Most times when I close my eyes I see
things... Moving pictures of people and places, some real, and some
imagined... And sometimes my eyes will be seeing one thing, but my
mind is seeing something else entirely. There are some places that
call out to the creative mind, like the sirens did to Odysseus and
his crew, and your drawn by this irresistible force that lifts the
soul and compels the imagination... One such place for me is the
American southwest.
Before I ever visited the southwest I
had this idea in my head that it was some ugly kind of barren
inhospitable wasteland. I remember when all the Higgins sisters moved
to Arizona, I would ask them, “why in the hell would you want to
live in the desert?” But I soon discovered that the desert has a
kind of majestic beauty all its own. There is a stretch of I-10 that
runs from southern California through Arizona and New Mexico into
Texas that is absolutely breathtaking. Yes, much of it is desert,
filled with cacti and sage brush, but the great thing about it is
that it's very sparsely populated in between the major metropolitan
areas. You can drive for dozens of miles on some stretches and not
see a single man made structure....
It is during such stretches of road
that I look out onto the desert plane, and I see a war party of
Apaches galloping across the desert, brandishing rifles and spears,
with arms raised in the air shouting in triumph the cry of victory...
Or I see a band of outlaws racing across the plane, pushing their
horses to the limit, looking nervously over their shoulders for the
posse of lawmen on their trail... It is easy for me to see such
things... But doing 75 down the highway hauling a 24' trailer
probably isn't the best time.
But what really gives the southwest
it's beauty is the mountains, hills, and rock formations that
punctuate the planes. And if you look out into the desert at sunset
the landscape transforms into a collage of reds and browns as if it
is at this moment that the desert truly comes alive, and you can't
easily turn away because you become mesmerized with its beauty... I
was working outside of Phoenix during one such sunset, and I felt
compelled to write down what I saw. I sat for an hour watching the
world transform and describing it on paper, because I felt that
others might want to know what I knew in that moment.
...And before I know its happening I
see myself leaning against an old wood fence built from logs and
stripped of bark. The fence is part of the corral that Ive built with
my own hands, and in this corral is the horses that me and my sons
use to drive the herd across the desert. I lean against this fence,
and look out at the sunset and the metamorphosis that it creates on
the land. My eye are squinted, not because the sun is in them, but
because I live in this land and that is just the way it is. My sons
are finishing up with the days work and my wife stands on the porch
of our home watching me watch the sunset... And we all love each
other.
Back to reality...
I spent a lot of quality time with my
cousin Jesse in California, and one place we visited was the famous
Venice Beach. We spent the day walking down the beach, poking in and
out of shops, and laughing at the weirdos. It was generally a fun
time, but what made it amazing is what happened when the sun started
to go down. We just walked out of some “Museum of Oddities” where
we saw a three headed turtle, the chuppacabra, and a bunch of other
weird stuff, when we heard the drums. We used our ears and followed
the drumming to a group of people gathered together on this small
hill on the beach. What we found was a drum circle. Perhaps 3 dozen
people had coalesced around a circle of maybe 10 performers who were
pounding away at a variety of different kinds of drums and
instruments. As we stood there, more and more people were showing up,
and this mixed feeling of joy and peace and wonderment crept over me.
I mean, I know it sounds corny, but it was one of the most magical
experiences of my life. People were playing and dancing and kissing
and holding each other, and smoking pot and drinking and it was as if
none of them had a care in the world. When I looked around I realized
that the music was just bringing all these people together, because
the cast of characters on that hill were from both ends of the
spectrum. Locals, tourists, homeless, wealthy, black, white, native,
Asian, men and women of all shapes and sizes were just having fun
together, and most of them were complete strangers. And in the
background was the pacific ocean looking beautiful under the setting
sun which cast this golden light over the entire party...
...And when I looked across the circle
I saw a man with a beat up six string. He sat cross legged in the
sand strumming an old Johnny Cash tune that I couldn't place, with a
Marlboro hanging from his lips. He had a thick beard, and on his head
was an old mesh trucker hat that read “I yam what I yam”... And
as he played he stared into a small fire that was built in the center
of the circle. The light reflected off his eyes, and in them, between
wafts of cigarette smoke, I could see a man who was searching for
something. I could see a man who longed for something. What he was
looking for I could only guess, and as I stood there and wondered, I
realized that the song he was playing was “Highwayman”, and when
it was over he flicked his Marlboro into the fire... When the smoke
cleared, and the fire shone on is face, I discovered that the man I
was watching, was me....
