John Wise

Another spring has arrived in the Arizona Desert and after a wet winter, we are the recipients of not only a splash of beauty but an explosion of pollen from all that flowering. I find it too easy to go days without stopping to closely examine what’s going on with the small details of life around me. In a couple of weeks, much that is now colorful will return to the brown hues that most see on first blush. Today the weather forecast calls for the temperature to hit 99 degrees or 37 Celsius, but that is the temperature as measured at a particular spot in Phoenix so I’m certain that we’ll easily see over 100 degrees here in the middle of April.

The crazy armor of cactus boggles my mind as to why some of it is so dense with spines. Like those attracted to leaning into a waterfall as though drawn by the rushing water, there’s an attraction to placing my hand into a pocket where the dense spines of the cactus seem to invite me to see if I can escape unscathed. Then there’s the javelina that eats the pads of the Prickly Pear cactus, spines and all, and the Cactus Wren that builds their nests in these pockets never seeming to snag a wing on a needle-sharp spine.

The ocotillo for the better part of the year looks like sticks jutting out of the earth, but in springtime they are flush with green leaves and, for a short while, this incredible burst of red reaching far into the sky. I wonder how many people who live in Phoenix or visit take the time to look closely at the details that make up the bigger picture?

Google has failed me in trying to identify the tree I photographed here. If Caroline is able to figure it out I’m hoping she’ll share with all of us just what this thorny tree branch is known as. What I do know about it is that I love the color of its bark with its chapped brownish-gray exterior splitting to show the reddish cracks just under the surface.

On the other side of this berm is a golf course where the Phoenix Open takes place every January. I should have taken a photo of this a few weeks ago when everything was still green. I suppose it’s part of being in the moment that when something strikes our eye we fall into a kind of trance and drift into appreciation of just how beautiful that thing is. We allow our minds to photograph the rare scene and often forget that it won’t last forever. Even a photo of what the thing is, does little for the person who never saw it with their own eyes. At best these images work as reminders to those who were witnesses and to others it is but a hint of what reality has to offer.

It’s not 1975, but if it were this ashtray wouldn’t only be filled with filtered cigarettes. Where are the snuffed-out filterless Pall Malls and Camels? If this were Europe there might be hand-rolled butts, if people used ashtrays when outdoors. This forest of butts represents about 460 lost minutes of work from the people who left the office building for a smoke. This doesn’t account for the ashtray on the other side of the building that had about an equal amount of filter trees growing in the sand. Then there are those people who hang out by the fence line, under the covered parking, or who pace and toss off their smoldering remnant of a cigarette onto the ground.

So in an office building with about 100 employees distributed across a bit more than half a dozen companies, I’d estimate that these small firms collectively lose about 20 hours of productivity a day. For these employees, they will encounter higher health care premiums and more sick days as smokers are typically sicker longer. Over the course of the year, they lose 218 days where they were paying people to go smoke. Just those days will cost those company’s about $52,200 not including paid sick time and insurance which, according to some studies, suggests amounts to over $100,000. That is the true cost of planting these forests.

Yikes, just sat down at Starbucks and in 15 minutes I need to write something, but I have no ideas about a subject. The reason I’m in a hurry is that I must leave shortly to pick up Caroline from her office. So here are some random observations: One guy just ran in for the toilet. He was smiling on the way in and I noticed a bandage on his elbow like he had been donating plasma earlier. His backpack and state of clothes suggested homelessness, but not in the way that had me thinking he’d been on the street long. He emerged too quickly to stoke the imagination regarding drug use so I’ll let that go.

I see two students studying together, from the size of the books it looks like nursing school. An elderly couple is sitting in the soft chairs reading the newspaper; who reads the newspaper anymore? Across from me is a guy with glasses and full headphones with a large notebook computer plugged in, giving me the impression of a gamer, then I spot the game controller under the table confirming my ideas of pigeonholing him. Drive-thru is keeping the staff busy and a slow trickle of people continually enters the lobby, but it’s slow for a Friday afternoon. There’s a 65-ish-year-old woman sitting out front with short-cropped reddish hair; she’s overweight and reading a book about Berlin. I’m getting the sense of my mother sitting out there, except my mother is dead.

Earlier this morning, instead of writing, I was testing some website functionality that resulted in the owner of the company throwing $100 of free software my way. The guy is Michael Hetrick who makes VST’s a.k.a. music plugins. Years ago, while he was writing his thesis about modular software units based on Eurorack designs, I’d made a contribution to his efforts. Today he said thanks again and let me know that his gift was a token of his gratitude. I am touched by his generosity. Afterward, still before noon, I ran into Kenny from HEK Yeah BBQ at Costco and after completing my shopping proceeded to go to his place for an early lunch. While we were at Costco he picked up some rib-eyes that he would be smoking this afternoon, so that, along with some asparagus, will be dinner.

Currently, it’s a pleasant 72 degrees with cloudy skies while it was over 95 degrees and windy just two days ago. I’m about to turn down the computer after I hit “save draft” as Caroline will go over this for grammatical issues and ensure I’m making sense (not always a sure thing). With the computer packed up, it’ll be time to start our weekend as soon a the wife is in the car.