On earth as it is in heaven?

On the journey between Tucson and Phoenix I saw a wooden legged billboard proclaiming:

“We’re moving earth to bring you heaven!!”

…..aah, where is Doc Sarvis when you find an audacious wood supported billboard so impudently beckoning destruction into the perfectly balanced beyond. Isn't it heaven already?

The desert ecosystem is a very static environment. There is always a sense of waiting. The plants are waiting for rain and the entire ecosystem is held in a stasis, surviving until there’s a return of resources. This is an environment which is rarely disturbed and recovers tremendously slowly if something has happened.

It’s meant to be an eternal lingering for all life forms. The taught, stringy animals feverishly stalk, searching the environment for each other, water and edible, less threatening plants. The fine adaptations enabling survival is acutely felt in the hills and communicated with every structure. From the spherical cacti with shallow root systems to the slender, delicate Palo Verde leaves, they all boldly proclaim the necessity to tread lightly through this place and keep moving.

Where the desert has been left alone, a subtle feeling of age permeates the landscape. The tall saguaro, thick trunked mesquite and any visible cacti exist simply because they’ve been left alone to grow for unknowable ages.

A saguaro needs at least 75 years before it grows the buds eventually creating the cliché arms. A mesquite tree can live 200 years without ever demanding the presence of a similarly aged oak tree. Size in a desert communicates age and human disregard. And yet a desert landscape can make a human of modest height feel gigantic, towering over the stout organisms. Disturbances can be detected decades after their damage occurred. Here, time is captured and sustained.

Mechanics that LIE

I love old apartments EXCEPT the plumbing. Inevitably there is some faucet which abhors the laws of physics. Ah, the joy of turning the cold water up only to be scalded. So I turn hot water down only to be scalded even more. I turn the hot water up and experience the north pole! My shower defies mechanical engineers and daily I revisit Eddy Izzards rant about turny buttons that lie (start at 3:50).

Mechanical engineers, I beg of you....WHY must your machines defy the laws of physics? Tell me it's pressure changes over time or faulty valves but these explanations fail to explain the consistency of machines that lie. I can replace the shower and still experience this frustrating phenomenon so common comics can use it to generate commensurate humorous experiences. Please get a grant to solve this!

It's this daily morning jiggling of knobs, attempting to find the 1mm where the temperature is perfect....this morning routine of wasting gallons of water avoiding freezing or burning my epidermis that starts my day. And of course, the urge to run through the house adorned with shampoo bubbles and towel wrapped tightly screaming "STOP USING TAPS! WHOSE USING TAPS?!?! KNOCK IT OFF!!!" This might scare my neighbors. But then, they aren't dealing with the fickle starship enterprise showerhead.

Re-seeing the city

"Pay attention to your dreams: when you go on a trip, in your dreams you will still be home. Then after you've come home you'll dream of where you were. It's a kind of jet lag of the consciousness." Barbara Kingsolver

At night I wander the city streets, wait for the subway and find myself in a mash-up of many locations as my consciousness overcomes the jet lag. I'm left with this craving which my rational brain know is unreasonable. But there it is....I'm longing to return to the city, pestered by this feeling of unfinished business. I'm sure as time flows onward, I'll readjust. But for now I keep this picture as my desktop background to satisfy my appetite for right angles, straight lines and oppressive concrete.

Transitions

The first grocery list after moving the first load of stuff into a new place reveals such insights. Often created in fury of distracted activity, the first grocery list is gutteral reaction of priorities and needs. Take for instance this list:

Coffee
Soymilk
TP
Paper towels
Wine
Sugar
Salt

Missing is any vehicle for the salt....just the idea that I MUST HAVE salt: its importance equals coffee and TP. As I fumble with the futon screws and attempt to determine how I fit into this new space, I will ponder the hierarchy of needs.
What would be on your first grocery list?

Eating past words

When I first entered graduate school and the Allen lab, the memorable Garcia met me for drinks one afternoon at this semi swanky place in Madison that no longer exists. It was a wonderful experience that helped me feel like part of the lab and there were specific moments I've carried with me that I now reflect upon with an Indian Jones type grin.
I distinctly remember him talking about how he loved the city....the continual stream of interesting experiences, the bustle of people, the night lights and flow of energy. At the time my reaction was repulsion at the thought of that type of life. I thought a 'country girl' like me could never adjust or feel comfortable in a big city. How could constant stimulation be healthy? How could the lack of privacy, space and solitude every be a good thing???? I vowed I would never, COULD never live in a big city. It wasn't for me....I would drown in the homosapien sea, go crazy and be sick with longing for forests, stars and horizons.
But opportunity called and I choked back my fear and disgust. And now, on my last day in the biggest city, I realize what Garcia was talking about. I get it. And yes, I could live in a big city....at least for a while (and as long as I don't have bedbugs:).

Pestering Questions

The other day a co-worker was asking about my experiences and my upcoming departure....he asked me a question I initially dismissed, but it tossed and turned around my mind the way questions often do.....

"Did you put down roots here?"

Now I do feel like I did put down roots in Philly last summer, I still feel some connection to the city and at least a few people...but here? In the transparent layer of dust covering the impenetrable cement? In a city where everything has a predetermined place and box to fit into??? Where even chaos is manufactured and structured? If there were soil I could sink my taproot into then maybe I could have put down some roots instead of flitting along the surface of things, dipping in for the occasional adventure.

I'm left singing along with Dolly Parton...."But I never felt right in a garden so different from me. I just longed to be gone....so the garden one day set me free. I hitched a ride with the wind and since he was my friend, I just let him decide where we'd gooo oo oo.
When flower grows wild it can always survive, Wild flowers don't care where they grow."