After I came down off the mountain in Gila National Forest, I drove over to Phoenix to spend some time facilitating strategy meetings for one of my clients, and now I’m in Las Vegas taking care of some family business before finally getting to head into the wilds of southern Utah next week. But yesterday, in between meetings, I spent a few hours hiking in Saguaro National Park.
Saguaro National Park, Nevada, February 21, 2020
I think I knew intellectually that this environment was otherworldly, but I was unprepared for the experience. Even on the trail, I found myself enveloped by these huge cacti and a much more diverse ecosystem than I ever could have imagined. For starters, it was much greener than I expected, especially once I slowed down and started to pay more attention. I spent a fair amount of time swiveling my head from looking at the trail at my feet (because snakes) and staring up at towering cacti.
If you didn’t know, I’m terrified of snakes. Growing up in West Texas meant that pretty much anything with less than two legs or more than four legs was poisonous and that fear of snakes has never left me. Hell, it’s so acute that it was one of the reasons I got a rooftop tent for this trip. Snakes aren’t going to climb a ladder up into my tent. But this was one time when spending so much time looking at the ground paid off because otherwise I would have missed something that I never expected to see— a few small, but blooming, bluebonnets.
Bluebonnet, Saguaro National Park, Arizona, February 21, 2020
I’m not entirely sure why I found this so delightful. Maybe it was the purely unexpectedness of finding such a familiar site in such an otherworldly place. Finding a little bit of home made it a little less foreign. It’s hard to put into words. This trip, even though I haven’t really gotten to experience any of the solitude that I’ve been longing for, is frightening for me. I fill my life with lots of things— mostly work— that function as very effective distractions from ever really spending time sitting with myself. And here I was, over a thousand miles away from home, looking down at a bluebonnet. It wasn’t part of the giant fields of blue and white and yellow that we are used to seeing in the Hill Country, but that made it even more wonderful and special.
After I hiked back to my car, I drove the rest of the way down a dirt road to Signal Hill, site of rock art from the Hohokam dating back over a thousand of years. It’s hard to imagine living in this harsh environment, but it was clearly a populated area. The designs are largely abstract and the meanings lost, but there’s something archetypal about some of the designs, especially the spirals, that I need to think about. As I write this, I’m realizing that this isn’t the first time this spiral design has come up in my life recently. Several of the books that I have packed for this trip are books of Celtic mythology and poetry dating back to the days of the Druids and even before that. Spirals also feature in those works. There’s something there that I need to think about and be mindful of, I suspect.
Hohokam petroglyph, Saguaro National Park, Arizona, February 21, 2020
The other completely unexpected and utterly delightful event of the day happened in really the place I least expected it to happen— a McDonald’s in Marana, Arizona (basically, a wide spot in the road on the way to I-10). I noticed a lot of older folks when I went into the restaurant who were clearly socializing more than eating. I’m used to the way that places like this (usually Dairy Queens in Texas) function in small towns; they become the de facto community center. What I wasn’t prepared for was the quintet of 70 somethings who unpacked their guitars, mics, and other paraphernalia and proceeded to sing old school country songs, mostly about lost loves. Was it the best singing and playing I’ve heard, not by a long shot. But was it a wonderful surprise? Most definitely. And it was an excellent object lesson in how I need to slow myself down and be open to the journey this trip rather than fixate on my destination. If I had been fixated on the destination, getting up the road to Las Vegas, I would have either gone through the drive through and eaten my dinner in the car or I would have wolfed down my food and gotten in and out as fast as I could. But I sat in a small town McDonald’s for an hour waiting for and then listening to a group of old timers sing the music that they clearly love and watched a community socialize around me. All in a place that I would normally dismiss. Hopefully, I will remember this extraordinary lesson in looking for delight in the least expected placed of all.