My Father’s Friend

While returning to my hometown and spending the holidays with my family, I witnessed a beautiful reunion of childhood friends. We took a detour home one Sunday through my dad’s childhood neighborhood. By some perfect coincidence, we saw his childhood friend (that my dad hadn’t seen in nearly 30 years) pull into his driveway. My dad quickly stopped the car, and waved down his friend.

Seeing my dad talk with his old hometown friend was nothing short of paradigm-shifting. Seeing this man, likely weary in some ways of the world he inhabits, light up when he saw the face of a childhood friend was transcendently beautiful. I had several thoughts as a result.

Life is very short, how fast it must feel to my dad’s friend, occupying the same house, the one he grew up in, for 50 years. This turned my mind to the words of famous defense attorney Clarence Darrow, “We are all poor, blind creatures bound hand and foot by the invisible chains of heredity and environment, doing pretty much what we have to do in a barbarous and cruel world.” He used this merciful frame of mind to explain his approach to the law, including defending infamous defendants, even murderers. I tend to view the world in slightly more miraculous and beneficent ways, but I think his point is valuable, and echoes Abraham Lincoln’s expansive view of humanity when he said of the South, and their slave-owning economy, “they are just what we would be under similar circumstances.”

Often we meanly objectify someone’s worth. We want to know what they did to deserve our attention, our respect, our interest. This commodification of the soul has highly destructive repercussions, but the strongest rebuttal of this ideology is also the simplest. To see the life-force, the sentience, the soul-strength, of a living being is enough to know that it is good. Walt Whitman describes this goodness of earth and the things around us in breathless rejoicings.

“I pass death with the dying and birth with the new-wash’d babe,
and am not contain’d between my hat and boots, And peruse manifold objects, no two alike and every one good, The earth good and the stars good, and their adjuncts all good.
I am not an earth nor an adjunct of an earth, I am the mate and companion of people, all just as immortal and
fathomless as myself, (They do not know how immortal, but I know.)”

There is no need to justify ourselves to another, or seek status. The gravity of existence is self-evident.

And nothing emphasizes the preciousness of life as its own tenuousness. My wife and I slept over at a small rented room during our stay, and one evening we found a small cricket in the corner of the tiled bathroom. Its existence was as tenuous as it gets. Perhaps we were tempted, slightly, to play god. At least a cold and distant god, ready to rid ourselves of a temporary annoyance in the most permanent and, for the cricket, catastrophic way. How easy it is to crush crickets and the human spirit.

This same delicate dance of survival played in front of me this past summer, in one particularly memorable moment. I stood on a bridge overlooking a fall on the Provo river. A beautiful bird, an American Dipper–the only aquatic songbird in North America–fluttered from rock to rock just inches above the falls (the pair of falls descend about two feet each). I could feel my palms sweating as this small bird fluttered about, in and out of the river, and foraged precariously close to what would have surely been a deadly fall. It survived, and the melodrama quickly faded. But in those moments the weight of existence made itself known. It felt like a low-watt God-like moment, of sorts, to watch the desperate and beautiful struggle play out with an intense sympathy.

Moving Out

Staring at open space

Remarking how spacious it all feels

And how empty.

Remembering past promises

–Whispered implicitly from vaulted ceiling–

We begin to clean,

Scrubbing hard to remove ourselves

From this borrowed space.

Sweeping up crumbs and memories

Working hard to leave none behind

Wiping away smudged fingerprints

–As if past expectation personified reaches backward for us

Or at least looks back

To scrutinize us one last time–

Until all that is left are Windex streaks

On transparent panes.

Now checking the mail one last time

And finally setting down the keys.

Minds spurred forward

In subtle parallel

To another time

Now only faintly grasped

When keys and rings are surrendered together.

When the spaciousness of existence

Is matched by our untethered souls.

When that borrowed space is cleaned and readied one last time

While we are gracefully removed from it.

When that which should moulder

Moulders

And that which should live

Lives

And that which should move out

Moves on.

A Stilled Dragonfly

I saw a dragonfly today

Lying quietly in the grass.

On closer inspection

It looked perfect

Whole

Beautiful

And still

As if frozen in time

Or just plain frozen.

The first cold spell

Breaking summer’s fever dream,

Taming the heat,

Softening the sun’s rays.

The intricacy and delicacy

Of the dragonfly’s stilled wings

A vivid type

And foretelling

Of latticed ice

And ephemeral frosts

A coming and going,

A changing of the guard,

Passing nearly unnoticed in the night.

No bells tolled

Or bands played

For this single quick departure

–Among many others–

Though elegant as any.

Evening Run in Provo, or Thoughts on BYU One Year Later

I take off for a run, one night, deep in summer. In the middle of the dog days, as they say. The air is hot and envelops me entirely, as I step past out past the threshold of my apartment. The sky is dark, except for the fading sliver of light on the western horizon. It’s an early darkness though–the sun’s light hasn’t completely departed yet.

I run down 700 North towards the mountains. In the darkness all objects are best defined by their silhouette. The grass is thus defined by its crisp edges neatly framing the dividing line between sidewalk and yard, or grassy median and street. There could be a metaphor here, but if so, I can’t quite think of it. The lights are another peculiar things. The different tones of light seem to radiate corresponding emotion. The older orange lights that shed warm light well reflect the inviting feeling of a summer night. I pass a few of these as I stride past the Amanda Knight Building (a beautiful building, recently sold by BYU and likely to become student housing). Then there’s the blinding, harsh, nearly white light of car headlights flowing around me. I’m reminded of my dad’s old college physics textbook he kept in a bookshelf downstairs that had a long-exposure picture of car headlights and taillights on a freeway. It harmonizes into a flowing river of light–a white yellow stream on one side, and a red one on the other.

It’s far beyond my grasp to understand–in any real way–that each headlight of each car represents a person (or persons) with a story and a distinct journey. Every headlight on the road becomes, if only temporarily, a part of this larger river of light, before continuing its own singular journey. But this is a thought without feeling, something to theoretically accept, without possessing a deeper conviction of it as it lies far outside my limited intellectual and moral imagination.

The street lights fade as I jog up the stairs toward the Maeser Building. I crest the top of the stairs and am struck by how deserted the campus is now. Returning to campus is an exercise in remembering–and not just events, but the faint outlines of fleeting emotions. The things we never say, perhaps, as we don’t feel the need or can’t find the words. The high monotone of the “walk” signal as you cross toward BYU campus near the Wilkinson Center (or listen from your now-demolished dorm room as you fall asleep). The steady and low “shhhhh” of the summer sprinklers. The panicked and palpable energy accompanying the start of each semester. More than an experience, my time at BYU seems like a composite of discrete images, feelings, sounds, and smells–a multimedia collage of sorts.

Toward the end I had a certain fatigue, even dismissal of most things “BYU.” It is a strange place, but a beautiful one as well. A gorgeously flawed experiment in Church-run higher education. Now I pass the recently completed economics building across from the Joseph F. Smith Building after glancing up at the Kimball Tower. I used to look up at the Kimball Tower in embarrassment–as proof that Church architecture was fated for aesthetic purgatory, a constant reminder that BYU-Provo still had no architecture program. Now, I see it in a slightly more sympathetic light. It may be the most prominent eyesore in Utah County, but then again, is anyone actually keeping a list? If we were all amalgamations of historical figures, towards the end I had a high concentration of Robespierre and Lenin. I could have torn it all down. For a second my thoughts are interrupted as I step around a small snail in the sidewalk. I was ready to lop off the head of the institution. Shut down the American Heritage propaganda course, change the name of the Wilkinson Student Center (not to mention the Abraham Smoot Building), tear up the grass and plant sagebrush, and shut down the accounting program on grounds it was corrupting good young Mormon minds. But now, the Reign of Terror has caught up to Robespierre, and my Lenin is comfortable with more nuance. I can live with the flaws, both real and imagined, or so I tell myself.

Now I pass by the Marriott School and Helaman Halls, and turn left towards University Avenue and then home. I exist now in Provo like a shorebird awaiting the next wave, though, instead of scurrying away, I wait for it to wash over me. I wait in a mixture of amusement and affection. The living body of BYU is the marrow of Provo’s bones. The hope made flesh. Beautiful in their strangeness and incompleteness. Who do we have here? Overzealous recently returned missionaries? Check. Instagram influencers? A few, at least. Gym bros? Why of course. But now is the not the moment for undue criticism. What was lost is soon to be found, and their (and all other’s) return is imminent. The idea of a returning, a new beginning is inherently hopeful. It’s almost as if we super-impose a “spring” of humanity over a seasonal “fall.” A strange yet good juxtaposition of things. Which may describe BYU as well. Which is all I can hope for myself. Now I step inside my apartment, leaving the growing darkness and fading heat behind me.

Rest and Unrest

Give hope some kind of rest.

A few days ago, during a break at work, I decided to research Mormon-Native American relations in early Utah. What I read between various online sources was depressing and horrific, but no longer shocking. There were stories of massacres, tales of murder and ambush, and accounts of extrajudicial killings.

And it was only a war if a hunting trip can be called a battle between the hunter with his shotgun and the hunted with no warning. I already suspected, comprehended, that things were like this.

I knew that before Mormon pioneers came there were Native Americans, and after, there were only a few. But knowing generalities was easier for my somewhat well-rested hope and my carefully tended equilibrium.

—

Is there hope at all? Or are we all wending our slow way toward hell? A journey that becomes hell itself as it plunges off toward the void?

Our whole history, present, and future determined to be a sprint toward self-destruction? A conscious attempt to destroy ourselves before the dying sun can? Searching for a greater meaning often makes no sense, sometimes even seems ironic. God often seems so theoretical and pale compared to the dark hues of of a crazed reality.

It’s so easy to only believe in my eventual, and inexorable, destruction and disappearance. It’s just too much. Is there no merciful rest? And what about the almost blasphemous beauty that continues amid the cruel inhumanity? A small Native American boy is brutally killed in the afternoon–then in the evening the sky is again a stunning spectrum of color. The insane juxtaposition of beauty and thoughtless horror seems to be just that.

Coupling these disturbing images to the present moment makes the anomie, the displacement of my place from any ordered or rooted time, complete. A present moment of confusion, materialism, environmental destruction, hatred, senseless discussions and arguments.

—

Among the most destructive things now are the rationalizations, the acceptance that things have come to this, that there is some sort of righteousness in this collective death spiral of hate, bitterness, and materialism. The idea that the past is a testament to righteousness, the premise that the future will be better, seem self-righteous affronts to the suffering.

There are a plethora of apologists for a glossy past and a glorious present, but of these apologists, almost none inspire the same revulsion in me as those who profess religion. They believe in a higher power while by turns glorying in and ignoring the perversions of our low existence in a cruel inversion of the Tower of Babel.

They do this without any apparent hesitation or conscientious objecting. Many of these apologists may have been drafted into this war, but no matter, for they quickly took up arms for their “holy cause.”

Do we live in a day of wrath? For it is a day that is itself dissolving into its own fiery ashes.

—

Some days I fall into a nearly bottomless pit in search of hope. The dark pit of a forsaken well, in search of the liquid substance that gives life and reflects light.

When I reach the thick black of the bottom, in that light-less depth, I scrape my cup on the stony cold rock bottom in hopes of water. So often there is none.

The pitch black is just pitch black. The watery hope is either dried up or was never to be found here. It is in those moments that I am most brutally faced with the bare facts of my existence. The possibility that this is it. That there is no point. That behind every symbol is another symbol and another…until nothing. That the representations, the signs, the types all hide a nothingness that lurks silently behind.

Other days, though, there is water.

—

Holy.

The very earth is on fire.

Holy.

The air is filled with a smoky and acrid grit.

Holy.

The translucent temples melt and flow into a plastic sea.

—

Was there no mercy promised? Any rest given?

It seems that the easing up has not come. Or has come in some slight and infinitesimally small amount.

Or maybe it has come.

Yet a powerful temptation remains. As Jesus was tempted to throw himself out into the void, so are we. To make some kind of perverse atonement and sacrifice our finite hope in pursuit of some greater cause.

Probably, though, it was never our sacrifice to make. Any heroism to it is swallowed up in its emptiness.

—

The peace that comes, any rest that may be, the mercy that could come upon us, perhaps is not complete until we have sat with our quiet agonies. To feel the full weight of our helplessness.

To weigh the bitterness, both within and without. To realize that we alone are nearly powerless against the suffocating dread and fear of our untethered world.

If the story is to end happily, the full weight of that joy would be impossible to fully comprehend without considering the possibility of annihilation.

If we are to sit silently with others, we must do the same, sometimes, with ourselves. Not to revel in it, but to grope around in it for a while.

—

May some light reflect off the forsaken well’s waters.

May some light be found there, even when the well is barren and dry.

With no water or light to reflect.

May I imagine the light, or remember the light.

Even in the darkest night.

Time and Place

I groggily awake almost an hour before dawn in late April, fill my small backpack with food and water, then drive to a mostly empty parking lot on the edge of Provo, nestled in the foothills above the city. I am finally beginning my journey to the top of Y Mountain. This was something I had always intended to do but never had. I attended a BYU women’s soccer game nearly seven years ago with a friend and sat above the field with a perfect view of Y Mountain. At one point I turned to her and asked, “Doesn’t it look like you could just hike straight up to the top?” In the fading twilight of that early fall evening, the mountain looked unbelievably friendly and inviting. My friend just laughed a little and looked at me incredulously.

That’s the funny thing about mountains, their very existence seems to call you towards them, their peaks and crags super-impose themselves first on your eyes, then on your mind, until there’s no forgetting them. But in all their inviting, they never creep even one inch toward you. They are constant in their stirring silhouette, although their apparel changes from various shades of brown to green to red and yellow to white and back again. Why did it take me almost seven years to hike the mountain that has towered above me all through my four years of school, and one year of work, here? It’s almost as if I neglected to visit a close family member. Almost every day I will turn to the mountains at some point and look at the little plays of light across them, track their snow cover in mid-winter, the frosted look of its conifer forests after a wet snow, the light green slowly running up towards the mountain peak as spring progresses, the soft red and yellow in fall. I’ve studied it so casually for so long, but never made the pilgrimage to its very top to pay my respects, never spoken with the oracle that must be somewhere near the pinnacle, never seen the grandeur that rests at the peak. In short, this hike was a long time coming. 

The first section of the trail is steep as it switch-backs across the mountain side toward the giant “Y” of white painted rocks laid out across the mountain side. It’s a very wide trail, essentially a small road, removed of stones and too manicured. Fortunately, I’m beginning early enough in the morning to avoid the crowds of hikers and family’s making their way to the “Y.” The first precipitous ascent really takes my breath away, and is steep enough at points to force me to walk on my toes in order to make some forward progress. But it is a delicate balance, for within a few minutes I have to walk flat-footed again to give my aching calves a little rest. The sky is overcast but dynamic. The sky toward the west looks eerie and much darker than the clouds directly overhead. The slanting lines of far-off rain gives the hour a sort of gloom. I pass the loud and persistent calls of the Towhee, the new and exquisitely small and delicate leaves of the scrub oak, and a few other lost souls.

When I pass the “Y,” the path finally takes on a more trail-like quality. It is a welcome relief to have a path narrow and rocky once again. The path itself seems to offer adventures and vistas as fresh as the previous path’s staleness. The trail begins to climb in a southern direction toward the narrow gap of Slide Canyon. The path being smaller, the scrub oak and low shrubs surround me in a show of hospitality. As I pass through Slide Canyon the trail starts to descend slightly and the mountain opposite looms up. It appears an avalanche has taken down a whole stand of evergreen trees there a few years ago. It must have been at least a few years, as the trees are bare of branches and appear nothing more than randomly dispersed logs. From where I stand looking toward the opposite mountainside, an old juniper stands beside me. I wonder if the old and gnarled juniper felt sorrow the day of the avalanche. Inside it’s grizzled trunk worn and shaped by the years, was there a silent mourning for its fellow conifers? Did its phloem and xylem pause for a moment of silence? I stop near here too, not for some silent eulogy, but a quick drink of water. After the first ascent I have still not entirely caught my breath. 

Now I begin to look out for pinyon pines. Pines are almost impossible for me to identify. It took me over a month to put a name to the two massive red pines outside my apartment window (and at this point I’m only half sure that’s what they are). During slow times at work I have been flipping through a tree field guide, which is part catharsis and part attempt to decipher any difference among pines. I am hopeful this brief study will pay off and I can spot some Pinyon pines among the rocky outcroppings and interspersed junipers that seem quite abundant at this point. Pinyons are notable in that they are one of a select variety of pine trees that provide us with pine nuts, prized in everything from pesto to pine nut coffee. However, as I make my way, scanning above and around me I don’t see anything, even through my binoculars, that even begins to resemble a Pinyon. 

Now, White Firs and Douglas-firs loom up as I approach the lowest part of the canyon and continue up. There is something absolutely primeval about forests. My mind turns to a selected reading from a practice standardized test I took a few months ago. The reading developed new ways of understanding forest clearings in prehistoric human society. The prevailing view is that they played some commercial or agricultural role, but another, more iconoclastic idea, is that the forest was cleared out of some primal fear. The forests were truly dangerous places, and this apprehension would likely give way to superstitions and visions of terror. A similar idea was expressed in an excerpt I read for a college class, which described the increasing poverty and terror of West Africa as a white journalist ventures deeper into the dark forest. I didn’t particularly like that perspective then, as it seemed to superimpose personal fears onto larger forces, but as I find myself in the middle of a forest on a gloomy day, especially a pine forest that seems to manufacture darkness, I feel more sympathy to that perspective. I can’t help but to walk faster. I pass in and out of dense patches of firs, Douglas-firs, spruces, and more trees whose names I still don’t know.

There is a fascinating relationship between identifying a thing and being cognizant of it. They say the first step is recognizing there’s a problem. Without recognition there is no way forward. Perhaps the step before that, though obvious and perhaps unnecessary to repeat, is to have a working vocabulary. Without the power of classification would our lives be a blur of sinister forces and mysterious ebbings and flowings of emotion, mood, light, and darkness, with nothing to connect them? I don’t know. But at the very least, I find I don’t acknowledge a thing without some way to categorize it. A world full of unnamed mystery does have a certain allure, but I would trade it for one of mystery that outlasts all categorizations and taxonomic exertions. A true mystery, a real page turner that is, instead of a cheap Hardy Boy’s chapter book.

For the past decade I have intermittently studied and watched birds, and for a little less time (and less consistently), trees. But I didn’t go any farther than that. Last week I finished reading “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek,” and I am now enthralled by the idea of diversifying that learning to insects, amphibians, rocks, deep geologic time, and astronomy. The author, Annie Dillard, shows such pure wonder and, occasionally, even terror at the goings on of the living and dead around her, and writes about it all stunningly. It is such an ornate tapestry of creation we find ourselves in, and I don’t want to limit myself to knowing a bit about a few bits of it. I had a wonderful political science professor who recently and tragically passed away. He was a paragon of voracious curiosity. At his funeral his daughters eulogized him and mentioned that the day he died he had over 50 tabs open on his laptop. They ranged from how to grill the perfect steak, to the state of German political economy, to fly fishing, to how to varnish a table. This method of living has such a marvelous allure to it. Learning the names of things also gives you a way into a new world. It gives you something to hang your hat on, a foothold to climb above from, a beachhead from which to slowly advance in understanding. I memorize the names of things to keep my sense of wonder too. Not that the natural world needs help in being more brilliant. It doesn’t, and if it did, I would be the last person to be able to provide assistance. But the nature of its brilliance, its majesty, is stunning to such a degree as to overwhelm. Without small bite-size and digestible pieces of understanding and comprehension, I am just as likely to go to my apartment and stare at the carpet. 

Eventually I reach a large clearing surrounded by aspens. I remember the clearing from a hike I took to Provo Peak last summer which passed by here. Then this clearing was a different version of itself. It was full of dense undergrowth and dazzling green of all hues and shades. The clearing now is mostly dead, but there are hints of life. There are small green sprouts in places, though piles of snow still litter much of the area. In some ways my morning journey resembles a walk back in time. I am traveling from fully-fledged spring to early spring to late winter. If I continue upward perhaps I could regain fall of 2013. Maybe then I would be able to keep my appointment with the mountaintop, or at least not be so late.

In a type of the spirit of prophecy that stalks me in the mountains, I feel as though I have seen the future. Was it real, though, or only a vision? To know for sure, I will have to wait until I return to the valley. I feel strangely comfortable with my new prophetic mantle. I see the piles of snow stacked high and the barren ground, blackened by the leaf detritus of the previous year all decomposed, and say to myself it will soon be different. The snow will be gone, the blackened earth made green once again, the clearing choked by new growth and all spangled in green and flowers. How audacious, how bold! But I feel the boldest, most enlivened, most comfortable assuming the seer’s burden in the mountains and light-dappled woods. 

Ten or fifteen minutes after passing the clearing I reach the turn-off to the summit. I take it and continue plodding upward through an even denser forest than the last. The path takes me up a small depression in Y Mountain. On the left, to the west, lies the peak facing Utah Valley, to my right, and east, another hillock that subsides again before eventually rising again up toward Cascade Mountain. The forest is alive with intermittent noise. I haven’t seen one yet today, but I hear Red-Breasted Nuthatches with their nasally and high-pitched “yank yank.” At this point in my backwards-with-time journey I’ve reached late winter. I step over and through dispersed snow piles, now turning into a near constant cover of snow at points. 

I crest the depression and rise into an open field with a mixed forest of aspens and conifers on either side. The gray sky has lightened slightly and a pale blue ceiling is visible at times. A Townsend Solitaire flaps overhead and alights on the tops of a nearby tree to sing the morning. The air is crisp and fresh, pungent with pine. A trip to the mountain is to overwhelm all the senses. To be baptized and washed in the confluence of morning air, sunlight, and rock. It seems my senses are inundated in the morning air so I can later taste it in the back of my mouth like the crunch of salt and sand in your teeth after a day at the beach.

By now I’m following footsteps in the snow, as the path is mostly obscured now. I see prints veer off towards the east, steps that ascend sharply up the ridge to what I presume and hope is the summit. It’s a scramble at points, and I’m fairly sure this isn’t the actual path. Eventually, after a brief struggle, I crest the ridge and walk down a little toward an overlook where I am immediately confronted by the valley. It is by turns startling and breathtaking. It’s almost blasphemous at times to see all our sins and follies laid out in one sweeping view. But it is beautiful too. The air is less crisp now, more forcefully cold, and I put on my sweatshirt and zip it up all the way. As I sit and eat a granola bar and a slice of last night’s pizza, I catch sight of a hawk in the distance soaring level with the mountaintop without a single flap of its wings.

I come to the tops of mountains always barely consciously awaiting some epiphany. To look over the landscape and be keeled over by some undeniable truth. To summit a mountain and be able to tell myself I know the mountain, for I have run my eyes across its top and looked down from its heights. To see what the mountaintop sees, and keep it for myself. But each time I reach a summit I realize this almost imperceptible desire is yet unsatisfied. I can’t even begin to claim I have known the mountain or discovered its knowledge. This knowledge isn’t to be had at the summit, nor in the forested coves, nor the clearings, nor the aspen stands, nor among the wildflowers. It seems there’s no single conclusive endowment of knowledge or transcendent beauty to be had at any single time. But perhaps something similar and deeper is to be had, a growing, living, and breathing ephiphany, found in the sum total and quiet accrual of quiet meditations in the woods, pine needles crunching underfoot, a hawk arcing across the sky, and the sun’s rays through a cloud. 

There is an impulse to tick mountain summits off a list, to bag them, they say. But a mountain is much more than a single trail you hastily beat to the summit. It is more than its highest points. It is one of those unknowable things that draws you back, makes you seek the hidden treasures you may have missed the last time, to grasp the new things the mountain wants to give you. Just as the rocky ledges of Y Mountain verge on the infinite so are it’s moods and traits. But, if you insist on ticking mountains of a list, then I ticked off my list “Y Mountain on a cool, slightly overcast, early May, Saturday morning of 2020.” Only that, for the mountain is still on my list, exactly where I intend to keep it. 

Spring

Is it me or the world?
Who has been asleep these past few months?
The answer should be easy and clear
–And yet
Sometimes I wonder
Is it me or the world?
My hand now warmed by the steel of the bridge over the swollen river,
Whispered on by soft rays.
Was a warmth there during those long, dark months?
And I too afraid to touch it out of some fear of disappointment?
Perhaps not the same warmth
Yet a semblance of it still.
Is it me or the world?
The soft new buds,
The growing green,
Is this only a seasonal change?
Or am I just now beginning to see?
During those long nights of frigid darkness
Was it growing and blooming?
Or have I attained clear sight at just this time
By perfect coincidence?
Is it me or the world?
The swirling and buzzing swallows,
Glimpsed on a sunny day,
Framed against a topaz sky.
Have they been there all along?
Was I unwilling to catch sight of those forms upon white clouds
Amid silent snowfall?
Is it me or the world?
Has my tiring of blindness led to the restoration of sight?
Or is it our tiring?
Have we collectively willed this new season?
Or are we all just now beginning to see
And feel
And touch?

To Write of Nature

A little while ago I traveled with my wife, my younger brother, and some of my wife’s family to the Kolob Canyon section of Zion National Park. Our most substantial hike was through Taylor’s Creek, a 5 mile out-and-back hike to a spectacular double arch. On our way back the sky, formerly clear and blue, was obscured by (in my amateur estimation) cirrostratus clouds that framed the day and the landscape in an “atemporal” light. For without the direct play of the sunlight, the afternoon was bathed in a neutral light. It seemed like there was no passing of time. It stood absolutely still. All that existed was the stunning landscape. It existed unto itself in that lingering moment, a moment that seemed to have no relationship to time.

The soaring red pillars of rock, smoothed and cut through the ages made no attempt to apologize for their unavoidability. They did not ask to be seen, but they could not be unseen. On the meandering trail back we criss-crossed Taylor Creek, which in some spots was frozen and in other flowed clear and unobstructed. In the seemingly eternal afternoon the earth’s beauty was the only thing to behold. The junipers, the pines, the snakegrass, the haunting call of a passing raven were each and all anchored to this timeless moment. If you had isolated and deconstructed every part of the landscape, and every single thing living and partaking of it, the singular wonder of each specimen would be spectacular, yet, when combined into their constituent whole it is self-evident that the harmony, the beauty of it, is greater than the sum of its individual parts.

These and other intermittently more or less pretentious thoughts passed through my mind as we made our way back to the trail-head. Now, as I sit at my computer trying to summon the words necessary to convey a bit of the feeling, the experience, of walking through this place, all the possible words or phrases seem like not quite enough. Why do we even attempt to capture, even for just a fleeting moment, the experience of being in nature? For being in nature seems to speak as much to the unconscious or instinctual as it does to the cultivated and cultured. In writing about our experiences in nature we may try to put words to the former, and are often limited in our ability to express these fully as our articulation is framed by the latter. Writing of nature seems to be a paradox, an attempt to put words to feelings and even flashes of feelings that sometimes never even took the shape of rational thought or coherent expression.

In any case, this writing of nature, while sitting in my bed (and intermittently in my drab office space with the gleam of the afternoon sun dappling my comptuer screen) with only the low hum of my computer fan and the higher shhh of cars passing along the wet road outside our apartment window, progresses as slowly and awkwardly as the attempt to summon the feelings and thoughts that flow so easily when stepping on pine needles and over burbling creeks. And it is tempting to search for a nimble turn of phrase or glinting sentence that would distract the attention of the reader from the experience by overshadowing it with my own experiencing of it, which is yet another tension in writing of these things. For any person’s experience in nature is uniquely their own, but it does not belong to them. It is a gift, and an ephemeral one at that. The challenge is to make it personal enough to reflect its reality, but not too personal in a way that would seem to take ownership of, or establish any pretended relationship with, what is cannot be, and is not, one’s own.

And there are even further complications in defining the subject of such writing. What is nature if some aspect of it is always present? How can such a label create any meaningful distinction? These complications seem to require us to expand our view of what nature is. Although I believe we all need some untrammeled wilderness for our collective spiritual renewal and sanity, most of the world could not be defined that way. If we continue to narrow our definition of nature we will push it farther and farther beyond our reach. And most tragically, we will miss the imperfect beauty around us. For the natural world, and its persistence, will always be around us. At times it will be buried beneath concrete, obscured by power lines, bulldozed by roads, and hidden behind fences–but still it continues. They are the small signs of renewal and hope all around us. Though they do not excuse the often wanton destruction and thoughtless development, their existence is an easily missed symbol of redemption and persistence.

Just a few days ago four or five thirty-foot tall maple trees that stood across the street from our apartment were cut down and ground up into wood chips to make way for large trucks and tools to be used to lay the cement for the road they were working on. I knew it was coming but that didn’t make the inevitable any less melancholy. As I left for work that morning I saw the men with their chainsaws, their large truck, and their grinder for the logs and the branches. Each of these trees had a orange “x” spray-painted on the trunks facing the road, and as I left I saw the trees standing one last time, defiantly and hopelessly all at once. These melancholy situations could invite resignation or a feeling of powerlessness, and there are countless acts of mundane and trivial callousness inflicted on the natural world around us that go unreported and unrecognized. Nonetheless, that is not the message that reverberates in the soul, that one takes home, after each fleeting encounter with the natural world. Every weekday I bike to work along the Provo River Trail. It is a hidden gem tucked behind a Macey’s, a Target, and a used car lot. It is far from untrammeled wilderness. It is crossed numerous times by bridges and bounded by only a narrow stretch of trees and brush on each side. But it is more than enough each morning and late afternoon that I pass by it. The water flows quickly but calmly and I frequently catch sight of a duck or two bobbing in the steady current. One of my favorite spots is at a slight bend in the river where the water rushes over a rock on one side of the river and then cascades down on the other side creating a beautiful mix of white, blue, and dark green, along with small pockets of air bubbles, all dappled by the sun’s rays. It is in those quiet moments that nature’s grace seems to flows most abundantly.

Mindful Movement

I usually reflect on the subject of driving and how it has come to define our modern life as I’m biking to work or as I’m walking around Provo (usually taking in the Joaquin neighborhood or a particularly leafy sections of Center Street). The experience of self-powered travel, in my view a more mindful form of transportation, is entirely different in nature, form and effect (psychological, physical, emotional, etc.) than standard car travel. In many ways our approach to transportation is analagous to our Western approach to life. We focus so doggedly on an increasingly narrow goal that we miss much of what is around us.

Recently, my brother and I bought our first car. It is a strange experience to own a car. The freedom promised through its ownership proves illusory because to drive is to be perpetually frustrated. It is to be eternally one second too late to make the yellow light. It is to be too cold on a winter day while you wait for the car to warm up. It is to feel suffocated by the palpably hot and steamy summer car air as you wait impatiently for the A/C to sufficiently cool the car so as to not completely stifle sentient thought. It is to sit in traffic while anxiously glancing at your watch every few seconds, hoping against hope that you can get to your destination on time.

Now, this is not to say cars are entirely useless, for useful they can be. But the way they are commonly used, and often abused, is not useful and most definitely not sustainable. When used immoderately cars lead to the forgetting of where we are. When looking to diagnose the modern problem of amnesia of place, of declining communities, of fraying “bonds of affection” I would suggest the car (and communities built primarily for cars) as a leading suspect. Cars enable us (along with a variety of complementary modern technology) to live in a place without fully experiencing the place.

On the mornings I ride my bike the mile or so to work I am struck by the imposing beauty of the mountains. I drink in the smell of the Provo river as I cross the wooden bridge traversing it. I stare at the clouds and marvel at their ability to frame a day, to provide it proper setting. When I move myself, of my own power, around my community I begin to feel a part of that community and the landscape in which it is set. My bike rides home from work have taught me to respect the slight incline up towards University Avenue. I feel the incline in my legs– and interact with it–as I stand up and shift my full weight to the pedals. Maximizing downward force on my pedals I rise up towards, and slowly crest, the ridge.

Standing outside–being expressly present, immediately proximate–while biking around Provo has another key advantage to driving. For when caught waiting at a light I can stare around me and take in the full beauty of the world around me. In that moment I am completely unencumbered by any instruments, controls, or distractions. I find these breaks refreshing, even rejuvenating as I catch my breath and (even if shuddering from the cold) look around me and begin to take a fuller measure of the world. On the other hand these little pauses in a car are invitations to frustration. In these instances I look around distractedly and anxiously while waiting impatiently for the light to change to green. In a car I am completely encapsulated and separated from the world. This is usually accompanied by an anxiety of existence. I am prone to turning on the radio–but less for pleasure than as a means for tuning out deeper dissatisfaction.

Our hurry to get from one task to another has turned the journey between tasks into a task itself. The “commute” is a fearsome word in our American vocabulary but should not simply be equated with traveling to and from work. We travel in much similar ways to other events and turn our lives into endless sets of tasks without giving ourselves enough time to ask why. Journeys should be the best time to ask such questions, but too often these journeys devolve into tasks, and deprive us of the opportunity to find moments of transcendent peace or introspection. When travel is sterilized into a science, and when a journey becomes work, any potential time for self-reflection shrinks proportionally. Nonetheless, travel by car doesn’t automatically inhibit productive introspection. Long road trips on the open road and carefree scenic drives have many times encouraged my thoughts to wander in the most interesting of back roads. No, the car doesn’t inherently destroy a sense of journey or community or sense of place–yet when uninhibited and carelessly used it makes the demise of all these things much easier.

Thoughts from my Bike

I now work for a small debt collection law firm in Provo, Utah. The transition from higher education to menial and mind-numbing clerical work has been rocky, but one of the bright spots each day has been my commute to and from work. I love the way the air is fresh and crisp in the early fall mornings, just cold enough to wear a jacket without numbing your face and hands as you ride. The mountains are absolutely perfect in form and inspire my wandering thoughts as I make the short trip to work.

Recently I have taken to listening 60’s and 70’s folk-rock while I bike. I am constantly in awe of how these trail-blazing artists combined the melodious nature of folk with the jarring patterns and instrumentation of rock and roll to create, in their synthesis, something greater than the sum of its parts. I listen to Crosby, Stills & Nash, the Byrds, and others. Thoreau may roll in his grave at my addition of earbuds to a morning routine that perhaps should be only focused on the natural sounds all around me. However, with the natural sounds around me primarily consisting of car engines and assorted “traffic noise”, I hope he will forgive me.

Since I was young I have had an odd affinity to folk-rock. I still vividly remember the night I listened to Simon & Garfunkel for the first time. My mother had checked out one of their albums on CD and I listened to it, completely captivated, as I slowly fell asleep. I fell in love with their close and intricate harmonies. Gradually, too, I awakened to their searing social commentary. “He Was My Brother,” “A Church Is Burning”, “A Most Peculiar Man,” and others caught my attention with their jarring messages. Their close harmonies may have convinced me to listen but I stayed for the ethereal homily in their lyrics. These artists–Carole King, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, David Crosby, Jackson Browne, Neil Young–they became not only spokesmen for a generation, but were sorts of modern-day bards and poets. Imparting not just a catchy tune, but an important, even essential, message. A message revolving around peace, love, and acceptance. Notwithstanding all of the frivolous excesses of that time it is a timeless message. For all the imperfections and mistakes of the messengers, they impart an alternative vision for a society caught in the middle of a senseless culture war.

Lately I have been listening to mostly Crosby, Stills & Nash on my rides to and from work. Their protest songs are a needed catharsis as I try to make sense of the corruption and malice in our current presidential administration. Most powerful to me in this time is “Ohio,” a song full of indignation with Nixon’s Vietnam War, and the shooting of four student anti-war protesters on a college campus by the national guard. It reminds me that our country has charted a course through choppy waters before and that there may still be hope. But such courses weren’t charted without effort, intentionality, and collective action. I yearn for an increase in all three of these things from our generation–so that the hope for a better future, a more peaceful world, and equitable way of living doesn’t simply fade into quiet cynicism or disillusionment as the quiet fading of the hippie dream at least partially did. In the morning and in the afternoon on these bike rides I can’t be cynical, for who can be in the open air with the sun to your back and mountains looming up in front. They invite you to hope, and for a moment the self-assured idealism of these hippie musicians doesn’t seem so misguided.