Fall Together

Friendship will teach you that someone is more than you thought they might be, that time moves faster than you imagined it ever could, and that grace is a fragile chalice to grip lightly, but to hold firmly in a steady grip, even as we all fall together towards the light.

Greylocks

Greylocks - by MRM

April 15th & 16th, 2024

I remember reading a book about Greylocks when I was a young child running barefoot and tanned through the Sonoran Desert. Greylocks was a cool cat protagonist who spent some time trying to catch a fat robin.  

I was learning about local birds - using a paperback Golden bird guide my mother had loaned me. I knew the mocking birds and the mourning doves, the pigeons and the house wrens. We didn’t have robins in Yuma. Greylocks’ color pencil-sketched robins on fibrous pages were vivid and alive in my imagination. 

We had roadrunners in Yuma; we’d see them running across the tops of houses. They’d jump from one roof to the next, scurrying so fast - they looked like a long dark streak with sharp eyes and a beak. They zipped along as if their feet were burning; maybe they were. 

I knew what a cactus wren looked like, though I hadn’t seen one. But we didn’t have robins, and I wished that we did. Robins lived where there were tall green trees and thick, woodsy undergrowth - where vines climbed tree trucks like I did back then. Robins were a sign of a place that was more alive. 

My sister and I kept lists of all the birds we spotted and heard, early mornings when we went walking before the desert sun rose. We made lists of pre-dawn birds, insects spotted under street-lamps,  secret places to hide, the names and occupations of stuffed animals and Little People. 

Bishop Blocks and Lincoln Logs could build and destroy whole worlds in a day. Some of those towns lasted for weeks, or even years, rebuilt by the victors and the victims from memories made in the good times and the bad. 

The sun scorched its way through orange groves and alfalfa fields we ran without a single thought about the future or the past. Its cycles etched cracked earth the Colorado River-fed canals flooded daily with a richness we could scarcely fathom - without a care in the world. Always there. Never ending. 

Robins are a fixture in our yard and at the city park in the town where my wife and I live now. They hop and peck, often seem plump and happy, more contented in appearance than many of the other birds that scurry more, fight more, seem desperate more. Many robins have rich, perfect feathers like the ones in that old book did, but not all do. Some are much more tattered and worn - those tend to be thinner - not as contented - yet here they are being their best robin selves just like all the rest, each one happy to find a worm. 

This afternoon while I was sitting on a park bench, a mourning dove cooed from somewhere not far away as a woodpecker climbed and darted, pecking its way up a tall, dying tree trunk. There is something new here to see when you’re looking for it. I see robins everyday now. They’re everywhere. They were a symbol of all that I wanted but could not have. 

A brother and sister walked through the sand cliffs at sunrise, to see a burrowing owl mama with babies in a hole. As vivid as if it were just this morning, golden sun rays spill over the bluff and bathe that memory in a soft, warm glow. A child spirit visited me in a whisper of the wind - he said that perhaps I should cherish these robins - and that desert - more.

Rock Story

*

In the end,
nothing is
inherently worth reaching for.
 
But,
reaching for nothing assures that
you'll attain it.

Even a rock has a story;
it is not completely dead.

Do you want to live
your life
like a rock?

Reaching for something,
anything,
gives that thing value.

It's the reaching
 that makes life
worth the time it takes
for living.

Do you want
to live?

Look
for some
little ledge
or
crevasse
to reach
out to.

Better still,
stretch
out
those
wings

***

Morning Walk in Grand Junction

*

Going back to Grand Junction, Colorado this weekend brought back more than just memories of that particular locale. The air is different here. It is a "dry" desert air, which is immediately reminiscent to me of the few trips I took back to Yuma, Arizona after joining the Air Force. Everyone in Yuma will try to explain the difference in the air by calling it a "dry heat." A phrase which explains much more than the words alone to people who have called the desert home for a while. I would find my way back there for visits home to see my family. The desert has a certain inexplicable appeal to me. It feels like home. Its essence feeds my soul, and brings me back to the earliest roots that I recognize in my soul as being a part of something distinctly "me."

The birdsong was the next distinctive difference that I noticed. In Grand Junction, I was hearing more doves and magpies and mockingbirds than what are usually heard on the other side of the Rockies. The morning air was crisp and cool, but noticeably warmer than in FOCO. The light was more vivid than what the wintery air in Fort Collins has been, and though the town of Fort Collins has so much more to offer than GJ, there is something about the light and the quality of the air in the high desert that still gives me nostalgic pangs of homesickness that perhaps only a true desert rat would understand.

As I was taking the dogs for their initial walk of the morning, looking out towards the lovely and unique topography that makes up Junction's distinctive horizon, I was reminded of many mornings back in the mid-80's when I had first returned to Yuma from Virginia, when would go for an early morning bike-ride hoping to meet up with my childhood mentor and 4-H leader, Dr. Don Tuttle. He would often be out riding his own bike, picking up cans along the way, as he headed over to what would, years later become the riverside park in Yuma. He would work there on cleaning up the trash from what used to be a dumping ground, or to plant some plants that would be attractive in the years to come, when the same site would become a popular destination for locals and visitors alike. Dr. Tuttle was a solid man among what I saw as otherwise crazy and unpredictable men, a calm in the midst of a storm that was my childhood in Yuma, a rock in a sunlit sea of dust and sand.

As the dogs and I continued walking, I saw an older gentleman out in his front yard spraying the weeds in the cracks of his walkway with a small hand-pump sprayer that reminded me of my grandfather's little sprayer in Virginia; he would often be found, at the crack of dawn, out in the back yard, working on his small garden. He loved that little garden, and it showed. He was usually quiet and thoughtful on those early mornings, but he always had a welcoming smile to share, and some humorous observation or another to break the ice, as I found my way to whatever rock, piece of wood, or his dog house that I was about to overturn in my never-ending search for the next exciting insect that would cross my path. He was another wonderful man who I was blessed to have as part of my life as a teenager. He would save his great bits of insight for our many walks to the banks of the James River, and the docks near Appomattox Manor in Hopewell, Virginia. He shared those tidbits of wisdom willingly and readily. I miss that man.

Along the sidewalk, the random appearance of a paper airplane, tumbling over and over in the grass in the morning breeze, brought back vivid memories of my years at Fourth Avenue Junior High School, when I was completely socially inept (not that much has changed...) where I practiced making the most aerodynamic paper airplanes that I could manage, and then would test the different designs by flying them in the perfect breezes that blew across the main courtyard out front along Fourth Avenue. Those planes would often soar to amazing heights for what were, to my 12 year old self, impressive distances.

Funny the random thoughts that find their way into your brain on a simple walk through a neighborhood, in a place where you haven't been for a while. Funny how memories come unbidden, but not unwelcome, to an open mind devoid of worry, when the desert smells, the singing of the birds, and folded bits of paper travel upon the breeze, and land lightly upon the consciousness, decorating the present with little, tiny, colorful fragments of the past.

***

Universal Truth, Goodness, Morality, Justice, Right and Wrong.

*

An unbiased observance of nature, as well as biological and physical systems teaches that while there may be such a thing as a universal "truth," there is no such thing as universal morality, justice, goodness, or even right and wrong. These ideals, where they exist at all, come into being in our lives only where we choose to live according to what is best for the others with which we are in relationship, with whom we share an agreed upon covenant, through a mutual understanding (or at least acceptance) between ourselves and those others whose value we have decided to honor as equally divine.

Without these mutual ties and commitments, whatever is done by an individual is done according to the nature of that entity itself. That is, of course, if we're not assuming the existence of a god or a devil behind the actions of mankind, of mosquitoes, of hurricanes, floods, or the attacks of mountain lions on unlucky day hikers. All creatures commit evil in the eyes of other beings with which they are not in covenant, whenever their actions cause harm, discomfort, pain, suffering or death. Both good and evil are truly, and only, in the eye of the beholder.

No sentient being gives up life or endures pain willingly (without reason), and no natural, inanimate system kills intentionally. If we are to live in a world that includes morality, goodness, justice and things that are "right," then we will do so only because we have chosen such constructs within which to build our society. Even if we believe that there is a god, or some kind of ultimate universal goodness or morality, it might still be useful to act as if there is not, because if such a one exists, its justice is not swift, its mercy is not omnipresent, and its timetable is one that extends well beyond that of the human lifespan.

Like good and evil, divinity is also in the eye of the beholder. We are able to look around and recognize the divine and the sacred in the simple fact of existence. Can a stone sense another stone or the lizard basking upon it in the light of an inanimate sun? Who is to say. But we know what we can see. Perhaps our value to the universe is, in part, our awareness. Though we are certainly not alone in that trait, our contribution (if any) to a universal consciousness is as unique as our individual experience. 

It might be sensible to hope that, in the overall scheme of things, the values that we hold dear represent added value to the universe... a contribution on some level to its self-awareness, something akin to a divine universal achievement of Nirvana. Perhaps part of our charge is to experience all of the attributes of emotion, joy, pain, suffering, elation, in order to demonstrate, for the rest of existence what is possible. Perhaps not. While we cannot know for certain, we can to some extent create the world that we hope for while we are here, and hope for the best. But while we're here, we can do much more than hope.

Look within yourself and outward toward others, not just those human others, but to the plants and the animals as well.  See their innate worth and the divinity shining out from within them, exploding in rays of light from the dark, crusted outer shell encasing their glorious souls. Decide with whom you are in relationship and commit to a covenant that will bond you to them and them to you. If there is a such thing as a universal morality, this is the first step towards finding it. If there is not, you're now a fellow human-creator of it.

While there may not be a such thing as a universal morality, there may be a such thing as universal truth. If there is a universal truth, it includes these facts: We all must die, but most of us want to live. While we are all blessed with the full strength and power of the universe, we are cursed with the vulnerability of our corporal form. While we are able to recognize the sacred beauty and the divinity within every living thing, each of us must destroy some form of life in order maintain our own. There are some realities that we can transcend, while at the same time, there are some evils that we must commit (at least in the eyes of weaker beings) in the most simple act of mere survival.

If God exists, he or she may have created goodness, morality, right and wrong, and justice; but an observance of natural, biological and physical systems teaches us that such a god has left it up to us to recreate those constructs, form them, teach them, and enforce them during our short time here on earth. Whatever god is, it is not an enforcer of human ideals. If anything, he or she is simply the un-caused cause that has caused our hearts and minds to be drawn toward these ideals in the first place. The rest, it would seem, is up to us.

***

No Man - Fiction

*

He turned, yet again, to face the heated wind. As with each break he had allowed himself, this reprieve had seemed far too short. Every step came with the question of whether or not it could be followed by another. He was conscious of each swallow of saliva, rationing them out now to make himself believe that there was still some moisture left in him.

How long could he continue this way? How many times had he asked this question to the swirling winds, the merciless sun, the ghost tendrils of sand swirling by without a second glance? He could not remember.

The road that had led him to this lonely place was not often traveled. He liked it that way. People generally annoyed him. But on this day, he'd even settle for any one of the vagabonds or thieves that he tended to shun when they happened along in his direction. After all, what could the poor rogues take from him that he hadn't lost already?

The downside, of course, would be the shame of having been forced to accept their kindness. One who requested the old hospitalities and protection from the likes of these "rovers" had given up any claim to dignity back in the world that most considered "civilized." What did those civilized folk know of reality anyway? What did they know of truth? Still, the fact of their ignorance didn't count for much when one was being heckled and jeered by the well-to-do mobs back in the city.

"Ah the knots we tie ourselves into," he thought, chuckling subconsciously at himself. He had gained a certain mystique in those towns, a reputation that he had somehow actually come to value. "How did you let that happen, you old fool?" If his younger self could see him now, the boy would surely chastise the man. Through his very acts of defiance, strange appearance, and a refusal to adhere to the norms of the larger settlements, he had gained a bit of a following.

Now, he admitted to himself, he had come to enjoy it. Even though his admirers had no idea what he believed or how he lived, he craved their wondering looks, and their whispers. He enjoyed the recognition on the dirty streets, fear on the faces of the young, respect of a sort on the faces of their elders. Finding his way into some random hole and receiving a drink paid for by a stranger wasn't the worst thing in the world either. How things had changed.

What had he become? A lightweight? A caricatured version of his true and former self, pandering to the baser crowd? No, not quite that. Not really. He hadn't asked for the rumors, the mythos that had grown up around his mysterious ways. He had not intended to become an underground celebrity. Still, his younger self would have sneered at any who dared to look him in the eye. That man would have turned his shoulder and turned over tables in response to some unknown low-life's kindness.

What did they know of life, beyond the blinders on their eyes, the coin in their pockets, and a frothy brew in their grubby fists. Nothing. Not a damn thing. They were ignorant. They had no conception of the world outside their little metropolitan hovel, and they didn't care to know. He had been different once, but it was becoming sadly apparent to him now, as he shuffled along in this desert swelter, that even he was not immune to corruption.

***