Horizons


Places on the Wheel

I've spent most of my life in Arizona. Outside of the urban areas, there is something that you don't see a whole lot of anymore.

You can look beyond the city and see pure nature in the horizon. Make that Nature with a capital N.

Now I am not talking about Phoenix or Tucson, or the corridor between them. Even parts of Flagstaff and Yuma are heavily overbuilt these days, although Flagstaff redeems itself with a few mountains.

I'm talking about the places where you can almost draw a line and say, "Here be Man" and "There be Nature."

It's a totally different type of energy with it's own demands. It's the places where Nature Herself is a force to be reckoned with.

There is the the lower desert where the hot dry air sucks the the water and life right out of you. There is the Colorado River, tamer now, but still with whitewater that makes you question humanity's place on the planet. There is the aspen and pine forest whispering in your ear beneath a jeweled night sky with just a sliver moon crescent.

This is the horizon in Arizona. Nature is out there. And She is watching you. She'll seduce you or kill you, but She'll never ignore you.

For me that is pretty vital. When I get sucked into the mundane, the "here and now," I can raise my eyes to the horizon and remember what is out there. Who is out there. The greater part of my world exists outside the "nice" and the "normal." That is the part that pulls me outside myself.

I had need of that this week.

My stepfather is dying. He's been dying for a long time, but this was another bad spell. Not quite dying fast enough to justify radical medical attention, not slow enough so he can live a regular life. Just dying, falling through the cracks of our medical system.

I can't really help him. There are too many parts that have been ignored for too long. He's cut himself off from most human contact years ago. I'm not sure he wants to be helped. I think he wants attention and he wants pity.

Besides my stepfather, I have a friend who is fighting a losing battle with the aftereffects of chemotherapy. My friend and I get along, but there are "issues" with her family because of my faith. It doesn't help that we have been intimate in the past. I can't really help her either, the only thing I can do is listen and comfort while she dies.

I can't even do that with my stepfather who is so confused right now that I don't think he knows who I am.

So I have been spending a lot of time these last two weeks in hospitals and waiting rooms and doctor offices. Which, for reasons I won't go into here, makes me antsy enough to start tearing walls down.

So I step outside. I raise my eyes to the horizon. I see Nature looking me in the soul. And I get enough strength to tide me by.

For a while.

Posted: Thu - March 30, 2006 at 11:27 PM
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