with a warm glowing feeling that while very nice, is shallow and fades quickly. Only skin deep, it evaporates like steam.
Some compliments aren't sweet. Some don't make me feel admired and pretty; they make me feel objectified, as if I've been put on display as a idol of sexuality, as if my sex is the most obvious and valuable part of me, the only thing noteworthy. As if every moment of my existence is some twisted burlesque, a tease of what I have under my clothes. Catcalls, pursed lips, the shout of “Damn girl!” while I'm walking to the coffee shop; I'm not asking for this attention, but there it is, men feeling like they have to express to me they find me sexually attractive from thirty feet away. And so they do, leaving me uncertain and awkward, and sometimes a little fearful. Strangers, announcing in front of God and everyone they have taken an interest in my physical form - they don't see me as a person, they see me as a body, and when an individual is seen not for one's humanity, but for one's physicality, one becomes no more than an animal, a sack of meat and bones. People treat animals differently than they treat people, with an air of mastery, of ownership, and of superiority*, and they don't in general take an animal's thoughts, feelings, and needs into account when that animal is desired. People don't give animals choices, and when men objectify me they aren't giving me any choices either.
And so went your commentary, good Sir. You didn't tell me you liked my hair or my skirt. You didn't say you liked the way I double step on the ball of my left foot when dancing, and you didn't say you liked my smile. You didn't ask my name or if I was having a good time or what I was drinking. You didn't even say hello.
You didn't even say hello.
I don't like being treated like an animal. I don't know how to respond in a way that provides me any footing, and I certainly don't feel inclined to delve deeper into the interaction. I generally wish to shut down the experience as fast as possible, with as little conversation as I can manage.
Thus, the sarcastic smile. Thus the goofy insolent thumbs up. Thus the total rejection of any connection you might have been trying to cultivate.
You looked hurt for a second, then mad, and then you called me a name. I'm sorry you thought I was rude. I'm sorry if I injured your pride or your feelings, but my friend, you gave me no other option.
I don't know if you were looking for a chat, a pal, a quick lay, a steady girlfriend, or wife number three. I don't know if you were a little drunk and blurted out the first thing on your mind, or if you thought I'd be flattered by being declared “the hottest,” as if my Sunday afternoon of music and good vibes was some sort of pageant, the floor tiles from dance floor to lavatory a kinked catwalk. I don't know what you were expecting from me or what you were hoping for, but I know the way you approached me was a non-starter. It made me feel uncomfortably small, stripped of any humanity and reduced to a photo you might tear out of a magazine. It made me fearful of finding out what other thoughts you might be harboring.
I wasn't the hottest girl in the room that day (not by a long shot.) And I wasn't a bitch either. I was a grown woman defying my own objectification. Maybe you thought I should have said thank you. Well, I think you should have said hello to me. You should have asked my name, offered yours. I would have talked with you. I would have been nice. I would have treated you like a person.
*See also: Racism.
Gardenia
March 2014
It's blooming.
I'm going to lead you to its little corner, bypassing the bright petunias and geraniums, the salpiglossis that stand erect near the front gate and the sweet primroses that edge the border of my blueberry bushes, and then I'm going to ask you to bring your face close to the gentle flower that's been steadily, shyly unfolding it's petals for the past few days. Really get close to it. Let the soft folds brush against your upper lip and bring your nose right down into its center. And then breathe.
No, not like that. Don't just inhale as if you're taking in the hum drum city air or the scent of a familiar room, as if breathing in was a routine operation that we undertake a thousand times a day. Close your eyes, quiet the mind. Really breathe. Inspire.
Take it in slowly. Draw with some intention, as if you were taking the first drag of a cigarette after being nicotine withdrawn for days and days. Let the perfumed air slowly filter through your nostrils and swirl gently against the upper palette. Let it flow leisurely down the back of the throat, falling down the windpipe and then expanding the lungs from the bottom up. Let it fill you.
You'll become aware of the scent and all its profound sweetness within the first few seconds. As you delve deeper into the olfactory experience, light shut out and sounds fading away, you'll notice a sharpness, like the sound of an oboe or the taste of ginger. That will fade to a roundness, a fullness that you will perceive in a way beyond respiration as the beautiful little molecules come to rest in key-in-lock fashion on the neuroreceptors in your brain.
It will make you high.
Gardenias are a tropical, and will thrive here if kept consistently moist and sun-protected during the hotter months. But they only bloom when the temperature is right, when the nights are chilly but tolerable and the days are blessedly warm. It's a short, twice yearly window here in Phoenix, and I intend to savor it.
If you come over, I'll want you to savor it too.
The Queens on Wine
January 2012
The Queens feel that wine is most important. Second in fact, only to chocolate when it comes to kitchen staples. Out of milk? Bread? Eggs? No problem. Low on wine? All is dropped so someone can make a run to the store.
Yes, we like our wine (red wine, to be specific) and drink it regularly and frequently. Never much at a time; bottles in the Queens’ home are usually open for a day or two before they are drained and re-corked, at which point they join their empty fellows in collecting dust on a corner of the countertop. It’s rare for the Queens to finish a bottle the same night it’s opened, and even on those seldom occasions, it only comes out to two glasses per queen; not enough to constitute a drinking problem*.
Wine adds such a lovely color to an evening. A glass of red is warming and soothing, sweet and tangy and bitter and complex – much like the Queens. The bulb of a wine glass fits perfectly in the palm, and there’s something sexy about the stem; it invites idle fingers to trace their way up and down its length. A glass placed in a friend’s hand is a welcome, an offering, a gift, and an invitation: “Sit down. Be easy. Enjoy.” And refilling that glass a time or two makes for low lit, lingering evenings, as we open ourselves to late night conversation, the kind that’s heartfelt and vulnerable.
Then there’s food. The multi-layered flavors of a good pinot noir or cab blend complement and enhance so many of the wonderful things we eat; it’s as if everything put in our mouths becomes twice as amazing, twice as satisfying for the presence of something ruby jeweled or dark purple. When cooking, a glass of wine keeps Queen Emily from eating as she goes, and makes time in the kitchen into a celebration.
Mostly, it’s the toast. We Queens pour a glass and raise it with intention, with love and gratitude and awareness, fully aware of the blessing that is that particular moment. Not just the wine, but everything. From the roof over our head to the food in our fridge, the amazing people we have in our lives, the sunshine and breezes, our dogs, and everything else in the beautiful lives we are living, that moment when we bring the wine to our lips is an affirmation of all of it. It is our prayer and mantra, and a way we connect to the grand everything that we are a part of, and we say it whether we are the Queens in our simple privacy, or together with 100 other shining souls. We pour, we smile and offer our cheers, then we clink our glasses, and we murmur our affirmation: “To us.”
*This paragraph is solely for the benefit of the Queen Mother, should she ever read this posting.
A Hike in the Superstitions
January 2008
The temps were low when Chloe and I loaded ourselves and our gear into the truck on Sunday morning, and the mid-sixties air pebbled my skin as I accelerated to 75, making my way along the freeway to the promised freedom awaiting me at the First Water trail head. Chloe's nose was pressed against the window, and her tail twitched occasionally. She was anxious for some open space, too.
The sun rose and the shadows shifted while I drove, and the monoliths that make up the two dimensional city bound view of the Superstition Mountains revealed themselves in shades of orange and black and purple and red. The mountain became rounded instead of flat, the road became dirt instead of pavement, and I arrived at my first destination.
Eric's house is at the very base of an extinct volcano chain that takes up a greedy amount of horizon. Made of straw and weathered reclaimants, it seems a humble structure only when compared to the massive sandstone castles behind it. When sized against the un-imaginative stucco boxes that imprison suburbanites, his home seems a cave in a storm, a lifeboat in an ocean.
It really is made of straw. Eric's spent a large portion of the past five years crafting his straw bale home with his own hands and heart, and a keen eye for sustainable methods. His reward is an unbelievable home with his own efforts embedded in the walls and floors. The bedrooms are divided by ashy wooden doors that swing out on pegs. They were painted at one point, but most of the pigment had freed itself by the time Eric found them leaning against a barn in peasant Mexico. The walls are two feet thick, and comforting in their sturdiness.
Despite the home's splendor, I couldn't be wholly absorbed by custom niches, handcrafted arches, and the saguaro skeletons that bridge floor and ceiling in the living room. A part of me had to remain seated in front of the large bay window, gazing out at the glowing cliffs that framed our ultimate destination.
Eric and Chloe and I got to the trail head and waited for the rest of our party, chatting with other hikers as they disappeared into the anonymity of the Sonora wilderness. Chloe kept circling me as I leaned against the truck, shooting me anxious looks and muted whines before trotting to the trail head and looking back at me. "Come on," I could hear her say, "let's go."
A sweet couple; older, graying and soft pulls up and parks, then gets out and stares at the trail. When I look down the rocky path I see warm breezes, carrying the dusty smell of cactus and crush. I see the darting sprints of chuckwalas and geckos, the soft flutter of bright moths and the solemn circling of vultures. I see solitude, and bliss. The woman looks at Eric and I, decked in our Columbia boots and camelbacks, and asks us, "You really go down there?" There's a pause before Eric answers. "Yes," he says, his french accent unheard in just one syllable. Her head whips to him and her mouth opens in surprise. "Aren't you afraid of getting lost?" Eric answers "no," and I gaze down the trail again. I wonder what she sees.
Our party completes itself and there is a flutter of activity. Last minute sunscreen, securing of hats, and checking of water consumes us for a few moments and then we're off. Chloe marches along directly behind me, staying in just past the lift of my heel and keeping to a space that prevents me from seeing her over my left or right shoulder, or between my footfalls. She is invisible to me, but I can feel her.
We hike through dry washes, over boulders and around forests of cholla. We educate Tobias, who is visiting from Northern Cali, and to whom the sticky spiny life around us must be as alien as the Martian surface, on flora and fauna, and desert geology. We come to a fork, blatant as a metaphor, and we must choose between left and the possibility of water, or right and deeper into the mountain range. We opt for the adventure, and head right, down a trail that Laura swears will loop us back to the trail head. We trust her on that count (well placed trust) and also on her claim that this way won't bring us much in the way of elevation gain (read: hiking uphill - this trust is not well placed, we find as we huff up a half mile section of steeply elevating trail.) But it was a good decision, we decide, as the trail takes us into scenery dominated by Weaver's Needle, the magma plug of a long gone volcano that stabs skyward and pierces the clouds.
We hike three or four miles, and the trail starts to curve gently, spiraling back to the trail head. A lunch break, and then we are headed back. New ground, to be sure, but we are headed back to civilization as surely as if we were walking backwards.
At the end of the hike, we've put nearly nine miles on our shoes, along with a coat of desert grime that is unnecessarily burrowing itself into my skin - it's already in my blood and bones and soul.
We go back to Eric's haven, and watch the cloud cover paint and repaint the mountains as we gorge on goat cheese and pears, rice pilaf and spinach salad with strawberries. Eric delights us all with a creamy custard with caramel, and a sharp lemon tart (Tobias ate like - a dozen pieces.) We relax, the guitar comes out and we listen to music and the weather's windy counterpoint.
When I climb back into the truck and open the door for Chloe, she curls into a compact ball and sleeps on the front seat. I know how she feels. Tired, but revived. Weary, but satiated. Calm.
It was a nice day.
