Green vs. Brown

June 9, 2011

It is such a strange feeling to be homesick but not have any idea of where “home” is right now. I’ve left one place and have not yet arrived to the next. But then again, this is also a familiar feeling, sort of lonely, unsettled, probably a result of traveling so much, of spending so much time in Haiti over the past five years and desiring to be there full time. Maybe it is also something that we are supposed to feel to some extent. After all, God lets us know through the Bible that this world is not our home and I believe that. This feeling of homesickness now, however, is definitely exacerbated by the lack of green that I’ve seen the past few days, even the past week.

Yesterday I spent about 10 hours driving. Toas, NM to Williams, AZ via Four Corners. I felt like I was searching for some kind of oasis in the desert, like in the Land Before Time. Ever see that movie? This has only served to further my conviction that green is by far my favorite color, for a lot of reasons but one is that for me, it signifies life. Anyway, yesterday I kept looking for green stuff. I did drive through one patch in New Mexico, after driving along the gorge again and through more desert-like landscape, of evergreens, but it didn’t last long. (I also finally arrived in a national forest last night but had to wait a long time for that happening.) One cool thing on the drive though is that the landscape was constantly changing and there were these rock formations that seemed to pop out of nowhere; I’m sure they all have names. Many looked kind of like watchtowers and, as my imagination was working overtime in my semi-boredom, I figured that God decided to build them intentionally in otherwise flattened land, some kind of structure so that people could look out over everything and enjoy His creation, or a place for the angels to sit, keep watch and keep us safe.

I did make my way to Four Corners, which, by the way, is totally not worth the detour. The last time (and only other time) I was there was when I was much younger, 6th grade. My family did a three week camping trip out to San Francisco and back. I believe it was night time when we drove through because I remember Dad waking us up to see if we wanted to check it out. I think I climbed sleepily out of the car but it’s a vague memory, almost like a dream, and I remember it looking a lot different, maybe because it was dark. A guy that was there yesterday though said that all the shops/stalls that surrounded the monument on all four sides didn’t used to be there and before, you could easily stand on the spot where your body is in Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado all at the same time and see miles and miles in any direction. Now the venders block the view and it is not so beautiful. Gheera and I strolled in a gigantic circle around the stalls and decided that the view into Colorado was the best, mostly because I could see green on the mountains in the distance and everything else in every other direction was brown. I don’t like brown.

On the detour, I did, however, get to see two more tumble weeds, these ones of a much larger variety than before. As I mentioned the landscape did change several times throughout the course of the drive; hopefully you can see that in the photos I just uploaded. I do wish that I had another person with me to share this trip with, but the good thing is that being the only driver forces you to stay awake and see EVERYTHING. The scenery eventually changed to include real desert sands. The way the wind moved those sands made it look almost like dunes at the beach, those ripples. And if I really used my imagination, I could make believe that the short stubby desert foliage was the type of long grass that anchors the dunes at the beach. I miss the coast.

A lot of questions came up yesterday too. I wonder if the people who lived in those scattered houses along my drive ever go to green places. And if they did, would they wish for the brown the way I wish for the green or would they like it better and not want to return to the desert? Also, how long does it take the kids to get to school? Does everyone go to school? I could look around at times and see for miles and not see signs of another human being. I longed to see houses on my drive; it made me a little less lonely. There were stretches of two hours at a time where I got no cell phone signal. I have learned a lot about myself on this trip. One of those things is that I like to at least have the option of being around other people.

Another thing I noticed when I stopped to photograph something beautiful on the side of the road, like the lake I passed yesterday or the rock formations, the coal mine, even Four Corners, is that it is very still, no birds or anything. I don’t know if it is because the wind carries the sound away (the wind is something I could not deal with by the way and with the surf boards on the top of the car, it was especially buffeting my 4Runner around; it also kicked up sand into cyclones which, after all the tornadoes lately that have claimed so many lives in the past few months, made me very nervous as I had visions of my car being lifted up and tossed around) but the only other time I’ve experienced such stillness is when I was hiking in the foothills of the Rockies with Lindi and Ryen several Thanksgivings ago when they were living in Ft. Collins, CO. It is so quiet but I think stillness is the best way to describe it. I did see a sign for “sheep 4 sale” and thought about buying one but then I realized that it wouldn’t fit in the front seat of the car with Gheera. I also might have started having hallucinations because I swear at some point I saw a sign that said “dinosaur tracks ahead” but then I didn’t see any. Bummer.

Last night I finally came to my destination: Williams, AZ, the gateway to the Grand Canyon. I will try to write about that later today when I get to Page but for now, heading to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, and very ready to see more beautiful things.