Southern Utah, the center of the cosmos

I first visited southern Utah about 40 years ago. More than half my life has been spent loving this dry, sandy, lonesome, breathtakingly gorgeous corner of the world. The red rock canyons and undulating slickrock flats of southern Utah are the places I imagine when I meditate, when I’m conjuring up a scene that evokes peace. Over the years, I’ve spent weeks deep in the backcountry there, hiking, biking, backpacking, and canoeing those canyons and mesas. More recently, I’ve added rafting to the list, along with shorter hikes, less freeze-dried food, and more time in towns than in tents. Still, after all these years, the sight of a sheer redrock cliff, shining black with desert varnish in the bright Utah sun soothes my soul, lowers my blood pressure, calms my mind.

Last weekend, my partner treated me to a Utah trip as a  birthday gift. As I considered what to say about this trip, I realized I have about a million topics I could talk about: the flowers, the cliffs, the folks I saw on the walk to Delicate Arch, the vegetation growing improbably in cracks in the slickrock, the changes in Moab since I first visited four decades ago, the changes in the weather over this 4-day weekend, my sadness at the things I can no longer do there, my delight at the things I can. Instead of choosing, I decided to share a few (or maybe a few dozen) pictures, along with sparse commentary. Longer discussion can wait for now.

We arrived late in the afternoon to a carpet of flowers growing out of the dry earth on the salty flats above the Colorado River outside Moab. The Utah state flower, the sego lily, was profuse, in standard white and rarer pink versions. The ubiquitous orange mallow (whose color matches the orange of the cliffs farther south, but not so much the dirt on these salt flats) was, well, everywhere.

 

                    

As we entered the Colorado River canyon above Moab, we were treated to beautiful views of the cliffs and the river in low evening light. The combination of red cliffs reflected in the reddish water that gives the river its name made the air feel amber. 

We cruised into Moab in time to get the full, over-stimulating experience of a formerly small, sleepy desert town turned into a full-scale congested 4-wheel-drive, OHV, mountain bike, and t-shirt shop tourist destination. I vented my self-righteous dismay, not seeing myself as a tourist at all, but instead as a long-time desert rat who felt like my wilderness was being overrun by these interlopers. Imagine my mortification the next morning when, dressing for a hike, I looked down to see that the light blue Nike swoop on my socks exactly matched my shirt. Color-coordinated sportswear, the ultimate sign of a tourist. Unbefitting a desert rat, for sure.

Vaguely humbled, I proceeded to reassert my station as an insider by playing tour guide as we wended our way through Arches National Park, en route to the day's hike. Through it all, the flowers continued to do their springtime-in-the-desert welcome.

                  

And then the walk to Delicate Arch, the iconic representation of Arches and of Utah (it's even on the license plate). So many gorgeous pictures of Delicate Arch have circulated over the years, it seems a bit outrageous for any normal human being to try her hand at capturing this unlikely fluke of nature. But undaunted, and despite less-than-ideal sun conditions, try I did.   

The most remarkable thing about Delicate Arch is that it stands alone, framing the La Sal Mountains to the east, with nothing but space on either side. Most arches form within huge walls, but the vicissitudes of wind and water carved this one out of one huge slab of sandstone. Astonishing. And astonishingly beautiful. You come upon it suddenly, as the trail emerges from behind a wall. The sight is stunning, even the many-th time you see it.

A short walk around the "bowl" below the arch brought a different view ... and looking backward, a view of people viewing me viewing the arch from beneath.

There are other arches in the neighborhood, too, some of them "pothole" arches formed by water erosion from above, some double arches that include both a pothole and its outlet through the face of a cliff, some angular, formed by sandstone slabs' falling away.

That evening, we had dinner in a restaurant up on the cliffs overlooking Moab. Across the valley, you can see the "portal" where the Colorado carves its way out of the valley formed by the Moab fault and runs onward toward Lake Powell, some distance downstream. It was getting cloudy by now, but still, the contrast between the sandstone cliffs and the greenery below (though not as stark as in bright sunlight) was a reminder of how much water it must take to make this desert verdant. Echoes of my "American West" class.

To finish off the day, we drove out to Dead Horse Point, an overlook above the Colorado River. By now, the clouds were rolling in, so the hoped-for spectacular sunset didn't materialize. But the view is spectacular by itself. Seeing the river from this perspective so highlights its prodigious power and the eons of time it took for these canyons to form. I found/find myself silenced by the thought.

The next morning, we decided to forgo another hike near (crowded) Moab to visit the Needles district of Canyonlands, the place where many of my fondest memories of the desert and most of my meditation imaginings are located. On the way, we stopped at Newspaper Rock, a panel of early Indian petroglyphs pecked into the desert vanish on a protected sandstone wall. 

As we stood there, gazing at the petroglyphs, a serious storm swept in, complete with thunder, lightning, and hail. I missed my chance to snap a picture of the hail piled up by the roadside, looking all the world like snow in the desert in May. But it was pretty fun anyway. That storm hung around all day, stifling our planned walk but making for beautiful vistas of the red cliffs, the slickrock flats, and the distant buttes through the storm. In the overcast sky, you could sometimes see the red of the land reflected in the clouds.

Despite the on-again, off-again rain, we managed to get out and walk around a bit, and we found more desert flowers there to greet us.

The next morning, we headed back to Colorado, driving up through the Colorado River canyon. The morning light on the east-facing cliffs and the flowers in the shade across the way provided a lovely farewell. 

How could you see this and not yearn to come back?

Our last night was spent in Glenwood Springs. I wanted to stop there so I could walk the South Canyon Fire memorial trail on Storm King Mountain, which I mentioned in an earlier blog. Unfortunately, Storm King lived up to its name, shrouded in rain and heavy clouds all day. Since I wouldn't be able to see what I came to see (not to mention the promise of a steep, mud-slimed trail), I postponed that hike to another day, already saved in my calendar. But in honor of the reason I want to go, we visited the monument to the young firefighters who died on Storm King in 1994. 

                                       

We drove home in a snowstorm. Later, we heard that Arapaho Basin got 7" of new snow that day, and chains were required on Vail Pass. Fortunately, we beat the worst of it, getting home in time to have breakfast out before my partner went to work at noon. No picture of that storm ... but lots of mind pictures of the trip.

Back home in Colorado—which, as you know, I love—I am already eager for another visit to Utah. My socks may match my shirt, but I remain, deep in my soul, a desert rat.

Star stuff

When I first launched this blog, I named it “Retirement in the Mix” because it seemed (and still seems) like my retirement includes such a lovely and complicated mix of experiences. This past few days has been just like that—a lovely mix. As I was thinking about how to tease some theme from these seemingly separate events, it struck me that there is a link … although it brings yet another ingredient into the mix. First the connection, then the adventures:

As I’ve mentioned before, in late June, I’ll be attending a week-long Smithsonian course in astronomy at Chautauqua in upstate New York. So, I’ve been reading my homework, a book called Origins. As I told my partner when we discussed this recently, although I could not pass a test on the details of astrophysics, I have already learned some things. 

For instance, I have learned how very literally, concretely true it is that we are all connected. To our very core. We are made of the same stuff, all of us. And it's the same stuff that makes up bacteria, redwoods, the earth, the sun, the big dipper, Orion’s belt, the Milky Way, and the Andromeda galaxy. I call it star stuff because it comes, literally, from the stars. Everything is star stuff (except maybe dark matter and dark energy, which remain a mystery even to people who can pass a test on the details of astrophysics). I’m not even talking here about a philosophical or humanistic or religious belief in the common humanity of all people. Those notions clearly fit with what I am saying, and I don’t mean to challenge or dismiss any of them. But what I’m talking about here is that we are really, actually, literally, physically, on a molecular level all made of the same stuff. 

I invite you to ponder on that as I tell you my recent adventures. Stay tuned. A discussion will follow …

Adventure 1: Late last week the stormy weather finally lifted just in time for a walking tour of Boulder’s African-American history. For those of you who know anything about Boulder, you might guess that this is a pretty sparse history. Currently, I learned, Boulder’s African-American citizens account for less than 1% of the city’s total population. Add that fact to the standard historical disinterest in under-represented groups (one form of under-representation, of course, is precisely absence from published histories), and it’s not surprising that little has been written about the history of the small numbers of African-American people who have lived here. What is known seems to be sort of a microcosm of circumstances faced by African-Americans elsewhere.

Despite Boulder’s contemporary reputation as a liberal bastion (which many folks contest, by the way), Blacks have faced much the same discrimination here as they encountered elsewhere in the country. Historically, they were largely shunted into particular, less favorable neighborhoods (in the flood plain), and they built “back houses” in their yards to accommodate black students and other boarders who couldn’t find lodging. For a time, the Ku Klux Klan was very active in Colorado (including in Boulder), and cross burnings were familiar events. In the face of this treatment, some African-American people still saw Boulder as a (relatively) great place to live, while others saw it as yet another bastion of racism, no better than the rest. Some stayed and made their place (and their peace?) in Boulder; others left.

As the leader of this tour was eager to point out, some African Americans who stayed were very successful—providing the dominant majority with “proof” that racism wasn’t (isn’t) really a problem. Not unlike the myth of the “post-racial” society that followed the election of an African-American president.

Adventure 2: On Saturday morning, my partner and I attended a blessing ceremony for a Hmong student who had worked with us both on a year-long research project. A huge group—we estimated maybe 50—of this young woman’s extended family and friends from the local Hmong community had come to celebrate her graduation with a traditional ceremony. Folks of all ages were gathered—from elders to infants, some of them speaking English, some speaking only Hmong, many speaking both.

The event began with congratulatory comments from her older brother and her parents—these were in Hmong, but another student (the celebrant’s cousin, who also worked on the research project) translated for us. We were also invited to speak, the only other people who were. We took this as a great honor, but also worried that it might be based on our privilege as two of the few white people there. Later, it became clear that this honor (as well as an invitation to sit at the head table, otherwise reserved for a few male elders) came from our role as teachers—in this case, teachers who had supported the first person in this family ever to receive a college degree. Their respect for education was evident, and we served as the symbol of that institution.

Next came the blessing ceremony, led by a Hmong shaman. He blessed the parents and the graduate, wiping away bad luck and delivering good luck with chants and gestures. Then, everyone assembled tied strings—one each—around the wrist of the graduate and each of her parents. They will wear these strings, which together reached halfway up their forearms, until they fall off. They’ll serve as an ever-present reminder of the presence and good wishes of their family and community. It was a remarkable event, a reminder of how wonderfully, warmly diverse the world is, right outside our door.

Adventure 3: Saturday night, we went to a concert by “Somethin’ about Lulu” at Swallow Hill. “The Lulus” are a local band, three women who make wonderful (and wonderfully fun) music together. We’ve heard the Lulus many times. In fact, we’ve been sort of groupies for a few years. They just came back from a hiatus, and this concert was a marvelous re-entry. They’re musically really excellent—from belt-it-out torch to gentle folk songs, with stunning, mellow harmony. And, to top it all off, they are really funny. Their tag line is “harmony and hilarity,” and it totally fits. In fact, Saturday night, newly back performing together, they made a few mistakes—which instantly became part of the humor of the show. The audience was in stitches, as were the Lulus, and nobody cared a whit that it all came from a goof. This is not to say that the whole show was a giggle fest. On the contrary. They also played some beautiful, poignant music, some of it written in response to personal loss. In the words and the feel of  some pieces, I heard echoes of the recent Resonance concert, a nod to the impermanence of life and a call to live well the time we have. Their last song, written by Susan Werner, makes this point:

May I suggest

May I suggest

May I suggest to you

May I suggest this is the best part of your life

May I suggest

This time is blessed for you

This time is blessed and shining almost blinding bright …

This is a song

Comes from the west to you

Comes from the west, comes from the slowly setting sun

With a request

With a request of you

To see how very short the endless days will run

And when they’re gone

And when the dark descends

Oh we’d give anything for one more hour of light

And I suggest this is the best part of your life.

Maybe the most touching song, for me, was a simple piece called “Chopsticks,” written by one band member in honor of her mother. With very few words and some wonderful guitar picking, she managed to evoke all the warmth and sorrow of loving and losing someone very dear. The combination of music like this and a performance laced with hilarity made for one of the most satisfying concert evenings I recall.

Adventure 4: Finally, on Sunday, we went to a Sound Circle concert. I’ve written about Sound Circle before, lots of times (try the “search” box on your right to see how many), so I won’t go on again about their extraordinary musicality and Sue Coffee’s exceptional programming and directing skills. Instead, I’ll note that this concert was the third musical event I’ve been to in recent weeks that carried this message of life’s preciousness and fragility, this time with a particular emphasis. The title of the concert was “Walk Me Through This One,” a line from “Calling all Angels,” one of the songs they performed. The message: we need to care for, be present for one another as we pass through this tenuous life. This concert included a poem by Linda Millemann* (who wrote the words to my favorite song from the recent Resonance concert)—this time spoken rather than sung:

Life Insists

Life insists we love both deeply and lightly

Over and over again

the passing of the seasons showing us how …

I think God knew how hard a lesson

this holding tight, this letting go

would be for all of us.

She pondered how to help

and this is what she chose …

Continuing the concert’s theme, another spoken-word piece pointed to the simultaneous  loneliness of grief and knowledge that we are joined in grief by all others who grieve and who, paradoxically, share the same feelings of profound loneliness in their grief. The need for community at such times is profound, as is, in the best of worlds, it’s presence.

And so, to the promised discussion …

It was during halftime at the Sound Circle concert that I was telling my partner about how we are all star stuff, literally made from the stuff of stars. And only afterward did I realize that this is what unites all these experiences: we are all star stuff. We are so thoroughly interconnected and so thoroughly transient, spending a blink of our cosmic existence in this state we call “life.” We are all star stuff! What can possibly be the point, then, of talk of inferiority and superiority, of us vs. them, of customs that are worthy and those that are not, of people who are worthy and those who are not? One of Sound Circle’s songs spoke to this idea. “How Can I Cry” asked how it is that I, who am privileged in so many ways, can cry for freedom. I cry, it answered, for those who cannot, for the voices that are silenced. We are responsible for one another. We are connected in our very essence. Between the stars that we were and the star stuff we will ultimately become is this life that we must all—all—hold lightly, share well with others, and then let go.

Each of these adventures had its own meaning, its own charm. But diverse as they may seem, they all fit in my growing sense about what we need to know about living, especially as we get old. These experiences combine, it seems to me, in the message that division among us is so pointless and community is so important as we navigate this brief, cherished life. That seems a message worthy of uniting walking histories, community blessings, and all manner of music making.

______________

*Linda Millemann has recently published a book of her poetry, Along the Way. To order a copy, email her here.

"You're not old."

Over the past few months, I’ve had several conversations with friends where the topic of aging came up. As we talked, I referred to myself as “old”—which I often do, for reasons I’ve mentioned before here, more than once. But in a few cases, someone resisted my using that label to describe myself. “You’re not old, Janis,” one friend said, insistent in his rejection of the term. In each case, I tried my usual explanatory lines: “Yes I am. It took me a long time to get here, and I don’t want anyone to take those years away” or “The word ‘old’ is just a descriptor, like ‘tall.’ Why wouldn’t I describe myself that way?” My friends’ replies were generally something like, “My uncle is 83. I consider that old” or “You’re young at heart; that’s what counts.”

These folks are generally very thoughtful and very aware of assorted “-isms.” Some of them are, like me, well past the age that many— including movie theaters, sociologists, and service providers—would consider old (or ‘older,’ ‘aging,’ ‘elderly,’ ‘senior’ … pick your euphemism). Yet the word “old” applied to a peer instead of to an amorphous population seems uncomfortable for them. They’re quick to dismiss my claim to being old, as if agreeing would somehow be insulting to me. This sort of response implies—if subtly—that being old is a bad thing, a characteristic you would never attribute to a friend, one you’d deny if it were applied to you. 

These reactions reminded me how prickly the labels we apply can be, especially those that have a long history of negative associations. Using such labels implies a negative judgment. They’re insulting, so denying that they’re true is considered kind, even flattering.

Thinking later about these conversations, I was wishing I had framed my response differently. I wish I had shifted the conversation to one about calling people “young.” We apply that description to people across a very wide age range. We can call a 5-year-old a “young woman” or “young man.” We call the last-born child in a family the “young” one regardless of their age. We talk about people in their 20s, 30s, even 40s as young women/men or young people. And we complement adults of any age—but especially “older” ones—by telling them how young they look, how youthful they seem, how they don’t look their age, how they seem so much younger. We don’t have an age criterion for referring to someone as “young”—like the one my friend had for deeming someone legitimately “old” (83 is old, 68 is not). 

Since “young” is good, we can apply it to anyone without fear of offending them. So, unless “old” is a bad thing, why wouldn’t we be equally comfortable using it as a descriptor? Resisting the label “old” (for myself or for someone else) seems to me to be a clue that the word “old” carries a negative meaning. Maybe that conversation would have made my point more clearly. Maybe that would help us begin to reframe what the word “old” means, resist the assumption that our age is a detriment instead of a marvelous gift.

So who, I ask you, can change all this better than us old folks? I think we have to take the lead, just as other groups have taken the lead in naming themselves. If we can’t interrupt these associations—insist that old is a genuinely fine way to be—then we’ll always have to disguise our age, wish it away, resist claiming it, be grateful when people assure us that it’s just not true of us. More importantly, we’ll have to accept the cultural assumption that we’re only worthwhile if we’re not old.

Not that I don’t have my moments. I sometimes find myself uncomfortable about my age. For instance, I recently went to a conference that included a lot of young participants and presenters. Afterward, I was filling out an evaluation form, and they asked for age. I hesitated. I considered not sending it in. I even considered lying on the age question. As if my age meant my opinion wouldn’t be worthwhile. Now, it’s true that my responses might not be taken seriously because of my age—that would be ageist on the part of the folks reading the questionnaire. But my hesitation, my doubt was my stuff, not theirs.

This whole acknowledging, welcoming, celebrating oldness remains a work in progress. Staying with it will require finding ways to have thoughtful, even difficult conversations with people who are uncomfortable with the topic and eager to erase oldness. Personally, I’ll keep on trying to find a good way to do that. Because I’ve lived a long, full life, and I’m actually not flattered when people dismiss that time as if it were meaningless. 

May Day!

Yesterday was May 1, a celebratory day for a variety of reasons in many countries around the world. So, it should come as no particular surprise that yesterday was a certifiably remarkable day here as well. I’m not talking here about the international labor movement, Maypoles, or rituals of pagan origin (well, maybe that last one, sort of). I’m actually talking about an amazing day of celebrations signaling the stunning progress of LGBTQ rights.

First, as many of you know, yesterday was the day when civil unions became legal in Colorado. The event featured parties of all sorts around the state, with some—like Boulder’s—beginning Monday evening, well before the magical midnight moment and extending on into the bleary-eyed hours of May 1. Although my partner and I didn’t get “unionized” (or, as someone said, “civilized”), we went anyway to witness this momentous beginning, as did scores of other folks who weren’t entering into unions. Out Boulder, who coordinated the party, managed to turn a gaggle of people gathered into a functionally bland room into a joyful community festival—lots of cake decorated with rainbow flags, lots of munchies, lots of excited chatter, lots of roses, lots of dancing to tunes set up by a local DJ. And lots of people. Couples, of course, and also whole families, groups of friends, whole “wedding” parties who came to celebrate this moment in the lives of folks they love. All in this big, beige room in the county clerk’s office building.

I didn’t get to actually see anyone go through the interview and sign the document registering their relationship as “real” before the law. But a friend who did said it gave her goose bumps. I believe it. When same-sex marriage became legal in Massachusetts, where we were living at the time, I blogged from the courthouse in Northampton and had the same experience. The officials performing these administrative formalities were anything but perfunctory as they welcomed each couple. In fact, they were so happy, so gentle and respectful toward the couples who came in that it brought tears to my eyes. That moment is hard to describe, the moment when you get to be present as relationships that have been largely invisible and totally discounted, sometimes for decades, are finally acknowledged as authentic in the eyes of the state.

After welcoming May 1 at this midnight gala, I then spent a piece of the afternoon at a middle school assembly—which, perhaps surprisingly (it was middle school, after all), continued the same theme. Here’s the story: A few years ago, the librarian at Manhattan Middle School decided she needed to be more active as an ally to LGBT folks—especially LGBTQ kids. So she devised some strategies to get LGBT-themed books to kids without their needing to check them out (and thereby reveal what might be seen as forbidden curiosity). Gradually, she also began to do other things—speaking gigs, working with Boulder Valley Safe Schools Coalition, and founding an allies club. That club, which started as a small group of kids, now has over 100 members.

For the past two years, the club has organized a diversity assembly focusing on LGBT issues. This year, the theme was taken from Gandhi: “Be the change.” The assembly included brief, one-sentence testimonials from several club members (“I’m an ally because …”), music from two local LGBTQ-affiliated choruses, and a rap performance by the allies club based on a video about Gandhi. The event wrapped up with lots of incredible food and chat time with the performers, some of the kids, some school personnel, and audience members, who included the superintendent of the Boulder Valley School District, several school board members and staff, and assorted community activists.

Afterward, driving home, I was thinking about the day and the pace of change it represented. I grew up before Stonewall—which is to say, before the contemporary LGBTQ-rights movement was even launched. I hid out for decades out of fear, some of it realistic and some goblin-generated. Then things began to change—slowly, it seemed, frustratingly slowly. Yet now, here I am, living in a world where same-sex couples are granted the legal rights and responsibilities of marriage and where middle school kids (that’s middle school kids!) take visible, active, and vociferous stands on behalf of LGBTQ rights. And they do it with the active support of allies who include librarians, teachers, and school superintendents. All within my adult lifetime. Not, it turns out, so slow at all. And I get to witness all of this, all on one lovely day in May.

Out Boulder’s ED said it so well in her comments at the civil unions celebration: There’s still a long way to go, a lot of work to be done. Much more than just full marriage rights. There’s work to be done on trans* issues, work on divisions within our own community, work on the lingering (and recently increasing) incidence of HIV/AIDS, work on poverty and poor health care, on bullying, on immigration rights and parenting rights, on lingering discrimination in employment and housing, on the high rates of smoking and alcohol abuse in our communities. There’s plenty left to do. But this May Day, it was time to dance with a DJ, rap with Gandhi, and eat cake with rainbow icing.

As I write this, I find myself regretting that I don’t have any pictures of these great events to share with you. So to make up for it, let me share some photos of yesterday’s other big event: our May Day snowstorm! 

Here's the view outside my bedroom window this morning

        

         

followed by scenes in my yard and bunny prints outside the coffee shop window .

      

         

                              

Snow in April—even tons of snow—was a bit unusual, but still tolerable. But May? Boulder got a foot of snow on Wednesday, obliterating the former 6-inch record for the date.

I figure it was Nature’s way of celebrating May Day and all the glorious joy it held.