Amazingly, I thought I heard a helicopter, and I thought to myself, "How funny! When I'm in a building, I hear machine sounds as Tibetan chimes and bells, and now, I am in nature and I hear a helicopter." I kept looking up and all I saw were gulls. Then, a military jet shot across the sky, and a helicopter bobbed along behind. Ah, Hah! It is hard to escape.
Vicki sent me a book yesterday called "The Last Cheater's Waltz, Beauty and Violence in the Desert Southwest." It is by Ellen Meloy. She describes the beauty of the southwest, while contrasting it with all that has been done to it, and imposed upon it. One minute I am wanting to move there tomorrow. The next I worry about the residual pollution. She visits the White Sands Missile Range and Los Alamos. I learn how quickly the plants came back after the bombing of Hiroshima. Their roots were deep. I am comforted by that. My roots are deep too. I like to doodle daisies, and now, my doodled daisies have deep, round roots.
Ellen, like me, wants to believe that life was always peaceful in Anasazi country, but evidence of conflict between tribes has been found, and, yet, when she finds a yellow rock on her property and fears it is radioactive, it turns out to be a piece of asphalt from the road. The yellow is from the no passing line.
I camped with Vicki in the mountains of the southwest. We drove a long way into the mountains, past a ghost town, and I sat outside in the night feeling the loneliness of no one else around,and there wasn't for miles and miles. I welcomed the planes flying overhead. I was happy to know there were people up in the sky, enjoying themselves, even if they were asleep. The planes were company, like bees on a sunny day, when they are absorbed in the flowers, rather than me.
At Rodeo, are the remains of a defense system. Now, it is a park, and yet, a military jet streaks overhead. I am done with chemo, and yet, I still interact with modern medicine and machines. I scheduled a mammogram today. It seems all this began over six months ago. How can it be?
The rock by which I sat was waved with white, just like the jumping waves. I watched the gulls and wondered how long each one lives.
I came home to feast on an organic salad of greens, yellow zucchini, tomato, avocado, and chicken all tossed in a thick blue cheese dressing.
There was a time when I wanted to be only nature, just sit in the desert like the sand or a rock. Now, I see I am a mix of all, accepting all. I am change.