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Desert creeps back
Oct. 7th, 2008 11:06 pmBack when we got bubble tea, Mr. Robert said something that really resonated with me. I asked why people found it so easy to romanticize Tucson. He said...that no matter how much you can settle in the desert and spread out and build houses and call it home, the desert has its little ways of creeping back. And there is something profound and romantic that makes the desert magic.
I have to agree. A few times I have noticed it, like I'm at a certain place and I look out and I can see the mountains and I imagine the buildings are old and wooden and newly erected...suddenly the sidewalks disappear under the sand and the cars vanish from my mental view and I'm just standing there, suddenly extremely and jarringly aware of the desert all around me, the nothingness, the calm. I can sense the heat in the air around my body, the little waves rising invisibly from the untamed ground. I can feel the intensity of the landscape spreading out in all directions from where I stand, the isolation still prevalent even though people pretend they have made it their own. Far from here, I can hear the ringing silence of the saguaros standing stoically under the sun's rays, no dancing human voices for miles and miles--an eternity. I can feel the terror and excitement and despair of immigrant families, cheating death, acting out their own horror story under the same sun, footsteps on the same sand innocuously blown about by the ripping tires of cars as they roar by on 6th Street. I raise my head to watch them pass and my eyes follow them, through them, not really seeing.
I never feel this sort of environmental intensity, a sort of natural integrity about Arlington. I can talk about Boston in terms that are similarly sensual but in a very different way. I think there really is something about the desert. Similar to how some people lose themselves in the endless waves of the ocean surf, the vastness of sand and aridity governs its own mystique. Only every so often the desert speaks to my foreign ear, and if I really wish to listen, I can struggle to comprehend its meaning. But I cannot be sure if I am interpreting the nuance of its words.
...sigh. I have midterms tomorrow, but my spirit still feels too free. Hugh is sad and I cannot fix it. There are days when I feel like my head is not screwed on just right. Today is definitely one of those.
I have to agree. A few times I have noticed it, like I'm at a certain place and I look out and I can see the mountains and I imagine the buildings are old and wooden and newly erected...suddenly the sidewalks disappear under the sand and the cars vanish from my mental view and I'm just standing there, suddenly extremely and jarringly aware of the desert all around me, the nothingness, the calm. I can sense the heat in the air around my body, the little waves rising invisibly from the untamed ground. I can feel the intensity of the landscape spreading out in all directions from where I stand, the isolation still prevalent even though people pretend they have made it their own. Far from here, I can hear the ringing silence of the saguaros standing stoically under the sun's rays, no dancing human voices for miles and miles--an eternity. I can feel the terror and excitement and despair of immigrant families, cheating death, acting out their own horror story under the same sun, footsteps on the same sand innocuously blown about by the ripping tires of cars as they roar by on 6th Street. I raise my head to watch them pass and my eyes follow them, through them, not really seeing.
I never feel this sort of environmental intensity, a sort of natural integrity about Arlington. I can talk about Boston in terms that are similarly sensual but in a very different way. I think there really is something about the desert. Similar to how some people lose themselves in the endless waves of the ocean surf, the vastness of sand and aridity governs its own mystique. Only every so often the desert speaks to my foreign ear, and if I really wish to listen, I can struggle to comprehend its meaning. But I cannot be sure if I am interpreting the nuance of its words.
...sigh. I have midterms tomorrow, but my spirit still feels too free. Hugh is sad and I cannot fix it. There are days when I feel like my head is not screwed on just right. Today is definitely one of those.
