Sunday, November 02, 2008

No Country for Most

I love the desert. I was born in Arizona and frequented the Superstitions with my dad quite often. I love the red rock sandstone deserts and those filled with the Joshua Tree. Dunes are nice as well. The steppe is often a place where most people would rather not go. But I find things there where most do not.

I'm right at home in this photo. I'm near a place where the U.S. stores its vast supply of old chemical weapons and destroyed at a facility about twenty miles south. This mountain was scaled in my truck via an old trail that goes straight up the shoulder. It was a bit unsettling seeing nothing that would stop your fall if you were to roll or have a brake failure on the way down. This was my second time up this mountain. The first time I did it my passenger side exhaust got torn off. Bailing wire was my rescue. No breakdowns this time.

Just out of frame to the left is a high peak. It is just under twelve thousand feet. It has two narrows up its canyon. They are the gates to an alpine scenery that betrays the desert climate below. Wildlife thrives on both sides of this yin and yang. Men and mayhem don't do so bad here either.

The world needs places where a man can step outside of culture and society by living out his most destructive needs. The desert has been such a place throughout time. I always wonder when I will find a dead body out in places like this. It is a bit macabre to think this way. But I do not shrink at myself and my innermost wanderings. There has to be a letting of those things.

This is the place.

7 comments:

Scott said...

One of your all time best post man. You should listen to a band called Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers, especially their earlier stuff. Some talk of deserts and making your way to Mexico and what not. Good stuff.

Anonymous said...

When I first moved to Nevada, I hated the desert. I'm glad to say it didn't take me long to discover just how incredible it really is and now I miss it terribly. It's a great place to go and lose yourself for awhile. leigh

The Grunt said...

Scott~ Thanks! I'm going to check out that artist/band now.

Leigh~ Nevada has lots of "no man's land" and "twilight" area. That's cool in my book.

Julie Kwiatkowski Schuler said...

It seems alien to me. I like the woods. That's where they'll find my body.

Keshi said...

I so agree...mebbe thats what deserts were designed for? some day I wanna go to a desert or the woods and find my real self.

Keshi.

The Grunt said...

Julie~ I like both. The jungle would be the thing that would be totally new and foreign to me. As for laying to rest in the forest, I think it would be cool to have a big pine or oak tree planted into my corpse. Then I would become that tree.

Keshi~ Ayres rock is in your country and it's in the desert. That would be a cool start. BTW, the southern deserts in my state are similar to some of the deserts in Australia.

Jules said...

You're lucky to live so close to them, for me to get to the Rockies, it's about a 2.5 hour drive! But the mountains to me are like the desert is to you... well, anywhere I can be in touch with nature at it's finest, really!