Election Canards

JWise Thoughts

The MOBS

Yes, the electorate of the city I live in is THAT stupid. So, just who are these mobs this candidate for sheriff is standing up to? I’d wager he’s not referring to the Sinaloa Cartel, the Mafia, or biker gangs associated with criminal activity – oh yeah, that would be because those groups participate in interstate crime, which the FBI deals with. No, he wouldn’t be so overt and racist by making an appeal in public on street corners with a sign that targets Black Lives Matter, anti-fascists, environmentalists, and protesters in general that the president of the United States has labeled as liberal extremists. Why would the general public put up with a sign that smacks of such overt racism with hints of nationalism? The easy answer is that we are collectively too stupid to recognize the blatant nature of an appeal to backward-thinking white supremacists.

I recently read this tweet from Bree Newsome Bass: “The civil unrest is a byproduct of the collapsing state, not the cause of it.” Now, I can already hear people saying that the collapse is due to this event or that one, this death, this action, this fire, these people, those people, immigrants, Facebook, the fake media, QAnon, Obama, Trump, or whatever flavor of nonsense that wraps up people’s concerns in some neat little package that isolates the problem which would then insinuate that if we could simply contain it, we can deal with it and overcome it.

Here’s some news for you: our problems are deep and systemic, and Ms. Bass is getting it right; we are in a collapsing state. The only reason we are in this situation is because of our fundamentally broken education environment. I did NOT say the education system. Our teachers are, by and large, doing the best they can, but they have to fight against a population that revels in the mediocrity of subpar intellect that is wrongly construed as a form of genius. Collectively, we are idiots, and that’s why people running for office can put up such hostile signs asking you for their vote, as did Jerry here in Phoenix, Arizona. We have choices of how to listen to opposing points of view. While many will insist that the dogma they eschew is a kind of law laid down as a liturgical device by “their” politicians and Fox News pundits, or maybe it’s an insidious canon law not conveyed by a papal pronouncement but the whimsical folly of a celebrity turned politician. However, by what method does a large part of our population gather to act as a conditioned herd of sheep, which both sides accuse the other of being guilty of? It could very well be that it is this black-and-white, either-or, my way or the highway, kind of mentality that is shooting the body politic point-blank in the head.

My analogies and observations are fundamentally worthless. My kvetching adds nothing to the larger dialog as bigger, more important voices than mine have been speaking truth to power for far longer than I’ve been alive, and their impact has been negligible at best. So why don’t I just stop hitting all these keys in front of me and get on with some good old-fashioned rolling over and accepting my own superiority I deserve for being allowed to live? Because of my dream that I won’t go to my grave surrounded by the hostility of idiots, and I mean this in the general sense. I’d prefer that my final breath would not be one of exasperation but one of envy that those who continue are doing so in a world better than the one I was born to.

Back to the mob. A citizenry operating within the context of constitutionally guaranteed rights when demanding change from a system that rightfully appears hostile to the point of being deadly to a part of our people is democracy doing what it’s supposed to do. We once asked how Germans could sit by and allow Jewish people, gay people, Sinti/Roma, and others to be rounded up and shipped off. We felt they must have been complicit in the atrocities being waged against these groups. But this is exactly where America is today as we demonize those who are risking their safety by confronting a state apparatus that is deaf to the plight of those who are not of the majority. The real mob is the thugs doing the bidding of people in bunkers and high towers. Joseph Goebbels, Heinrich Himmler, not even Adolf Hitler himself ever needed to murder a single person as the officers of the Sturmabteilung, a.k.a. the Brown Shirts, the Schutzstaffel a.k.a. the SS, the Gestapo which translates to the Secret State Police, even the ordinary policeman on the beat were part of the fabric of suppression of the undesirables, of the Jewish mob, the gay mob, the scientific and art mob, the sympathizer mob who tried to protect those who would bring down the state that was only looking out for the common German worker. The official title of these law & order patriots was National Socialist German Workers’ Party or NSDAP, better known as Nazi Party.

I can imagine a reader of this being aghast that I’d draw a comparison of Nazis to American policemen and women, and I certainly and unequivocally would agree that the comparison is mostly WAY off base, but the bigger point was that to the average German who didn’t much care about Jews, gays, artists, and other ethnicities, those agencies were simply law enforcement officers doing their jobs. When your own country starts referring to its citizens (the mob) as enemies of the state and elections can use propagandistic speech as a friendly colloquial, nothing mean intended if you are on the right side of the argument kind of way, then those who would call these unfolding atrocities out for what they might be leading to, are then the enemies of the state too. But I am not an enemy, and I insist that I’m a part of our better conscience where we all strive to be better, not whiter, not angrier, not pettier.

History always catches up with those who subvert humanity, even when it means the entire collapse of an unjust empire, Reich, reign, or cartel. The criminally hateful are ultimately marginalized, with their bones thrown to the wind. From the Roman Empire, the Nazis, the Ottomans, the Mongols, and so many others that thought they could rule with iron fists, it is the collapsing state that unseats these traitors of humanity who abused the naive trust of those who believe that by eliminating the perceived enemy, they can offer you a better world. And yet, here we go again.

Dasein – Being There

JWise Thoughts
Hegel_by_Schlesinger
This is Hegel, not Herzog

Plato taught Aristotle. Aristotle influenced almost everybody, including Thomas Aquinas, who likewise influenced almost everyone in the Western world. From Dante to Martin Luther and Goethe, the bible played its role until Spinoza, Descartes, Rousseau, and Kant took up the mantle of thought to influence Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and others right up to our present time. For two thousand years, the baton of knowledge and humanity’s desire to understand our place in the cosmos has been a thread passed from generation to generation. These thinkers wrote in order to distill accumulating theory into new tools that might allow others to forge better processes as we try crawling out of the proverbial muck. In their search for answers, even if flawed and, in retrospect, unenlightened, those who force us to think differently are helping us understand existence.

Some of us write to explore our existence as we become aware of our Dasein. I am referencing this German word here on the 250th birthday of Hegel, who wrote of the subject, but it is the definition by Heidegger that resonates with me most. Da means “there,” and sein translates to “to be,” so we could say Dasein means “being there” or “presence,” but you should know some German to better understand that nothing is as it appears on first blush regarding simple meaning. In English, we translate Dasein as “existence” though many things are in existence, including animals, insects, molecules, planets, pollution, and us.

Put another way, Dasein means that humans “are” in the world, that we are aware of self and of a universe of meaning constructed by humans to learn how to understand our involvement. These structures are the results of human experiences and the consciousness that cultivate the seeds of Dasein. The science of attempting to understand this is called phenomenology. It is within this realm that we explore metaphysics, and within that, some of us are concerned with the noetics of our species. So, “being there” cannot simply mean mere existence, but it demands that a person is actively engaged in exploring the most important aspects of humanity as it relates to the mind’s interpretation of our place in the realm of knowledge. That is what is meant by noetics, in my understanding.

Consider the idea of a current moment where we cannot see forward and are content with where we are; we are in our “normal.” Being in the present without knowledge or bias about any immediate demands or questioning of certain higher orders that would require a fundamental cultural or intellectual shift because things are relatively perfect as they serve us with our current awareness can be called “epoché.” People of the past all existed in their own epochés and wrote from the basis of their accepted norms as they suspended their judgment and had to accept certain rules, laws, and conventions since violations could result in death. These people’s flaws do not invalidate their contribution, although there are those here in the early 21st century who are risking making a clean break with what they see as the moral failures of our ancestors.

Herein lies a problem of living in our epoché without Dasein but also being unaware or unable to harness the noetics of invention where we map our future. Why are we here? We are wallowing in a bizarre moment of disintegration of the fabric that holds one generation to another. The roads of capitalism, industrialism, technology, climate science, greed, racism, and the need for education have all converged, though some of these trajectories are at their dead-end while others are hampered from moving forward by fear. Without our embrace of systemic change, our Dasein is frozen without knowledge or a plan for how we transition to what comes next. We are sadly stuck in this epoché while those who embrace Dasein and cherish the noetic process are marginalized by an economic system that doesn’t concern itself with intellectual capital as it’s blinded by material accumulation that demands the complacency of those who have not.

To even ask me what the hell I am talking about is to acknowledge that we do not care about the experiential knowledge found in the study of language, mind, intellect, education, and real human progress. We now measure ourselves by how adroitly we manipulate relatively primitive digital tools using gestures and voice commands as though we were communicating with the Gods and downloading gnosis. We further this in our vulgar displays of normalized greed, the indignation of those who desire progress against the degradation of the environment, and continued racism that results in death and institutionalization. This situation risks damaging 2,000 years of progress as a generation sees the failures of their parents and the controllers they’ve given power to as being so fundamentally broken that nothing of the past is really worth carrying forward.

Difficult to see in all of this is that the epoch we’ve been living in where we’d normalized the tools, paradigms, economics, and various habits we’ve been enjoying during my lifetime, is over. That normal, without consideration of thought about what comes next, is what being in an epoché means to me. All that we knew in the 20th century is losing relevance. Its logic or reasons behind why things were the way they were have not been conveyed to the next generations who are failing to see any sense in it all or are ignoring those conventions as they perceive them as hostile. So, the young are living in an epoché where they accept that nothing will change and that nothing can be done about it, while previous generations accepted that their epoché required war and violence to bring change and clarity to those too locked in paradigms that were unacceptable to the ruling class.

We are in a stalemate unless the older generation can somehow, at this late stage, force upon their children a way of life they so far have failed to impress on them. In lieu of that, their directionless offspring can wait for a generation or two of these oldies to die out and then somehow magically turn on the spigot of intellectual consciousness instead of reactionary disdain. One side cannot fathom the other, and yet neither side has any valid ideas for progress as we’ve slid into the post-industrial digitized world of the socially connected universe that is yet to receive new rules and paradigms to build dreams for the future we are entering.

Dreams of the future are where I find my idealism, but recently, I feel that the door is opening once again on the fall of humanity. Dark ages of despair seem to be the elixir of reform and harbinger of real change, as making our way into the future requires us to step over more than a few bodies. Self-awareness and building anew on Dasein are exciting times when a convulsion of circumstances propels us to leave the past behind, and no matter how foolhardy I’d like to hope that my life would not play witness to tragedy on a vast scale, I grow ever more resigned to the idea that only through a global cultural contortion of ugly consequence will a new generation be catapulted into the demands of being there.

Leaving Out – Day 3

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

The dry bed of the Gila River in Duncan, Arizona

The day begins in the dry sandy bed the Gila River plies when water spreads out between its banks. Birds are ever-present, though it would seem some species have moved on and maybe others moved in, but we are not ornithologists, so I cannot speak with authority. Beetles are copulating while ants scurry about as they emerge from and retreat into neatly groomed mounds around the passageway to their nests. The morning is pleasant out here and otherwise quiet aside from the distant dogs, chickens, and those birds I mentioned who live along the now-dry riverway.

The dry bed of the Gila River in Duncan, Arizona

We are leary of where our feet settle as we’ve been told to be aware of quicksand and, like all fools, I secretly hoped to find some, though I only dreamt of a periphery experience so I could add having escaped its clutches to the narrative here on my blog. For color, I could have lied while embellishing an otherwise mundane but not uninteresting walk where water should have been and we shouldn’t have.

Gourd along the dry bed of the Gila River in Duncan, Arizona

Checking my head, I cannot give you a good reason as to why we didn’t harvest some of the buffalo gourds that were growing everywhere. Along the river bed in the sandy soil, this stuff thrives, and we happen to be here while it’s still young and edible, and yet we collected not a single fruit. We’ve never eaten buffalo gourd that is said to taste like squash, now I’m tempted to drive the 205 miles back out to Duncan to get some for dinner and see just how tasty or not it is.

Dike on the Gila River in Duncan, Arizona

If you are wondering, we walked upstream and saw not a single sign of fish, dead or living. We exited the dry flow through a gap in the brush that hugs the shore, making our way atop a dike built to contain the invisible river should it decide to come back with a ferocity that might threaten the small town of Duncan. Last January, during our last visit, we were still within the confines of winter, bundled up and scarved to keep the cold at bay. We watched the river with admiration and respect for what might be hidden in the depths that we could not see or fathom. Today, on a late summer day, the sandhill crane shares its call somewhere else, well out of earshot of those in this crispy desert landscape. Funny how our instincts do not shoo us away from inhospitable places like those bird-brained specimens from the aviary family of creatures while we, with our superior intellects, walk right into the situations that threaten our comfort.

Simpson Hotel in Duncan, Arizona

Then again, we can just as quickly return to our creature comforts at our lodging to dine on another exquisite meal assembled by deft hands from ingredients collected across a vast geography, while the bird can only eat what it finds in front of its beak. Our first meal of the day was again nothing less than spectacular, but the resumption of our conversation with our hosts that inspired us to want to return would have to wait as a suddenly sickly cat friend who goes by the name Maliki needed to be rushed to a clinic specializing in ailments of four-legged and likely two-winged creatures unable to describe what is wrong and relying on us to interpret the change in their behavior and help save them should the ailment prove dangerous. Later in the day, we’d learned that luckily for all involved, the cat, while apparently traumatized, was not in serious condition and was discharged into the loving arms of the concerned caretakers.

The character of our hosts here cannot be understated as, without a second thought, they were moving to the door with Maliki wrapped up while we inquired about what needed to be locked up as they were about to head up, maybe down, the road. I believe they would have left without our payment had I not pressed it into the hand of Deborah, who was more concerned about this sweet cat than the ability of her guests to show themselves out and to do so graciously.

At the Simpson Hotel in Duncan, Arizona

Before we could depart, we had one more mission to accomplish here at the historic and incomparable Simpson Hotel: we had to revisit the collected works of resident artist Don Carlos. As the inimitable Herr Comrade Carlos, under the steady gaze of a young Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky, a.k.a. Iron Felix, was clearing the way for Maliki to be fully interrogated by a nearby Doctor of Veterinary Sciences, he waved us on to inspect his works that were illuminated and ready for our observations.

At the Simpson Hotel in Duncan, Arizona

The microcosms inspired by Don Carlos’s investigations are held in suspended animation during these plague days of 2020, but today, we are the lucky ones to have a private viewing at the pace we decide. Without narrative, without music, and only the shuffling sound of our feet, we move between the dioramas, able to peek into the tiniest of corners of the artist’s creativity. I know firsthand that while the emotion held in his work may be broad, the scope of what feeds the expression is larger than any diorama can hope to contain. Fragments and musings of things that have passed through the mind of the artist find their way out to where paths intersect and inject delight within those encountering an imagination that travels and trades in the magic of images, both visual and verbal.

At the Simpson Hotel in Duncan, Arizona

Multidimensionality is alive within the space cultivated here at the hotel. Cats and dragonflies, bees and flowing water, deities, and things organic mix with history being pulled from a global culture not aligned with pretense, dogma, or deeper meaning. My takeaway is this is an assemblage of love where the creator imbues the environment with a universe that hints at passion and recognizes the disorder of an entropic reality we call chaos. Here in the shared mind-space of Don Carlos, I tend to want to feel puny but console my inferiority by accepting his wisdom as that coming from a mentor, even if this formal arrangement is of my making.

At the Simpson Hotel in Duncan, Arizona

Don’t be fooled by the thought that a box is a self-contained object of art, as the world around Simpson Hotel is a diorama in its own right. I could easily entertain the thought that given enough canvas space; Don Carlos would fold all of Duncan into his art; as a matter of fact, it might only be my own myopic viewpoint that doesn’t allow me to grasp immediately that he’s already done precisely that.

At the Simpson Hotel in Duncan, Arizona

Being in the shared imagination of a world you may initially want to still consider your own, you would fail to understand that you’ve entered the living canvas that is borrowing things familiar, but their arrangement removes you from the surrounding desert and embraces you in a dreamlike oasis. Simply browsing without thinking might be a good place to start as you pay a visit, but like Felix the Cat, you should arrive with your Bag of Tricks, where you can unfold your knowledge in order to peer through the filter of history. There’s more here than meets the eye, and sadly, few will ever know the depth of its assemblage.

At the Simpson Hotel in Duncan, Arizona

Being here in Duncan is our re-encounter with life as we knew it earlier this year. This was not exactly the way things were, but as a surrogate wrapped in caution where the players are deeply aware of simple changes that are respectful of those wanting and needing to continue this act of trying to live full lives, it was a gift that starts the healing process after fear hurt our sense of the world. While we cannot travel to Europe, and I’m not ready to fly anywhere yet, I hope to return to the Simpson in the next weeks on my own for a week of writing and immersing myself in nature out the front door while an amalgamation of culture that speaks to my sense of the aesthetic is found on the other side of a screen door.

Guapo the Old Man at the Simpson Hotel in Duncan, Arizona

Just yesterday, we were introduced to Old Man Guapo. This elderly and fading cat was resting out back and obviously not interested in our approach. Shortly before our departure this morning, Guapo took up a position right in front of the door that was our exit. He didn’t budge while I snapped a few photos down at his level, trying to capture the warmth of the sun he was basking in. While listening attentively to my presence, he couldn’t be bothered to look at the person who was more interested in him than he was in me. Slowly, we did our best not to disturb his cozy spot as we barely opened the door to sneak out. Then, without fanfare and farewells, we locked the front door and drove away.

Cotton growing in Safford, Arizona

Out of the imagination of artists and authors and into the mountains, we’d go. The plan was to drive the steep and often harrowing road leading us up Mt. Graham. This mountain oasis springs 10,000 feet out of the surrounding desert and leads into pine trees. Below us, the famous Pima cotton we just passed is flowering under the blistering 107 degrees summer day. Up the mountain, the temperature will drop to a comparatively chilly 73 degrees.

Caroline Wise and John Wise on Mt. Graham in Arizona

Before reaching the summit, we ran out of paved road. If it weren’t for my nerves frayed from constantly glimpsing the precipitous drops that looked to fall thousands of feet to the desert floor below, we might have continued following the trail, but I’d had enough of this adventure ride, took the opportunity to capture a selfie-and beat a retreat. Later on, I had to ask myself: how did I convince myself not to continue the journey? My weak answer is that during these days of divide and conquer, anger and mistrust, illness and death, I find that the encounter with people’s impatience is enough to reassure me that self-isolation might be a preferred state to live in.

Mt. Graham in Arizona

While at the Simpson, we moved from our cocoon at home to a cocoon shared by a couple equally concerned with finding harmony and love in life. In this sense, I want to gel with Vishnu while Shiva can guide the minions over their own spiritual cliff into the abyss of folly and self-harm. When a simple scene of serenity found in the grass, shadows, leaves, trees, the sky above, and insects below has lost its value to me, maybe then I’ll lose my desire to embrace my better zen moments, but until that time I will strive to be at peace.

Deer on Mt. Graham in Arizona

The landscape below us was obscured by the fires burning in Arizona and the smoke drifting in from the more than a million acres smoldering across California. So, instead of panoramas of hazy horizons, we look around us and think of our return and another encounter with the wildlife that calls these mountains home.

Mt. Graham in Arizona

Our next visit could be a guided tour to the observatory atop Mt. Graham; for that we will have to make reservations and get to leave the driving to someone else. Before the end of the day, I’ll be making an inquiry regarding availability.

Indulgence was the only way to describe the remainder of our drive home as in Pima, we made a stop at Taylor Freeze for a couple of chocolate milkshakes, and then in Miami, we just had to revisit Guayo’s El Rey for more carne asada even if we had just been there 48 hours ago. Getting back into the Phoenix area, we were gobsmacked by the heat, a hefty 117 degrees of asphalt melting anger from the sun. Arriving at home, we are no longer out; we are, once again, in.

Edit on September 4th: I just spoke with Deborah, our host at Simpson Hotel, and learned that Guapo passed away 48 hours after I shot this photo on August 26th. He rests in peace in the garden, basking under the sun.

Being Out – Day 2

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

Simpson Hotel in Duncan, Arizona

Without a sound, we woke from our internal alarm to find the house reflecting its age with quiet. It’s only when moving into the parlor that the tick-tock of a clock becomes our companion to the emerging day. The place settings that were put out the night before identify where breakfast will be, but that’s still being concocted if Clayton and Deborah’s movements in their kitchen are indicators. Coffee is brought out with the promise of being strong in order to appeal to our European sensibility. We start to wipe away the remnants of sleep with this jolt of caffeine and the serenading of opera flowing from the kitchen and wait patiently; Caroline knits a sock, and I am writing.

Breakfast must be identified and accounted for as it is a labor of passion and investment of skills. Initially, we were informed that the cooking services were on hold for the duration of the virus, but it turns out that my rhapsody about the wizardry of tastes that enchanted our memories of a January visit was enough to have Deborah inquire of the man behind the frying pan if he’d be willing to grace us with a new ensemble of flavors to help us break the overnight fast. He agreed.

Simpson Hotel in Duncan, Arizona

Aplomb cannot be the right choice of words as I do not believe Clayton finds his time in the culinary alchemist’s lab to be demanding. Our breakfast arrives, radiating the skills of the maestro. We are brought a small ramekin of fresh fruit, a carafe of juice, and a plate separated into threes, which could be a nod to the father, the son, and the holy ghost, or is it a reflection of academia where there is your opinion, my opinion, and someone else’s opinion? On second thought, maybe nothing at all was implied with our servings of veggie frittata, field roast sausage, and chia seed pancakes about to be topped with prickly pear agave syrup, but it’s nice to dream. As for the appeal of the palette? Gluttony would have me asking for seconds while manners dictate I simply gush over the exquisite meal.

Speaking of dreaming, it is time to temporarily leave this house to wander over to the Gila Cliff Dwellings and visit others’ faded dreams.

Gila River at Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument in New Mexico

In the distance, long before we ever reach our destination, we start to see where normal used to be. Driving into an adjacent state reminds me of the freedom to roam. Our sense of place has an inherent need to take ourselves to the end of the road in order to look out and wonder what’s beyond the limits of what we can see and know. Our exercise in exploration offers us a footing to better understand what the toil at home is for.  This journey over to Silver City, New Mexico, where we’ll connect to State Road 15 going north through Pinos Altos and up into the Gila National Forest area, where the cliff dwellings are, will literally deliver us to the end of the road.

Caroline Wise at Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument in New Mexico

Nearly two hours of twisting, windy road in an air-conditioned car traveling between 25 and 45 mph allowed us to arrive in the middle of nowhere in comfort; we even had iced drinks in the backseat along with snacks for our visit by way of absolute luxury. The entire way, I thought about those who would have lived in the cliff dwelling we are visiting for the second time in our lives. How far did they venture away from home? Had any of them ever gone so far as to walk to the ocean? What was the totality of their universe? I’d wager that they likely did not have concepts for the need to escape on a weekend sojourn to change things up.

Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument in New Mexico

From the clues that remain in the area, researchers have surmised that people known as the Mimbres lived in this area, with the Gila River running through it, from about 1,000 to the year 1,250. Only 25 years later, the members of the Mogollon people took up residence on the cliffside, building a series of 46 stone rooms within five caves, but then abandoned the area a bit over 100 years later. We have little certainty about what was in the minds of indigenous peoples of North America since before we could learn of their customs and history, our ancestors tried to annihilate all references and appearances of what they might have contributed to our culture. Such was the weakness our forefathers felt about their own religion. Funny, not funny, how that holds true to this day.

While I stand upon lands they were forced to give us, I cannot stand in their footsteps. I watch the shadows of birds whose ancestors flew over the same adjacent canyons as their descendants. Lizards scurry about just as they would have when the Mogollon and Mimbres people walked amongst them; I can’t help but wonder if the lizards and birds don’t know more about the people of these lands than we ever will.

Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument in New Mexico

I’m jealous of the stones that knew the touch and felt the warmth radiating from the people and their hearths, taking refuge from the elements within these homes fashioned by ancient architects. I listen closely to the silence but cannot hear the echoes of knowledge of the band of humans brought to this corner of remoteness.

I don’t mean to infer there was ever anything in North America like a hub or city for the millions of indigenous people that strode among the trees, mountains, rivers, and animals over the centuries. The one thing I can surmise, though, is that while they likely knew hardship, they also knew how to occupy a quiet place upon the land, which has me questioning if they didn’t find a kind of enlightenment in the quiet of the mind when one soars effortlessly within one’s environment.

Caroline Wise and John Wise at Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument in New Mexico

But this is all speculation and flights of fantasy, as my own mind is a hive of parasitic jingles and messages conditioned by consumption that were supposed to deliver me to happiness and success. I can have everything shipped home from Amazon, Walmart, musical instrument shops, all kinds of food, even marijuana, but I cannot have anyone bring me the vastness of being from a place that conveys the spectacle only nature can deliver to one’s eyes, ears, nose, and touch. For this reason, I will always be poor.

Wild grape at Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument in New Mexico

Had it been the Mimbres or the Mogollon living here, they did so without fee, without tax, without deed, and without anyone to answer to. All they needed to do was survive, and maybe that wasn’t all that easy as, within about 100 years, they abandoned their perch with a view. I don’t believe they all perished, but would like to think they moved on as circumstances had become difficult, which necessitated a relocation, and that their descendants are now in nearby communities. As a visitor to these lands, I’m allowed to take nothing besides my memories and photographs; I cannot even pick a wild grape that would have been free for the taking in the centuries before my ancestors arrived.

Caroline Wise at Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument in New Mexico

Caroline has continued in her effort to know something more about the place we’ve been visiting and on our arrival, she inquired about the local Junior Ranger program only to learn she could earn her Senior Ranger badge today. Needing to understand what could be gleaned from a visit to this National Monument, she ventured up the trail, trying to capture every clue from the details on display so that when the park ranger tested her knowledge, she might qualify for the honor of once again taking the oath to help protect what is held as important to our culture. With her right hand raised, socially distanced, and masked up, Caroline is now a Senior Ranger.

Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument in New Mexico

Our own time here was extraordinarily brief, and the timing was perfect, with beautiful skies on hand until they started to darken with the threat of storms on the horizon. We managed to visit another small dwelling and almost missed some incredible pictographs had my eye not caught a hint of them after we’d started to drive away. I reversed back to the Lower Scorpion campground and pulled into the parking lot again so we could take a different trail that delivered the reward of more than a dozen cliffside panel pieces with meanings lost in time or at least lost to the invading forces. We can admire the messaging from afar, but deciphering their intrinsic value is a guessing game that I cannot claim to know how to win.

Driving south toward Silver City, New Mexico

Our signs, on the other hand, are easy to parse, “This windy road pissed off others who passed this way which required them to leave their vehicle with a weapon and attempt to murder the sign.” We’ll pass through old town Pinos Altos on our way back through Silver City, where we’ll need to get dinner. This town is not very well equipped for serving people food on a Sunday. Most restaurants are closed. I can only guess that Silver City is not really on anyone’s map of places to go, and so with a depressed economy, the locals cannot support these businesses seven days a week. If there was a demand from tourists, I’m sure owners would have brought on staff.

Once we’d decided on where we’d pick up food, we started hearing a commotion outside of our windows; it was the buzz of cicadas sounding, unlike the ones we have in Phoenix. Their screams were like a sine wave of volume modulation that would wax and wane, and at the top of their crescendo, you wouldn’t be blamed if you were slightly frightened into thinking some kind of imminent explosion of their species was about to occur. I say, unlike their Arizona brethren, as the chirp is significantly different.

Caroline Wise dining el fresco in Silver City, New Mexico

After our incredibly mediocre Mexican dinner, taken al fresco in a local park, we licked the wounds of having missed out on one of New Mexico’s famous green chili dishes, but there will be other visits to this part of the Southwest in the future. On the bright side, we are enjoying the idea of taking our food to go and finding a picnic table to have a private dinner in the great outdoors.

Driving west towards Mule Creek in New Mexico

Our options to return to Duncan were to go back the way we’d come or take a longer route up north on a road we’d not traveled in years. Of course, we took the long way. Were we rewarded with some spectacular sunset for our efforts? Nope. But, there was one moment when a deep, beet-red sun peeked through a keyhole in the clouds and let us have a tiny glimpse of our star far out in the distance. We’d never seen such a phenomenon and sadly do not have photographic proof as the road we were on was not amenable to pulling over safely to indulge our sense of capturing an aesthetic we’d not experienced yet in all of our years. Such is the magic of the little moments that pass without documentation, images, icons, or words. It feels like the Mogollon people and so many other native peoples from these lands can only be seen as the fleeting image of something profound and beautiful glimpsed through the tiniest of keyholes.

Heading Out – Day 1

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

San Carlos Apache Reservation in Arizona

With a good dose of apprehension manifesting as some low-level tension on the verge of aggression, we are nearly ready to go. It’s Saturday morning and instead of being ready beforehand like we typically are, today we had to tend to a lot of last-minute details prior to our departure. Consequently, we are getting out later than I might have otherwise desired, but at least we are forging ahead with our first nights away from home in over half a year. While sitting here at my desk a minute before heading to the car, there’s not a minor amount of ambivalence about going through with this. Pandemic conditioning has had its impact, but we can do this.

It takes about 45 minutes to get far enough away from home that I can start relaxing, which then allows Caroline to crack open Magic Mountain and get to reading me some Thomas Mann. We are down to the last 150 pages of this 720-page tome and hope to put a good dent in what remains while we are out on our little sojourn.

Passing through Miami yet again, it was time for lunch we pulled up to Guayo’s El Rey restaurant for a great carne asada that we shared at a nearby picnic table in the shade. You might remember that we came out this way on a day trip for my birthday, hoping to eat here but had to go to Guayo’s on the Trail down the road in Globe, except they weren’t serving carne asada then nor on my solo trip a month ago. Today, we hit pay dirt.

Smoke blankets the landscape as wildfires take their toll on the Southwest. The pallor of the sky, though, doesn’t dampen our enthusiasm to be out here now that we’re seriously underway. For a quick minute, we thought we might be stymied in our effort as an overhead sign warned us of a road closure outside Globe, which was our direction. Fortunately, it was the way north and not eastward, so we were good to go, as a detour in this area would have added 5 hours to our driving at a minimum.

The photo above was taken on the San Carlos Apache Reservation and, while a relatively non-descript image, it shows that every street into the reservation has a security person at a small shack ensuring that everyone who enters is a tribal member due to the worry of outsiders bringing COVID-19 into their lands.

Caroline Wise and John Wise roadside near Duncan, Arizona

Our plan of visiting Mt. Graham today had to be put on hold. The plan is instead to visit on Monday on our way home. For one, the smoke was pretty heavy, but more than that, we had told our hosts that we thought we’d arrive around 4:00, so it was apparent we’d have to give up on that visit.

After getting into Duncan right on time and being greeted by the inimitable Clayton of the Simpson Hotel and possibly the alter ego of one Don Carlos, we were quickly falling into the familiarity of being awed by this man’s wisdom and wit. Somewhere between referencing Oswald Spengler and Marcel Proust, he quite correctly repeated a quote from Heinrich Heine that reads:

Mine is a most peaceable disposition. My wishes are: a humble cottage with a thatched roof, but a good bed, good food, the freshest milk and butter, flowers before my window, and a few fine trees before my door; and if God wants to make my happiness complete, he will grant me the joy of seeing some six or seven of my enemies hanging from those trees. Before death I shall, moved in my heart, forgive them all the wrong they did me in the lifetime. One must, it is true, forgive one’s enemies–but not before they have been hanged.

With our hosts wishing us a good dinner, we were soon on our way out again, back the way we’d come, for a 38-mile drive to dinner in Solomon. We were heading to La Paloma restaurant for more Mexican food because the nostalgia of a great meal is a powerful draw to return. Along the way, we stopped to take the first selfie of ourselves since April 26th, when I posted a photo of us in our matching face masks that Caroline made us before the industry of artful masks exploded. Our dinner did not disappoint.

Mt. Graham in distance near Safford, Arizona

The serenity found in a place that is nowhere is unmatched when the forces of man-made chaos are kept at bay. The wind can blow, hail can fall, and lightning bolts from above can threaten one’s existence, but the machinations of nature often arrive with such astonishing beauty that, more often than not, we have to give the world around us a pass for its occasional tantrum that disrupts our well-being.

A cascade of delight is available out here for those who desire to see what is just before them, but first, we have to acquire a sense of what it is we need to feed our souls. For us today, it is the palette, the eyes, the memories, and a dry river bed with remembrances of sandhill cranes flying overhead this past January. I don’t mean to imply that the memories have to come from previous visits to the area but from the collective memory of a life lived in the search of the unseen and unknown. Until you see something a second, a third, or multiple times, how do you know you’ve really seen what you think you have?

Love is not found in singular glances, although it can first arise from a simple gaze upon just about anything, but we must look again and again, reach out and touch, smell, and bring into our sense of expanding emotional knowledge that inspires our love to conquer our reason, thus becoming a part of ourselves. Repetition of familiarity is key, but it can also be a curse should you come to believe that you now know this thing, person, condition, or possibility. Certain knowledge is a kind of death of potentiality, and it is the uncertainty of what one might find that brings us back to stare into the eyes of a loved one or into the sunset as we’ve never seen it before, though we may have already seen 10,000 sunsets before.

Self-Isolation – Summer Update

JWise Thoughts

Summer Sunset in Phoenix, Arizona

I could tell you how many days we’ve been in self-isolation, but by now, I should stop counting the days and let you know that this is on the verge of becoming a lifestyle. I’m not going to share an update about the number of infected and those who’ve died, as the absurd numbers are numbing and rapidly becoming meaningless while the disease spreads like a California wildfire. If I lament our lack of political leadership, I’m singing a song that long ago played out as its earworm nature rarely leaves my mind. Sickness and decay are our new normal.

Talking about COVID-19 starts to feel like telling you that if you visit the Phoenix, Arizona, area in August, it’ll be hot. I live in the desert southwest, where it is hot without fail every summer. I live in a country where we get sick and die every day. Should death and illness ever become worthy of influence, America will be a world leader, and a great many people will emulate your amazing success story of leading people to an early grave or at least a host of potentially life-crippling issues.

Instead, I’ll share that we are finally ready to go somewhere and spend a couple of nights away from home. We’ll be staying at a small hotel that is otherwise closed but is making an exception for us as they enjoyed our company during our visit back in January. Our plan has us bringing an ice chest to help minimize our need to find food while out in some very rural areas, though we’ll certainly be stopping at both Guayo’s El Rey in Miami and La Paloma in Solomon, Arizona for some to-go Mexican food. On the way, the plan is to finally visit Mt. Graham, which is one of the few places in Arizona we’ve never visited, and the day after that; we’ll drive over to Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument out in the middle of nowhere in New Mexico. It’s been 17 years since we last visited these cliff dwellings, and our memories suggest that the drive is a beautiful one, though a long and twisting path will be ahead of us. Once we get out for this first big adventure, I’ll be sure to share our impressions along the way.

In trying to plan this outing, I was considering heading north to Mexican Hat, Utah, but our favorite under-the-stars joint in the shadow of Valley of the Gods that played home to the swinging steak has ceased their cooking, the grill has gone cold, and will not be returning. While the lodge is still in business they were counting on fully 85% of their customers coming from Europe as Americans no longer have any interest in the Old West, so they are hanging on by a shoestring. I’ve got to admit that the steaks were not the best in so many ways, but on the other hand, they were the best steaks ever because sitting under the Milky Way looking out at the silhouettes of Valley of the Gods and Monument Valley just beyond that while someone played guitar and sang folk songs made everything perfect. While I’m happy that we have solid memories from our many visits, I’m also struck by the tragedy of seeing such an iconic little business fade into the background.

We’re quickly approaching the end of summer, and last night saw our second monsoon blow in, only our second one! We’ve broken some records for consecutive hot days, while over in Death Valley, a record was achieved for the hottest day ever; well, at least for as long as we’ve been keeping records of such things. America learned what a derecho is, which Wikipedia describes as “A widespread, long-lived, straight-line wind storm that is associated with a fast-moving group of severe thunderstorms known as a mesoscale convective system and potentially rivaling hurricanic and tornadic forces.” California is once again on fire and doesn’t have enough electricity to keep people’s air-conditioners and refrigerators on. The U.S. Postal Service is flirting with failure, and our universities and various schools are realizing they likely have to remain closed to in-person learning.

We know that Joe Biden chose Kamala Harris as his running mate, and with some amount of anticipation, I tuned in for the Democratic Convention and found myself disappointed that things were banal and non-committal in so many ways to my ears. It was as though they were offering a thinly veiled “Make America Great Again” message. We needed to hear about solutions, aspirations, and ambitions to create the future, not drag us back to some mythical place where we were supposedly better. We need a Chaplin/Lincoln/Roosevelt/Kennedy-esque kind of leader who can inspire, heal, lead, and help reinvent a broken America. Of course, if you are stupidly wealthy, we are in the greatest of times, and everything would be relatively perfect if it weren’t for the radical leftists. We are an unfolding tragedy.

There is no silver lining on the horizon, but I shouldn’t have much to complain about as we are healthy, relatively happy, well-fed, entertained, often inspired, and certainly busy. I’ve never been one to be mindless about the future, and I can’t turn off my concern now, so instead of finding solace in turning off the outside world, it only makes its dismal self larger than ever. I want some air of optimism that this country I was born in will not forget the lesson that we’ve always had to venture out to find and create a better future.