The Comment That Became a Post

Claudia Wollny and Caroline Wise in Frankfurt, Germany

This is the first comment that rose to a level that demanded I convert it into a post. On this day, when Claudia and Caroline were hanging out, I was able to selfishly slip away for writing and ice cream. I was hoping that Caroline was going to post a little something about her and Claudia’s time together, but it has turned out that Claudia beat Caroline to the punch by leaving a very sweet comment in German on my entry. I asked my wife for a translation so I could post it here because it doesn’t belong unseen below a blog entry:

It was a magical day – almost as if time had stopped breathing for a moment. The sun was shining and it was somehow unreal to actually see each other when we usually just chat. I would like to add a few more memories from my perspective.

The day before, I was panicking because I had wanted to come by car. It’s a good thing that I came by train after all. I was so happy to meet Caroline and finally get to know John in person (who had initially planned to just say hello and then bow out politely). Naturally, he was immediately “arrested” and had to have coffee with us, followed by lunch at an Italian restaurant. How thoughtful of John to swap seats with me because my spot was a bit drafty. We spoke both German and English, which worked very well.

After lunch, John sought some alone time, mindful of their imminent departure for America. So, after walking through the pedestrian zone looking for a pleasant spot, Caroline and I ended up heading to the same elegant café where we had enjoyed our coffee outside earlier that morning. Since, as we all know, calories don’t count when traveling, we grasped the moment and, without hesitation, indulged in the tastiest ice cream sundaes with hot raspberries and cream. I conceded halfway through – which is not my usual style – Caroline held out a little longer…

Unfortunately, time passed far too quickly, and so we rushed to the train station, where my train was already waiting.

One last hug, and then another, and another…. three, four? … while we nervously awaited the impending call for the train’s departure. Then, impermanence struck, and the doors closed. Like a dream.

Claudia

Are We Gone Yet? Nope, This is Frankfurt

Heddernheim in Frankfurt, Germany

Good morning to the dawn, and hello to the light of day. Thank you for welcoming us into another waking moment where we can consider how we might use our time to wander into the most amazing lives we’ll ever know.

Heddernheim in Frankfurt, Germany

And here comes the sun to shine on Café Dillenburg where we are fetching our daily bread and entertaining the idea that we could bring some of their Brötchen home with us, and I’m not only talking about this home away from home at Haus Engelhardt. With our morning meal bagged up, we raced back to Blauwiesenweg, where the butter and all variety of jams will join a pot of coffee for the greatest breakfast ever experienced. Unless you know the real pleasures of echtes Deutsches Brot, you cannot relate to my endorsement of this fascination and luxury to be had when munching on fresh Brötchen with homemade jams.

Frankfurt, Germany

No time to spare as we have things to do and people to see. The vacation within the vacation continues, while the vacation from vacation(s) will have to wait until Saturday night after we land and all of Sunday before Caroline steps back into work and I get busy trying to knock out a bunch of blog posts. Having only about 36 hours of recuperation sounds dire and likely difficult considering our age, but that’ll be nothing a lot of coffee can’t conquer.

Frankfurt, Germany

Who schedules these itineraries? It’s already 9:45 as we near the corner where Lebenshaus sits across from the Main River; our first date of the day is expecting us any minute.

Jutta Engelhardt and Caroline Wise at Lebenshaus in Frankfurt, Germany

Guten Morgen, Frau Engelhardt. Hello, Mr. Wise. With the formalities out of the way and Jutta finished with her breakfast, we offer the briefest of visits as we are meeting someone at the Hauptbahnhof in less than an hour, but we’ll be back later.

Lebenshaus in Frankfurt, Germany

Yo dude, how’s God?

Römer in Frankfurt, Germany

Check the background; God is everywhere.

Römer in Frankfurt, Germany

I wonder, too, about how many times I’ve shared a photo from right here at Römer, but today, I’m trying something new; later, I’ll share another photo of Römerberg but from a different angle.

Subway station in Frankfurt, Germany

While this might look like a decoration in the floor of something or other, it’s actually a 1000-year-old rod of gold that was buried by a Valkyrie and is said to provide eternal life to all those who lick it to taste the flavor of Valhalla that it connects to. I swear.

Hauptbahnhof in Frankfurt, Germany

Seems I might have misread this sign in the past. A dozen years ago, Caroline and I were visiting the Montreal Basilica, and I thought this sign (displayed without the Psst message) was a signal to parents that it was okay for children to pick their noses, but seeing the sign like this changes the meaning significantly. I thought about correcting that old post, but I’ve decided to leave it as proof that for once in my 60 years, I’m owning one of my mistakes.

Claudia and Caroline Wise at the Hauptbahnhof in Frankfurt, Germany

It was just a year ago that this mystery woman on the left (I already know the one on the right) was this elusive figure from the Cologne, Germany, area the world had never seen. Today, I’m unmasking her: she is Claudia, the Brünnhilde of fiber arts, kumihimo, and tablet weaving, to be exact. Last year, Caroline traveled north to see her in person for the first time; today, Claudia traveled south so these two could meet again. How they have anything to discuss is beyond me as they chat on a near-daily basis, making the most of the time between Caroline going to sleep and Claudia’s waking to punctuate some rare time Claudia seems to find between performing her super-human; I think Nietzsche called it “Ubermenschian,” feats of fiber knowledge distillery that could only have emerged from mythology.

Caroline Wise's foot and her friend Claudia in Frankfurt, Germany

I think jealousy is in order here because consider this: Caroline loves me and makes me socks. Claudia has knitted a pair of socks for Caroline that she’s modeling right here, and while blurred, I think it’s obvious that Claudia is looking lovingly at this “wedding banded sock” pattern that I think the women were hoping I wouldn’t notice.

After allowing Claudia to buy us lunch because who doesn’t need a free meal after what we just spent in Scandinavia, I stormed off in a jealous huff of rage to drown my sorrows.

Frankfurt, Germany

At first, I considered throwing myself on the subway tracks, but this poster looking for leads of a corpse found in the Spandau forest back in 1988 kind of depressed me. Those haunting, hollow eyes made me realize that death wasn’t an option for me. But ice cream was.

Spaghetti Eis at Eis Christina in Nordend Frankfurt, Germany

The race against time unwinding is on with only 48 hours left before we step out of Europe to return home to the U.S. I’d opened a small window of two hours where I’d attempt to plumb some inspiration to write, but the limitation feels harrowing as my inclination is to shove the intensity of the previous month onto the page in as many words that I can wring out of my hand. I didn’t anticipate that the location I’d chosen to find my wit would be as busy as I found it, but it was a beautiful late summer day at the most popular ice cream shop in Frankfurt. I should have moved to a coffee shop, but minutes are precious when the clock cannot be paused.

Life is like this bowl of ice cream, refreshing and sweet, but it’s melting and will go away. I have a choice not to finish every drop and allow the remainder to be carried off, but who would allow a second or a drop to not be savored?

For 34 years, I’ve been returning to this corner at Wielandstrasse and Eckenheimer Landstrasse in Frankfurt’s north end. I lived nearby for six years and took everything other than my relationship with Caroline for granted as it was all just normal life of no special importance. Only in retrospect have I gained the perspective that the years of our 20s contribute greatly to our romantic notions and nostalgia for the world we were exploring as it lingers into the years. We were defining and shaping the people who would enter the next decade excited or bored, satisfied or angry, challenged or defeated.

Frankfurt, Germany

I see a couple of elderly ladies well into their 80s at an adjacent table while seemingly mirror images from their past; two young ladies about 21 years old are seated at the table on their other side. The young women have no idea yet that their future selves are already forming inside them and that what is so intensely important to them on this day will lose all importance before they know it. The rapid advancement and intrusion of technology and an ever-present media have torn the fabric between generations into irreparable shreds where the groups are nearly alien to each other. There is no regard for the elderly, who are bulldozed into giving up their bearings and made to feel incompetent, while youth have no time for studied reflection or even self-study before having to respond to the next wave of electronic stimulation.

When do we arrive at the place where we start to gather the knowledge that will best serve us? Are we collectively fooled into believing that the essentials are found in clothes, hair products, a favorite sports franchise, the band we currently love, or the subject blowing up on viral media? To be a composite of media contrivances is a cruel joke on the masses who feast upon anything other than the bitter questions of what it might mean to exist.

Frankfurt, Germany

There’s no suggestion that any particular area of study is going to deliver a hint of enlightenment or happiness. Likewise, only the idiot would fall for what’s being fed to society. For the sake of transparency, I, too, have played the idiot, and to an extent and on occasion still do. But, I also have some inkling that I must struggle in the word soup of my mind and ask myself: is this good enough? Have I been wasting my precious attention?

The line at the ice cream shop snaked around the corner as a kind of proof that we gravitate towards the sweet, and rarely do we lineup for the bitter. Bitterness introduces a grimace and the consternation that we have to contextualize our experience to find the value; it is not readily apparent. Time for me to go for a walk.

Starting from Nordend, I walked until I reached the Alte Nikolaikirche (Old St. Nicholas Church) on Römerberg. I dipped inside to take a respite from the bustle of the busiest square in the city. There are four of us in the church, which is peculiar when one considers how frequently it’s photographed. Then again, who on a sunny Thursday afternoon is interested in communing with their soul? The house of God is cold and nearly empty, and I suppose rightfully so when cake & coffee or a beer under a warming sun invites indulgence. I wonder if Jesus stands in a corner wondering where his faithful are.

Römer in Frankfurt, Germany

Turning from the Lord, whom I do not know, to my mother-in-law, whom I’m quite familiar with, I leave the church for the short walk to Lebenshaus but not before delivering that second promised photo from a different angle of Römerberg.

Jutta Engelhardt and John Wise at Lebenshaus in Frankfurt, Germany

We must try our best to capture the increasingly rare moments of the few that still exist, with those who have had impactful impressions upon who we’ve become. The math of what remains with a person of 88 years of age under their hat is one of numbers growing smaller. While my mother-in-law had nothing to do with my upbringing or early life impressions, she did have those impacts on the woman with whom I fell head over heels in love, her daughter Caroline. Not only that though, Jutta spent many a vacation with us in the United States, and in every departing, I had to contend with how I saw myself and how I interacted with Caroline’s mother. Her initial visits tended to be marred by my lack of sympathy and understanding of aging people. I struggled with the intransigence of someone habituated to a routine incompatible with my own. Reconciling my belligerence helped me grow and understand where the roots of those poisons were planted and what fed them; if I’m lucky, lessons were pressed right into my heart, and today, I’m a better person for my time shared with this lady.

Jutta Engelhardt and Caroline Wise at Lebenshaus in Frankfurt, Germany

Shoot, earlier, I went on some made-up tirade about some tryst or something between Caroline and Claudia; yeah, well, I was joking, but I did go have a Spaghetti Eis because every time is a good time for a treat from Eis Christina. Sadly, upon our return to Phoenix, we learned that after 50 years in business, Eis Christina is calling it quits, at least at this location, as they left a hint they could open elsewhere in the future, but that remains uncertain.

What is certain is that Caroline still loves me and will still make socks for me and that she loves her mother. Rarely does a Sunday pass while we are in the States that these two don’t talk on the phone for at least a couple of hours, and while we are in Germany, we try to take every opportunity to say hi, take her out for a sweet, sit with her next to the river, have a coffee, and simply share time with her.

Main River in Frankfurt, Germany

So much beauty, potential for happiness, and great moments can be found in a day, though this seems amplified by the fact that we are traveling and only in places momentarily. Stopping to think about it, isn’t that what we have at home, too? What is it about routine that throws a pall over the day? Could it be that while engaged in habit, we forget to look up and see what our reality is? Well, I think it’s that and something else, which is the attitude of those around us. If the outlook of those around us carries an intellectual pallor that is gloomy and full of dark storms, we risk getting pulled into their maelstrom. We can walk across the bridge with someone we love and with whom we enjoy smiling and delight at the opportunity to be taking in life, but we can also fail to see any hope due to depression and gravity that pulls those exposed to negativity and despair into the void.

Main River in Frankfurt, Germany

I think of my own days walking through this city, unable to see the brilliance of the day, when everything was cast in shades of gray due to my dejection of not only feeling like an outsider in this foreign land but also because I felt like an outsider of the human race. That version of me, which wasn’t a daily thing but frequent enough that scars remain, is a person I’m happy to have left behind. Hardly a day goes by where I don’t wonder why society cultivates this type of harm against those who are vulnerable and what it is in the human character that desires to hurt those already in pain. While I’m an atheist, I still care for those who are poor, not only financially but poor of confidence and societal acceptance due to some perceived flaws that allow those of privilege to cast aspersions.

I’m not one considering an entry to the idea of heaven, but to too many of those who claim faith, how do you reconcile your blatant ignorance of the book that holds many lessons that are wholesome and good with the harm you inflict on the poor, hurt, and depressed people that are likely suffering due to your lack of concern to repair a society that rewards harm and aggression against those who cannot defend against your systems? Isn’t it your bible where the quote, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God, comes from?

Main River in Frankfurt, Germany

Please don’t take this last quote that a rich man is only the person with a lot of money; it pertains to all of us who have a rich life even if we are not financially in the greatest of places. What do we give to others? What do we take away or deny? Are we only rowing forward for our own sake? I supposed I’m okay with that reality, but then let’s put the pretense of some Christian ideology behind us. Let’s do away with the lies and admit that we are selfish, petulant little assholes enjoying the greed bag of stuff we can claw away from others. You, who give back through sharing knowledge, care, art, music, medicine, teaching, and protecting others, are the best part of Team Humanity that society cultivates on the margin.

Olaf and Sylvia with John and Caroline in Frankfurt, Germany

Today feels like a lesson in how to slice time into a hundred pieces. We started with breakfast at Haus Engelhardt, dipped in on Jutta, met up with a distant friend, ate ice cream, wrote, returned to Jutta, thought some more, and wrote, finishing the day with dinner in honor of our friends Olaf and Sylvia and their (by now young adult) children Johnny and Lucy. While this was possibly in recognition of Olaf’s upcoming birthday, I think it was more about friends getting together on one of the rare opportunities we are in proximity to each other’s orbit.

On our way, we stumbled past Dal Bianco Pizza on Darmstädter Landstrasse, which appears to be the long-lost place that I thought had the greatest garlic bread ever back when I lived in Sachsenhausen for some months around 1991, but that’s another story. I’m leaving this note here with the hopes that on a subsequent visit to Germany, we’ll remember that I left his breadcrumb. Closing out the night, Olaf introduced me to a couple of things he’s currently listening to; at the top of the list for me is the psychedelic band Wooden Shjips; he also encouraged me a listen to Little Simz, born to Nigerian parents in London, England. I find her real name, Simbiatu “Simbi” Abisola Abiola Ajikawo, far more interesting than Little Simz.

Allein, Nicht Allein

Frankfurt, Germany

In color or ohne Farbe, the world at the edge of my recollections is simultaneously vibrant, cold, devoid of sympathy, and ready to penetrate dreams. Places out of the past flirt with the wake of interpretation as I skirt time out of sync with the moment, leading me to wander the thoughts and impressions of an age ago. Somewhere in my distant history, I traveled the cascade of depravity I yearned to embrace when the only salve for pain was witnessing decay greater than the suffering of uncertainty. A heart in putrefaction is ripe to take wrong turns as my existence was spinning around a drain too backed up to accept the shit trying to find an escape. To be enchanted with filth as a reflection of where one’s soul slunk off to seemed to be an appropriate cloak of how to be perceived, should one desire to be held in disdain.

Frankfurt, Germany

Finding the transgressive self that is never far away (and yet it is) as distance washes the unclean from our being when we fail to remain ensconced below the surface is to re-encounter an iteration of that version of yourself that might better remain buried with progress. The borders in youth were fluid in generally unhealthy ways, with survival never seeming certain. Existential nihilism fit tightly as though it were a second skin while all that embellished the darkness was clung to, should it try to escape the clutching hand.

Frankfurt, Germany

Cast off what has no utility, burn it, break it, throw it into the void. These scooters likely elicit more curiosity about why they are strewn about than the human detritus that is and has been part of the Bahnhofsviertel for decades. Those wretched former human beings that straggle along the passages and dirty streets of our cities are relegated to be the denizens of the void, barely existing in an abyss of disdain. The first lesson in the Lack-of-Empathy Club is to call it compassion in order to mask the hatred of such eyesores daring to pollute our vision and sense of aesthetic sensibilities.

Frankfurt, Germany

Allein (alone), nicht allein (not alone) should never be the transitional state of emergence as it damages the metamorphosis of the inevitable leaving of innocence.

With Caroline visiting her godmother Helga, I’m alone and then again, not alone, as no matter the distance, Caroline is never far. Normally, I’d be sharing details at some point in a post regarding what my other half has been up to, but Helga has never been a fan of photos. In any case, so as not to create undue stress, the visit with Caroline’s godmother is happening away from the lens. Should there be a story about their shared time, that will be coming from my wife and inserted into this post where she sees fit.

Frankfurt, Germany

From the fentanyl addicted to African nuns, the poor to those of means, old to young, people from all walks of life move through the main train station. Other than beggars and station employees, a certain amount of hurry is in most people’s step. I’m certain that it’s only the pigeons that are the constant here, while everything else has changed since I first visited this station 38 years ago. They and the building never appear different. Just as it was on my first visit, the homeless see something in me that inspires them to ask me for help. I’ve watched who they target: they have methods best known to themselves that inevitably include me. But it’s no longer 1985, and the luxury of lingering for hours on end for serious people-watching is no longer afforded me. I have a date I must honor.

Frankfurt, Germany

If you knew the main station area, a.k.a. the Bahnhofsviertel, you might think my date was with a prostitute. Like I said, it’s no longer 1985. I’m also not looking for a train to travel to any particular destination as I’m already within proximity of where I need to be. I’m here to revisit that distant part of me that, while awkward or alien to what others might consider normal, was a defining age of understanding what love was and wasn’t.

Frankfurt, Germany

Foundations responsible for bearing the weight of everything above them can, over time, appear scuffed, but they are the only reason anything has the opportunity to remain standing well into the future. We do not undermine these less-than-sexy structures; instead, we build bulwarks upon them to offer resilience to the work they must perform. This is also a metaphor for us humans who, far too often, are fragile entities built of paper mache on balsa wood. Resilience among people may arise out of difficulty and struggle but a more humane architecture is one premised on love but how many of us have acquired that as our foundation?

Frankfurt, Germany

Baseler Platz, south of the Hauptbahnhof. I’m heading towards the Main River, but looking north offers you nothing other than coordinates of abstractions that cannot be experientially understood. Most of what education brings seems to me to be similar in its abstraction in that without putting yourself in the middle of a thing; there is nothing tangibly processed or owned. Maybe a good example would be that of learning a language that you memorize for reading, but you’ve never uttered a single word of it, so there is no real fluency. We must find familiarity by immersing ourselves and yet we are asking young minds to shutter imagination by replacing it with rote memorization.

Olaf Finkbeiner and John Wise in Frankfurt, Germany

My lunch date is with Olaf Finkbeiner, whom I’ve known for about 35 years now.

Frankfurt, Germany

Across the street from his flat is a little Persian place where we’ll eat and talk for a couple of hours before he is pulled away by a work-related phone call he must tend to. Prior to that call, we’ll discuss social issues, the global economy, education, technology, and politics, along with change and the lack of it. Between sirens and speeding emergency vehicles, we’ll also touch on creative endeavors and Olaf’s building of a small stage area in his basement, where he’ll be moving some musical equipment with the hopes of it becoming a studio space for making music and videos.

Frankfurt, Germany

Contrary to my thinking I was going to return to my wander, Olaf invited me to take a pause in the rear garden and that we could continue the exchange once he was free again. My first inclination after pulling up to a picnic table was to get in some reading, but after laying down on the bench to look up into the tree towering over me, I started to consider how a tree might see itself.

Leaves attach to twigs and branches via the petiole. The leaves are in a kind of universe to themselves as the trunk and roots are some distant concept that would be unfathomable though the relationship between the parts cannot exist without the symbiotic whole. To the branches, is the trunk a type of God, and the leaves their children? Root hairs only exist by the grace of lateral roots, while the tap root is the kingmaker in this subterranean world. The minerals and water taken up by the roots are like prayers that allow the molecules to ascend the trunk to what must surely be heaven.

Does the leaf surface find its life force from the sun, the CO2, or the water that mysteriously arrives from a deep, hidden place? What about the glucose produced by the leaves that travel out of them and is stored as starch by the tree? Where is the creation story found in this relationship?

To the many creatures and processes on earth that require oxygen, if they knew that their existence was only possible due to the byproduct of photosynthesis, would they pray to plants and cyanobacteria? The symbiosis of these threads could go on and on, and they do, except in the simple minds of people who believe that they are somehow removed from this important relationship; they are above the life that is all around and within them.

Without the plants, we all die, not by a 2nd coming but by negligence exponentiated by our own stupidity or by our ability to blame our shortsightedness upon our deities.

Without us accepting our roles of acting like trees to connect the earth to the sky and utilizing what’s between, it will be us humans who will prove we were undeserving of such a perfect place. Isn’t that then our flaunting of vulgar stupidity and hatred for the very place essential for our survival as we pretend to be smarter than trees?

Demonstration for Ukraine in Frankfurt, Germany

After leaving Olaf and my thoughts of God found in botany, my path took me upriver to Römer for a quick visit with Jutta before taking a walk to Hauptwache for my dinner date. As I sat on a nearby wall, wondering if my wife would find me in the crowd as I’d not told her exactly where I was, I realized that something out of the ordinary was going on, and I hadn’t realized it because it was part of what is simply normal in Frankfurt. A demonstration in support of Ukraine was taking place. There are over 1,000,000 Ukrainian refugees here in Germany, or ten times the number the United States has accepted. What was happening was not so much a demonstration but community outreach for the Ukrainians to show appreciation for being welcomed by a tiny country about the same size as the state of Montana. It’s strange to consider that the war is only about 1,000 miles away from Frankfurt, which is about the same distance as Phoenix, Arizona, to Portland, Oregon.

Frankfurt, Germany

My date found me and suggested Döner for dinner: a woman after my own heart. Having just visited Nazar Döner & Grill yesterday and finding it acceptable for this kind of encounter, we strolled along Zeil just as we have countless other times, as this is obviously not our first date. Speaking of dating, it took me a moment to learn that this film poster for the movie Doggy Style and its byline “This Summer Comes from Behind” and whatever that implies is an animated film known as Strays in the U.S. The provocative poster with a dog about to mount a deer while another dog has mounted a gnome suggests themes that appeal to my prurient interests, though I’d never have thoughts about doggy style with Caroline and of course, I mean seeing the movie. A date in Frankfurt with Caroline wouldn’t have been complete without a visit to Eis Christina for their legendary Spaghetti Eis, which is as popular as ever.

Stumbling Stones in Frankfurt, Germany

What an awkward transition from innuendo about sex from behind to Jews that took flight to escape Nazi Germany back in 1939, but this is the absurdity of our world. My post has moved through inferences about my time with prostitutes, homeless people, and nihilism to friends, family, war, entertainment, atrocities, nature, love, God, education, and even a nod to a pop song in my title because a life well lived will likely have been a stroll through the surreal and should never be experienced alone.

[So, how was my day? I didn’t want to interrupt John’s flow, so here is a quick summary: Helga picked me up from my sister’s house. Since she had a stroke and major surgery last year, I was a bit surprised that she’s still driving. However, since Helga lives in Kronberg, the ability to drive is extremely important for her need to connect with cultural amenities here in town. I had asked her to suggest a museum or exhibit for our outing, and so we headed to a parking garage near Schauspielhaus, which allowed us to walk over to the Mainufer (Main riverbank), where most of Frankfurt’s museums are located. En route, we passed the (new to me) Jewish museum that definitely warrants a thorough visit in the future, but today’s destination was Liebieghaus, a former villa that now is a sculpture museum and gallery. We crossed the river on the Holbeinsteg bridge, a relatively new pedestrian and bike/scooter river crossing. At this point, it was time for lunch which we enjoyed in the restaurant of the Staedel Museum. Afterward, we walked over to Liebieghaus next door and its current exhibit, “Machine Room of the Gods,” which links sculptures and art with science, shining modern light on ancient artifacts. Since the day was hot and humid, we sat down for coffee and water in the museum’s cool garden cafe. I really enjoy these outings with Helga; she is so culturally minded. Her perspectives are always interesting, and I love our conversations; she challenges and inspires me.  – Caroline]

The Absolute Middle – Day 6

Sunrise in Santa Rosa, New Mexico

There was no alarm set for 4:30, but that didn’t stop us from waking up and getting out on the road by 5:00 in the early morning. When we left we could see still stars to the west ahead of us and barely an inkling of light behind us. We were probably nearly an hour down the road when we pulled over to snap this photo of the rising sun back on the western edge of the plains.

Lulu's Kitchen on Route 66 in Moriarty, New Mexico

We had left Santa Rosa so early that our breakfast choices were non-existent, but by the time we reached Moriarty, New Mexico, a place called Lulu’s Kitchen on Route 66 was just opening. This little joint is not a sit-down operation, and for one second, I considered going elsewhere, but time is precious today, so we opted to try their breakfast burritos. This being New Mexico, we had the choice of red or green chili, which was a plus. That our burritos took nearly 15 minutes to prepare. We at first perceived this as a negative, but that was only until we took our first bites. “Wow!” doesn’t do Lulu’s breakfast burros justice as they were perfect, nothing short of that. They are only open from Monday through Thursday from 6:00 to 2:00, so if you just happened to be passing through Moriarty on one of those four days during those limited hours, be sure to stop by.

Interstate 40 in New Mexico

From burritos to red rocks, we are back in the familiar.

Native American Curio Shop on Interstate 40 at the New Mexico and Arizona State Line

Harkening to a golden age of travel with people driving across the United States for an Old West experience, this is a typical Route 66 tourist stop for travelers to buy souvenirs made by real Indians, find clean toilets, and live their dreams from a childhood playing cowboys and Indians. Rest stops like these across Arizona and New Mexico invited people to marvel at the wonders never seen before in person.

Native American Curio Shop on Interstate 40 at the New Mexico and Arizona State Line

These relics are now mostly dilapidated, while some hold on better than others. Typically, we’ve avoided stopping as there’s a sadness to seeing the failing enterprises that, in days gone by, were likely hopping places bringing in a lot of outside currency.

Native American Curio Shop on Interstate 40 at the New Mexico and Arizona State Line

It was still early when we arrived here at the NM-AZ state line, hoping to find a roadside vendor selling roast mutton. We’d seen a sign west of Gallup, New Mexico, that a shop here sold roast sheep ribs, but they weren’t open yet, so no mutton for us. As for buying stuff from Teepee Trading that was open, we couldn’t bring ourselves to go in as there really wasn’t anything we wanted to add to our hoard of stuff.

Arizona State Line on Interstate 40

How many times have we passed by and failed to stop and capture this Arizona State Line sign?  Countless times, that’s how many.

Native American Billboards along Interstate 40 in Arizona

The town of Houck was named after a local trading post operator, James D. Houck. Trying to take photos from the car moving at highway speed didn’t allow me to fully investigate the surroundings; just the bright yellow sign was the first thing that caught my eye. And so I can’t tell you what else might be open, though it’s obvious that the old Armco gas station is no more and that whatever is left of Fort Courage is for sale. Not that I would expect most any reader of my blog to remember this, but the old show called F Troop that ran in the mid-60s and which I watched as reruns was set at Fort Courage. Not this trading post called Fort Courage, but at a fictional place. Anyway, that’s it for my nostalgia, I think.

Native American Billboards along Interstate 40 in Arizona

Get your CLEAN RESTROOMS, Indian Ruins, and Route 66 junk you didn’t know you needed at the NEXT EXIT!

Grand Canyon ahead on Interstate 40 in Arizona

What else were you supposed to do on those long cross-country drives when the family was cruising down the highway with nary a radio station to tune into, and your car could barely do 60 mph on your way to the Grand Canyon that was still 190 miles away?

Native American Billboards along Interstate 40 in Arizona

“Dad, you’ve got to stop at the next place; they have dinosaur fossils and petrified wood. I bet they’ll have ice cream, too.”

Native American Billboards along Interstate 40 in Arizona

“Oh my god, are those real dinosaurs? Come on, Mom, make Dad stop; we’ve got to pee.” Getting wise, Mom asks, “Didn’t you just pee at Fort Courage?”

Native American Billboards along Interstate 40 in Arizona

“But they have real teepees at that place, pleeeeze, Dad; you’ve gotta stop.”

As the years passed, so did the cars as people were no longer out seeing the sights, the drivers have somewhere to be, and tchotchkes they believed were probably made in Japan (1980s) or China (2000s) were not interesting. The days of Native Americans being curiosities are over, while nostalgia probably lives on for those trying to capture something out of the past.

Off Arizona Route 377 south of Holbrook, Arizona

In Holbrook, we were able to leave the interstate and return to the small roads that would take us home or maybe not. We’ve gotten the message that today will be a good day to pick up our new glasses from the Oculist, which is going out of business, so we’ll be going into Phoenix to deal with that and let the owners, Brian and Angela get on with changing their life’s direction. They’ll be missed, but everyone has to take a new direction from time to time.

Wild Woods in Heber-Overgaard on Arizona Route 260

From the passenger seat, “Come on, John, you’ve got to turn around; I’ve always wanted to check out those chainsaw carvings…and I’ve got to pee.”

Arizona Route 260 between Heber and Payson, Arizona

I’m making an extra effort today to photograph our return to Arizona since it feels that I too often neglect large parts of the landscape here because they feel so familiar. I’ve probably posted them dozens of times after all, but the reality is, I’ve likely not shared these stretches I might be taking for granted.

Arizona Route 260 between Heber and Payson, Arizona

Even though I know that Arizona is not all sand and cactus, I somehow want to forget that beyond the Grand Canyon, many people probably don’t know about our vast forested areas and herds of unicorns. Okay, we don’t have unicorns; I just wanted to see if anyone was reading this stuff, aside from our AI Overlords.

Arizona Route 87 south of Payson, Arizona

We have just left the Payson, Arizona, area on the Mogollon Rim, and for years, I’ve wanted photos of this transition zone from forest to desert, but the intensity of aggressive drivers racing to get back to Phoenix makes for a white-knuckled drive down to the lower elevations. Combine that wreckless speed assault with the fact that there’s no safe place to pull over, and the options to stop for photos are reduced to nil. So, through the windshield, I attempt a quick burst of images as Caroline handles the wheel from my right; I think we make a great team, albeit an occasionally dangerous one.

Arizona Route 87 south of Payson, Arizona

So, in yesterday’s post at the end of it, I mentioned a strange phone call. We were about to go to sleep when an old friend named Krupesh called me. We’d not heard from him in years. The first thing that came to mind was that he was chosen to share some dire news about someone we used to be close to in the Indian community who had passed away, but before he could convey that, he was already asking me to hold on. He handed the phone to someone else, and an even more distant voice said, “Hi John.” It was Jay Patel. The last time we saw Jay was August 15, 2004, as he was leaving the United States to return to India. He asked if we could meet the next day as he would be in Arizona for only two days and had to leave on Wednesday. Certainly, we could make that happen. Getting out of New Mexico early and not taking any detours on this last day of vacation was to ensure we would be back home in time to give us the greatest flexibility for fitting into his tight schedule.

Caroline Wise, Jay Patel and his daughter, John Wise in Phoenix, Arizona

I can’t believe we were just talking about Jay while we were up in North Dakota as the last time we were in that state, it was with him, and now here today, after nearly 20 years, we are seeing him and his daughter face to face. Jay was in the United States to take his mom and his little girl Siya to Disneyworld with a very brief stop here to say hi to friends. It would have been easy to monopolize Jay’s time, but when we arrived at Krupesh’s home, there were close to 20 people already there, so we did our best to race through shared memories and update each other about things happening in our respective lives.

Sonal Patel's mother, known as Ba in Phoenix, Arizona

This is Sonal’s mom, who’s earned the title, Ba – meaning grandmother. Sonal, you might remember, was the owner of Indo Euro Foods and was the person who convinced us to move closer to them back in 2003, which was great as we shared many meals over at their house for nearly ten years before circumstances saw us all drifting in various directions. It was Ba who made the exquisite food we’d enjoyed with them on so many occasions. It was simply wonderful seeing her smile again.

Rinku Shah, Jay Patel, Caroline Wise and Sonal Patel in Phoenix, Arizona

Of course, there was food and lots of it, but as I said, we didn’t want to keep Jay from everyone else who wanted to fall into conversation and laughter with the guy, so we took our leave after little more than a couple of hours here. On the left is Rinku; I photographed her wedding back in 2009; on the right is Sonal Patel, who will forever be an important part of our lives even if we rarely see her these days. Our time in the Gujarati community was a milestone in the experiences that have left indelible impressions upon us; we miss everyone who, for a decade, were some of our best friends.

Crushed Expectations

Sunrise near Valley of the Gods in Mexican Hat, Utah

It’s basically a day like so many others before it: I wake before the sun nudges me from sleep, except on this occasion, my head rises alone for the last time before I get home later today and snuggle in next to the person I love. Carlos and I are bringing to an end our brief five-day excursion that took us to places new to him but mostly familiar to me.

One never knows what might be shared when traveling with a young person, nor does one go on adventures knowing what can be learned about oneself. I anticipated prior to our departure that I’d have my stamina challenged as this 20-year-old young man would have boundless energy, but here, at the cusp of 60 years old, I’ve found the exact opposite. My day started more than an hour ago; I’m showered, packed, and sitting in the dark writing as I’ve already learned to let him sleep because he can fall asleep at the breakfast table, in the car while chatting, listening to music, exploring an environment he’s never seen. Sunrises are not his thing.

We surprisingly leave Mexican Hat, Utah, before the sun has risen, one of the rare opportunities for Carlos to witness the phenomenon for himself, hopefully not the last. While there are rough ideas for how this day might progress, there’s nothing fixed aside from the certainty that we will be traveling south.

We’ll cross over the San Juan River and find the Valley of the Gods in sight before stopping to stare at the sun, looking for the best way to capture its image. I have my ideas of how to photograph our star, but Carlos is new to this experience, which will force him to practice this type of portraiture. As is typical with my method of travel, it’s not long before we are pulling over again for me to learn if I can see something with new eyes in a way that will allow me to bring an experience of the senses home with me I’d not previously encountered. It’s all an experiment, even if I’ve traveled this way a dozen or more times before.

Sunrise near Valley of the Gods in Mexican Hat, Utah

I know we have options regarding how this early part of the day might unfold, but as has been true the previous days, Carlos is along for the ride and has had no input regarding what comes next as this has all been an unfolding surprise of discovery for him.

If, from the title of today’s missive, you think I’m ending our journey on a negative note (Crushed Expectations could imply just that, couldn’t it?), you’d be wrong as the expectations Carlos entertained leading up to this adventure into unknowns proved wrong, well at least one important bit. You see, in order to allay his anticipated boredom due to the long haul across the featureless landscape, Carlos brought nearly a dozen books along with him. My thought was, who brings a dozen books on a road trip other than the person who fears not only becoming bored by the environment but one who becomes bored by the titles he’s attempting to read?

Monument Valley as seen from Utah

Instead, Carlos began falling into what it means to find the art to be seen in all things, and if he’s fortunate, he might discover the love to be found there, too. Like most young Americans brought up on a diet of instant gratification found in being over-stimulated by addictive media that dismiss that which is not consumed through a screen or intense human-created experiences, Carlos wasn’t prepared for the enchantment that awaited him by exploring immense space.

Monument Valley as seen from Utah

But here we are in the resonating throws of an experience that has unfolded in ways unexpected to the mind and imagination of a young man who now wants to continue the journey. By now, I’ve shared one of the secrets that have served Caroline and me so well: from the experiences you love, leave something undone so it will be the thing that draws you back. For Carlos, that draw was a hoped-for visit to the Grand Canyon, but our diversion and distractions that are allowed to happen will slice into the time that might have otherwise been available for a quick visit.

Carlos Guerrero entering Arizona from Utah

The loop is closing, though I hope the road ahead for Carlos will be a divergent one where he’s able to find a path of his own making instead of stumbling into the ruts etched by others following routines that rarely, if ever, change.

Winter on the Navajo Reservation north of Kayenta, Arizona

One cannot always simply go forward; we must yield to impasses, even if we created them ourselves. The road does not go on forever; you have to choose which way you will turn, though crashing into the wall ahead is also an option often chosen.

Winter on the Navajo Reservation north of Kayenta, Arizona

And if you can’t see everything ahead of you, that’s okay; perspective shifts and surprises work to enhance what will have been gained after finding the flexibility and adaptability to work within your situation.

Blue Coffee Pot restaurant in Kayenta, Arizona

To many, maybe a stop at a roadside diner is just another place for a meal, but for me, finding the Blue Coffee Pot Restaurant in Kayenta, Arizona, on the Navajo Reservation open is a treasure. Carlos hadn’t noticed that initially, we were the only two non-Navajo customers in the joint; others passing through town are more likely to stop at the next-door McDonald’s or Burger King as those are the brands they know. Caroline and I have already visited this small restaurant and know that it’s not anything special, but we delight in the knowledge that our money will more directly support the Navajo community instead of some already wealthy executives in faraway Chicago, Illinois.

So, we take up a table, are brought coffee, and await our meal from but a few choices. Normally, I might have dug into writing so I’d have notes allowing me to add granular details to a trip, but over the course of these days, I’ve used my writing time as talking time to iterate and reiterate thoughts and ideas I believe worthy for a young person to at least hear once or twice before finding them at some future date. I’m a bit relentless in pressing these lessons into the ears of Carlos, who doesn’t seem bothered at all by the constant barrage. And so we talk, even at the expense of my breakfast cooling off instead of being eaten.

Comic of John Wise by Morgan Navarro from Grenoble, France

And then breakfast will grow colder as I watch a man wearing headphones enter the restaurant holding a mic in a windscreen and circle the place. It turns out that his name is Jack, and he’s traveling with his friend Morgan; the two Frenchmen are on a pilgrimage to document the path of Hunter S. Thompson, and after getting Jack’s attention, the two of us talk. This traveling journalist/podcaster half-wondered, half-asked, “Why has America seemingly failed to find inspiration from Hunter S. Thompson, and what are my tips for their next destination of Las Vegas?”

I have a tickle in my throat due to all of my talking, and realize that people I enjoy talking to likely believe I talk like this all the time. Little do they understand that there are few people I like talking to, and that’s why I find myself so often before the screen typing, writing in a notebook, reading, or walking around looking at my world and spending time in my own inner dialog. The majority of people which whom I start a conversation only last about 5 to 10 minutes before eyes start rolling, hands fidget, and their body language is a subtle contortion of squirming. When I run into someone with the tiniest spark of curiosity, and I have their attention, I try to dump a sense of passion for knowledge and discovery into them without overwhelming the person or losing them in intertwined examples they typically easily lose track of what thread I’m adding to the tapestry I’m attempting to weave.

Navajo Reservation south of Kayenta, Arizona

This metaphor of creating a cloth is hopefully an apt one because in weaving, complexity and a lot of preparation precede the outcome; similarly, the listener might be confused about the relationship of elements in a conversation being laid down; they cannot yet detect the pattern or value of the way things will be woven into their own experience. We, humans, are often not accustomed to listening to complexities of relationships between unfamiliar ideas and thoughts, finding it difficult to mix them into our own understanding, but this is essentially what the observer witnesses as the weaver throws the weft over the warp, we are not seeing the entire picture or finished form.

Graffiti on the Navajo Reservation in Shonto, Arizona

As the storyteller, I try my best to unravel the image drawn from my experience in a way that makes sense to the listener or reader, but this a fragment spun out of the impossibility of always finding a perfect coherence just as nobody has ever found the perfect alignment of musical notes that create the greatest melody which becomes the definitive song of all time and destroys the need for any new music after this discovery. Nope, we continue throwing contrasting notes into a melange of songs as people enjoy the variety. Sadly, the same cannot be said for stories, especially particularly difficult and possibly obtuse ones.

Graffiti on the Navajo Reservation in Shonto, Arizona

Our vocabulary and experience limit our ability to see beyond the immediacy of self, and through eroding attention spans, we have evolved narratives that have shrunk in much the same manner as moving from Victorian undergarments to g-strings in little more than a generation or two. So now we are left with a society communicating using monosyllabic language that accompanies an equally narrow comprehension. If this brevity is sufficient for operating daily life, then why not apply it to the interpretation of viewing the entirety of what lies ahead? The answer to this is that brevity and simplicity are inadequate for finding knowledge buried in the magnitude of what is before us.

Cow Springs, Arizona

There’s no bridging the chasm from an old-fashioned set of underwear (thoughts) to the other side of the abyss using a g-string (memes). I believe that a comparison could be made by suggesting that Beethoven’s 5th Symphony, comprising four parts lasting 30 to 40 minutes, could be reduced to one note, although in some way, it can be reduced to just the first four. Of the rest of the piece, I suppose it could be claimed that if you heard it once, why does one need to hear it again? Could the answer be found in the fact that humans learn very little to nothing after a single iteration of new information arriving to their senses?

Cow Springs Trading Post in Cow Springs, Arizona

So, we go out to find, see, listen, and hear those things in life we are unfamiliar with, which is precisely what I’m attempting to share with Carlos. When one stops at a friend’s home and listens to a person playing the 5th symphony on piano, they have no real idea of the piece’s complexity if it were being played by a symphony. In our current age, we don’t care. We have the 15-second loop of Beethoven that accompanies the TikTok video with a witty phrase typed over it, and we believe we’ve gained the kind of deep knowledge that has served the sages over millennia. We are whole, we are complete, and we can now face the world with certainty that what was needed to forge a way ahead has been acquired. This is grotesquely untrue; we only thrive when knowledge and wisdom reach deeper into our souls.

Elephant Feet in Tonalea, Arizona

Mind you; this perception is not due to observations made regarding the person I’m traveling with; on the contrary, he’s quite curious, which is also the only reason we went out to share five days of being immersed in what for him are mostly new experiences. It’s precisely his willingness to look, listen, read, and wonder that allowed a basic foundation to be established where I felt that if I took the horse to water, it might likely drink. He supplied the seed, and I provided the sunlight and water.

John_Carlos_Roadtrip

This was the route of our 1,300-mile adventure.

Through the Portal

Jean Pierre Bakery in Durango, Colorado

Get in, get out. Go somewhere to get nowhere. Travel through the space that exists between you and places you’ve never been. Open the door to your cobweb-cluttered mind, welcoming a fresh breeze to disturb the mess within. Try to leave behind the nonsense you’ve been burdened with by expectations that are impossible to satisfy. Then, sit down to a meal of crispy hot knowledge where the shadows of ignorance will come under threat. When we embark on passing into new experiences where nothing is defined, we will likely find ourselves dining alone on the bitter diet of alienation, as who in their right mind would subject themself to introspection and uncertainty after finding cocksurety in the arrogance of all-knowing stupidity?

Southwest Colorado in Winter

We’ve been traveling in a counter-clockwise direction to unwind the spring that is designed to take us forward into expectations. Time is reversing to deny us our orientation with certainty. We revert to a previous mind, the one we carried as children when everything was still new. We are failing to respect convention and custom as we choose to find a new path; I am experiencing familiarity while Carlos travels into a multi-sensorial universe inconceivable just 72 hours earlier. We end up writing and rewriting our internal mappings that drive an operating system running on an auto-pilot setting that helps direct what our future narratives will borrow in order to take form. All the while, the inclination is to believe we are simply following a road that will bring us to something known.

Approaching Utah from Colorado

How could anyone have known the day would start in an authentic French bakery in a mountain town, followed by a slow drive through a snowy environment before being dumped back out in the arid desert? While you might think that, as the planner of this adventure, I would be in possession of that knowledge, the reality is that I considered roads to places separated by reasonable driving distances and then let the pieces fall into place. At any juncture along the way, we may have needed to deviate from the route due to weather, an accident, or even incompatibility between two forces of life that, in an instant found themselves living 24/7 side-by-side.

Carlos Guerrero at Utah State Line

Time to put Colorado behind us for a quick dash to Mexican Hat, Utah, where I hope we can check in early to our motel, dump our bags, and race over to the Navajo Welcome Center at Monument Valley. We have an appointment for 12:30 to meet up with Cody for a guided tour out on the Mystery Valley Trail. This is the reason there are but a few photos representing the first half of the day, though we passed dozens of beautiful snowy landscapes I would have loved to photograph. Believe it or not, this trip has nothing to do with my photography or what I might be looking for; it’s really about what Carlos might discover along the way. This was also a pivotal moment for him. Yesterday, before confirming today’s adventure, I asked him if he was able or willing to pony up his share of the cost for the hike I had in mind. It’s not every day we are confronted with a per-person cost of $180 to be brought into an environment where a good amount of time would be spent walking around through a desert landscape. Strangely enough, he opted to see what the pricey journey might entail.

Mystery Valley, Arizona

We are only slightly southwest of Monument Valley but simultaneously a world away in a place rather isolated. Tire tracks are common, although the sight of the vehicles that left have them will be hard to come by, so we take in the shadows as they stretch over the landscape and will have to imagine the footprints of those Iceage Paleo-Indian hunters that are said to have roamed here starting some 14,000 years before Europeans arrived. As for the shadows, they arrived with the return of the rising sun.

Mystery Valley, Arizona

The Grand Canyon sees about 12,400 visitors a day, and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park sees about 38,600 visitors per day. In this photo we are seeing absolutely nobody, and, should it stay this way, there will be no sad visitors to Mystery Valley today.

Mystery Valley, Arizona

Spoke too soon; here we see John Wayne because John Wayne is always near.

Carlos Guerrero at Mystery Valley in Arizona

In the 192 million years of Monument Valley’s history and with two people standing at this particular point on earth, this is the first time ever that photos were taken of one another. This will never be duplicated due to the impossibility of seeing the exact type and quality of lighting and sky that was rapidly changing here today or even knowing just where it was we were standing.

Mystery Valley, Arizona

On any given day, one might be looking at this scene and, on the very next day, believe they are looking at the same thing, but superposition says this isn’t exactly true. From one day to the next, something changed: a plant grew, grains of sand were blown about, a lizard shifted a thing unseen, and so while the unchanged part is seen, so are the changes though our ability to recall find details might not readily pick up on those differences. You, too, are in a superposition of yourself because you may not perceive how you changed from one day to the next; in the mirror, you will be gazing upon the two versions of yourself, the one that existed yesterday and this new one that gathered something different and has likely changed your trajectory and perception.

Mystery Valley, Arizona

When we are out in unfamiliar places, we are processing a world of differences as we read and learn about the environment. We are, in effect, taking steroids and building muscles, but while our brain becomes swole with the strength of this kind of exercise, we cannot see the bulging pecs of a mind taking on greater definition, and so we discount the value of these experiences.

Mystery Valley, Arizona

Play a videogame, and over time, a person will develop skills that allow the battles and puzzle solving to become easier, but what does one improve upon in their mindscape when considering a tree growing in a bowl of swirly sandstone? What skills are honed or strengths achieved when observing the world around us as an aesthetic body that might be embued with ideas of beauty?

Mystery Valley, Arizona

Prior to the arrival of the Navajo, the Ancestral Puebloans (Anasazi) roamed these lands. I grew up with the ugly manufactured idea that arose out of the Rousseauian concept of the Noble Savage, where white ethnographers romanticized the idea that the Anasazi simply disappeared as a kind of phenomenon. Creating a mystery is more exciting for the imagination than dealing with truths that point to marginalized people forced onto reservations and stripped of their ways of life. In many cases, their children were stolen to ensure they took on the attributes of the dominant culture, though they would never actually become part of that. With a fantasy created, the white inhabitants could reasonably claim that they weren’t corraling authentic people with real history. Those natives were now extinct, and the ones being forced into capitulation were savages intent on destroying opportunities for whites while also threatening our womenfolk. The people who lived on these lands a millennia ago were Ancestral Puebloans who continue to live spread out across the Four Corners Region of the Southwest.

Carlos Guerrero at Mystery Valley in Arizona

Being out here with Cody leading us through these red rocks is amazing in its own right, but I would love the opportunity to camp here for a number of days, leaving the truck behind while we simply walk about, sit for a while, watch and listen to the coming and going of night and day. The reality of our time here is one of a financial equation, a man gets paid so he can continue to exist on land he may have inherited, but the dictates of the modern economy have conditioned him to understand that money equals food and freedom, and if one only has enough for food, his freedom is effectively damned and time made precious and rare.

Mystery Valley, Arizona

The dominant culture of the United States might claim that Americans exist in an egalitarian society, but that’s nothing more than bald-faced lies, similar to those told to people surviving in the straights of poverty by a bourgeoisie protecting the wealth they are afraid could slip away. What happens when not only your inner wealth slips away, but your cultural wealth is torn from the group, and you are left with mythologies that don’t pay for a sack of flour and a hunk of meat? You despair and foment hate with a dose of resentment, or at least I would. I wonder how Americans would feel about their homes being taken in a big roundup while simultaneously forced to acknowledge that Jesus no longer exists and that they’ll be prosecuted and reeducated should they continue to hold on to such primitivism?

Mystery Valley, Arizona

The ironic thing is that the imagination and intellect of the lower socio-economic 2/3rds of the U.S. population have essentially had just that happen to them as they have been stripped of an education that would serve them well in an age of rapidly ascending technology they barely comprehend. Their overlords are creating a complexity using a technological language that relegates this majority to being that of savages and not particularly romanticizable savages. It is as though the modern American masses are becoming an indecipherable bit of rock art that reflects an ancient society lost in time. Humanity is being lost.

Mystery Valley, Arizona

People from between 700 and 2,000 years ago made this pottery, and as it lost its utility, it was left here. When the people of today die, they will leave behind nothing they created with their own hands; they will leave trash, while the memories they gathered from their participation in a media-driven society will leave no signs. Fortunately, these beautiful pieces of pottery that act as reminders of those who came before have so far survived the intrusion of outsiders who sadly, would pay upwards of $1000 for a piece of jewelry made with some of these fragments. We would steal the historical reflections of these ancestors in order to feed our ego and guts, caring not one bit about whose heritage we erase.

Mystery Valley, Arizona

This is a reminder to the future generations that would walk in the Ancestral Puebloan’s footsteps that others learned how to survive here. It is an important history lesson and a challenge for those who follow to learn how to live with less.

Mystery Valley, Arizona

I can’t really say I’ve seen a lot of pottery shards in my lifetime, but I’ve likely seen more than most. This, though, is the first time I’ve seen a piece with a small hole carved into it that I’m going to make the semi-educated guess was there in order to make carrying the vessel a bit easier by using a bit of leather or maybe a twined rope made of yucca. Should you ever find your way out in Mystery Valley, maybe you’ll spot this piece, too, as it’s still lying right where we found it.

Mystery Valley, Arizona

This was home to at least a small handful of Ancestral Puebloans many hundreds of years ago. It was certainly not a dwelling the Navajo would have lived in as their pre-Western contact homes were hogans and sweat houses (sweat lodges) known in Navajo as k’eet’soo’ii.

Carlos Guerrero at Mystery Valley in Arizona

While I was scoping photography opportunities and contemplating silence, Carlos responded to the opportunity of climbing up the cliff face and carefully crawled through the narrow entryway into the long-abandoned cliff dwelling. While I would love to experience the view from above and within, my fear of heights combined with the steep exposure stymied me yet again; well, we can’t do everything, can we?

Mystery Valley, Arizona

Somewhere along the trail, Carlos points out how this is possibly the first time he’s been somewhere so absent of others. This wasn’t a lament; it felt enthusiastic that he should be having such an experience and seeing the world with the eyes of real surprise that might redefine the way he relates to the idea of what a desert is.

Mystery Valley, Arizona

Cherish these moments, Carlos, as over the past 25 years, Caroline and I have found these isolated situations are becoming rarer. The luxury of being in the quiet, open spaces where beauty can be found is disappearing, in large part due to social media and the #doitforthegram crowd. Once Instagram and its influencers take away some of the appeals of pristine places such as what’s happening to Iceland, Pedra do Telégrafo, the Cliffs of Moher, Macchu Picchu, and the Hooker Valley Track, aspiring influencers looking for fame and fortune must discover their own places that will inspire others to be cool like them.

Many Hands Ruin in Mystery Valley, Arizona

To stand here in silence and solitude with no one else present offers the visitor a moment to capture a sense of place taken out of a time prior to the advent of the camera and crowds. We are at The House of Many Hands.

Many Hands Ruin in Mystery Valley, Arizona

A picture is worth a thousand words, except when it’s not. There are four human-looking pictographs on this panel along with more than a few handprints, but I have no facility to decipher them but maybe I don’t really need to. Is it only my desire to solve the mystery that I want to imbue the figures with special meaning, as I think they may contain secrets that were meaningful to the Ancestral Puebloans? What if they were simply art for art’s sake?

Many Hands Ruin in Mystery Valley, Arizona

Hands that touch, hands that hold, hands that love. Hands that write, hands that draw, hands that paint. Hands that steer, hands that give, hands that take.

Mystery Valley, Arizona

Eyes that take, eyes that translate, eyes that wish to never forget.

Chimney Arch at Mystery Valley, Arizona

If a hole in the fabric of reality were able to be opened, would you be afraid to look within? If a gateway into knowledge were to be found in a book, would you read it? If a passageway into your soul was to be discovered in love, would you make the effort to throw off your indifference?

Tear Drop Arch near Gouldings in Monument Valley, Arizona

Everything hangs in the balance between potential and oblivion. The opportunity to gaze through Teardrop Arch near Gouldings Lodge can only happen because one makes oneself available to be here; this is the potential of our senses to find change. A small mound of the earth will someday give way and topple this 200 million-year-old rock perched above it, thus continuing the work of the past 25 million years in shaping Monument Valley. Right here, which was part of my right now while standing here on this late afternoon, I moved my perspective to be witness to a second carved out of a vast history where I’ll blip in and out of existence in the relative blink of an eye. We are afforded this rare opportunity to look through history while history has no interest in looking through us. Will you opt to be present to experience at least some of life with your own eyes, hands, and ears, or is the oblivion of crumbling under the force of time never to have been anywhere good enough for you?

Sunset in Monument Valley, Arizona

Before you know it, another day is gone, another week, month, year, and a life you held dear. That one chance you had to be available for your own life and the lives of others will have slipped by; history will forget you and those who once loved you will also accede to the demands of time, thus erasing your presence like so many clouds capturing the final rays of a setting sun letting go of the intense beauty they inspired upon an observer who happened to be at the right place at the right time to experience such a thing before our star dipped below the horizon.

Transition Zone

Motel 6 in Santa Fe, New Mexico

Nope, not today! We will try our best to offer assistance to the person being human trafficked while we turn a collective blind eye to the masses who are being intellectually trafficked by their lack of meaningful education and addiction to a way of life that keeps the average person nearly in chains of enslavement. These distractions, including news of child abductions, demon possession, drugs in our schools, and mayhem over our borders, are diversions created by marketing geniuses and are designed to lift the burden from individuals to learn, find truths, and consider their options when economic survival priorities dictate the direction and stress people must endure.

At any given moment, there are 580,000 up to 1.5 million people who are homeless, another 325,000 in transitional housing and homeless shelters, and an unknown number of people living in cars. We’re looking at over 1,000,000 Americans facing the grimmest living situations every day, but it was the 2,198 people referred to our justice system for human trafficking offenses that rose to the national stage. The feel-good insipidness that absolves us of real concern for anything is a great indicator of our obsession with the superficial appearance of things. The contradictions that occupy minds with rage is a national disgrace where, on one hand, people are indignant and angry at the government because every day they see the effects of what homelessness means to their community while human trafficking is an invisible crime, and if the government says the situation is improving we have no way of qualifying that. The dichotomy driven by the government that, on one hand, they seem to be doing something and, on the other, appear helpless on big issues helps maintain friction between hope and despair, vacillating in all directions and tearing at the fabric of society. And this is what I had to wake up to this morning instead of being allowed to remain on vacation.

New Mexico

Fortunately for me, the cliffs haven’t yet hoisted neon signs that alert passersby that the weather and erosion have stolen parts of them to traffic the grains to beaches in order for people to luxuriate on the rock-based carcasses carried away by the wind and rain.

Dead animal in New Mexico

Meanwhile, the scavengers of rotting flesh collect their free meal with no judgment as to whether they are stealing. Later, they will return to their trees squatting homelessly while letting their excrement soil our earth below, and while we’re at it, what’s up with treating human fetuses as fully-fledged people and calling abortion murder while those who use their cars to murder these animals are allowed to live free? Is life sacred, or only our own selfish view of what we want to claim is precious is embued with value? Yeah, I know this conversation is absurd, but that’s the point. Most everything is absurd, but we insist the inanities of it all have value, and so we take stupid shit seriously and ignore serious shit because we feel helpless, like a poor animal trying to cross the road, hoping not to be plowed down.

Abandoned gas station in New Mexico

Whoa, what happened to happy observations found on vacation? Look at your decay, America: you are dying but can’t see the rot all around you. If you are even slightly aware, you believe it is somehow the fault of a single individual or party in Washington D.C., but it is the neglect of your own internal (non-existent) dialog where you would ask yourself, what is your own contribution to the culture of not caring? This old gas station and the cafe next door did not close because of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, or Donald Trump. It’s gone because you hate venturing out into your own country unless some level of generic conformist posturing opportunity is on offer, and you’ll gain credibility with your peers for being so fortunate to visit such an in-place that Instagram made popular. Meanwhile, I’ll tourist the corpse of your recent past and grieve your inability to celebrate the fine qualities and unique character of a land that was once held in reverence for the experiences it shared with those willing to traverse its vast spectacle of beauty. Today, we worship at the feet of grotesque wealth while things are supposed to bring us into self-realized entities on the verge of enlightenment, which will never be found in objects or trendy hangouts.

Carlos Guerrero at a Colorado State Line

Alrighty then, I need to leave New Mexico, leave the lament, and move onto new horizons as Carlos and I cross the Colorado State Line into the wintery environment found in the mountains.

Carlos Guerrero at a Colorado State Line

And what’s better upon visiting a new state than dropping into the snow and making a snow angel? We were halfway back to the car when Carlos realized he no longer knew where his phone was. To share with you that I was happy he realized it when he did would be an understatement.

Carlos Guerrero in Colorado

No worries, Carlos, I’ll go back to the gas station and grab a cup of hot coffee to help melt your connection to the folly of having to test your need for certain knowledge.

Snowy Colorado

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forest. When traversing places with someone of unknown quantities, we can lose the ability to read what the eyes are trying to take in as the chatter in our head overwhelms the visual aesthetic, and our inner voice distracts us from deciphering what the gap in communication is whispering at us. It is a distraction, preventing me from gazing as deeply as I might when traveling with Caroline because an inexplicable connectivity creates a symbiosis of sorts, linking the two of us while a telepathic language seems to be blurting out “wow” over and over again. Carlos, on the other hand, is elsewhere, in a place I cannot easily decipher, possibly overwhelmed, underwhelmed, or maybe nowhere. In any case, I find it difficult to understand his version of quiet.

Durango Silverton Train Station in Durango, Colorado

Trains take people places, cars, and bicycles too. When people lead the way, however, the journey is directed by the whims, curiosities, and knowledge of the guide. Giving over the itinerary to someone else absolves one from having to make the important decision regarding the destination. In this case, the journey is a constantly evolving series of impressions without end. We are taking a pause in Durango, Colorado, with my intention of sharing as much about the old steam trains that run through here as possible.

Carlos Guerrero at Durango Silverton Train Station in Durango, Colorado

The last train of the day had already pulled into the station, and tomorrow, we’ll be gone before the first one leaves Durango for its journey to Silverton, so the museum would have to suffice for this brief intro. Fortunately, Jake, the train enthusiast, was at the helm and offered Carlos and me an immersive deep dive into all things regarding the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad, along with his dreams of spending a lifetime exploring trains around the world.

Durango Silverton Train Station in Durango, Colorado

With the whole operation about to shut down for the evening, we were able to gather a better sense of the history without the flighty crowds of cackling tourists. For a moment, it was just your average train station from 100 years ago servicing an outpost at the end of the track in the old west, and it was all ours.

Durango Silverton Train Station in Durango, Colorado

Growing up in places where seemingly everyone lived makes for a stark contrast to what I most love in places at this stage in my life: there should be only a few to no people. A train going to unknown places with no one else aboard, trundling over an infinite landscape day after day with nary a stop, offering an uninterrupted opportunity to read, write, think, and drift into nothing, is the description of a vacation I’d sign up for.

General Palmer Hotel in Durango, Colorado

So, this is how the other half lives? Our more typical accommodations do not feature a lobby, a library, or afternoon coffee and cookies. This is the General Palmer Hotel next door to the Durango & Silverton train station, and it has serious amenities. The deal wasn’t great, but it wasn’t horrible either, so I thought, let’s splurge and bring Carlos into some old-west luxury. Later in the evening, he spent a solid two hours down here reading and writing in the parlor that was his alone.

General Palmer Hotel in Durango, Colorado

The General Palmer was built in 1898 and has some real character compared to the formulaic franchise hotels that have become so popular. The crazy thing about this is that I can book a room for Caroline and me at the 900-year-old (Zum Roten Bären) Red Bear Hotel in Freiburg, Germany, for a cheaper rate (in season even) than this midweek winter rate in the southwest corner of Colorado. I know this is an old song here on my blog, but I feel like I can’t say it enough: America is moving further away from being an egalitarian society in the relative blink of an eye. Years ago, Caroline and I could move around the United States rather inexpensively, but those deals were more and more difficult to find. Sadly, I have to be the first to admit that the lower the socioeconomic status of my fellow travelers, the likelihood of wanting to be in their presence is greatly diminished as the poor are becoming increasingly belligerent, loud, and vulgar. While I didn’t share it following our night in Socorro, New Mexico, the cheap motel we checked into had a drunken party of linemen wrestling and acting the fools in the parking lot. Yeah, I know they were just blowing off steam from some days of hard work after getting paid, and they were hardly a major annoyance, but in general, the type of person booking those lower-end accommodations are no longer young families but the Andrew-Tate-type animals cultivating their inner troglodytes. The implications mean we have to isolate ourselves in progressively more expensive lodgings with a gentrified clientele.

Durango, Colorado

Maybe the sun is not only setting on the day but also setting on me. Was I really so undiscerning 10 and 15 years ago? Have I become more aware of noise when I still remember many a room we’ve left due to shenanigans in a nearby room or the utter depravity of what we checked into without first examining the room? Is this the grump of the old man? Well, at least the sunset found in the sky is still beautiful, while our dinner at Himalayan Kitchen was yummy perfection.

Gianni Coria featured at The Gallery in Durango, Colorado

A walk down Main Street was necessary if I was going to get to my desired step count, and who wants to pop back into a hotel too early? As Carlos went his way, I needed to fetch my fleece as the absence of the sun brought on a chill. Aside from Maria’s Bookshop, where I picked up a copy of Otherlands: A Journey Through Earth’s Extinct Worlds by Thomas Halliday, there wasn’t a lot more on Main Street that interested me until I arrived at The Gallery. Trying to offer you more info on this little treasure has proven impossible as there is nearly no information on the internet regarding it, even being in Durango.

Gianni Coria featured at The Gallery in Durango, Colorado

The pieces I’m sharing are from Gianni Coria and I only know this due to the tiny amount of data I did find on the interwebs. In the shop itself, there was nobody to be found. Had I been a climate activist intent on gluing my hands to a piece, there was little anyone monitoring the cameras in the gallery could do as I could have splashed Gorilla Glue all over my naked body and attached myself to one of these four-foot-tall pieces. Next, you might ask, what was I doing naked in this gallery after I just shared that I grabbed my fleece, and just what is gluing myself to a piece of art when nobody is around to witness it going to accomplish in my fight for climate change awareness? Come on, think about the headline, “Naked Arizona man found cold and hungry and glued to a painting in Durango gallery claims he doesn’t know how he got there.”