frondidi-blog

[frondidi-blog]

Adulthood

“I have to see a thing a thousand times before I see it once.” 

-Thomas Wolfe, You Can’t Go Home Again

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I am coasting along on my bike through the still-under construction neighborhoods of my new home. I have my headphones on, listening to one of my favourite songs. This is the desert. It is hot, dry and so quiet. My new house, and it is completely brand new, no one has ever lived in it before and it was built to be mine, is at the edge of a new development, which itself is on the edge of a large canyon. If you go deep enough into the canyon, you can find ancient petroglyphs, which are rock drawings by the Native Americans who used to live there. I feel like I am in on a secret, because these ancient drawings are actually a secret. Their locations are not published because of fear of vandalism. I don’t even think some of them are protected. Once I saw where someone had taken some type of industrial machine to chip away at one of the rocks, removing the sections where the petroglyphs were. Essentially removing the memory of these people from the land.

I go look at these rocks nearly every single week. I ride my bike, bring a snack and some water. It’s only about a 30-45-minute ride. I never see anyone there, really, not one single person. It’s not surprising, because you can’t get here by car, and there are only like 10 other people living in the houses in the new development. The housing crash put a stop to all further development, so I doubt there will be a rush of people encroaching on my space anytime soon.

I love the desert. How strange. Most people say the desert is dead. It is absolutely not dead. When you stand alone out in a remote area of the desert, you are truly experiencing the vastness of life. That sounds kind of meaningless, I know, because what does that even mean, the ‘vastness’ of life? To me, it means seeing something tangible that is larger and greater than yourself, and realising that things are connected.

Hear me out—

The creeks, forests and rolling mountains

Bring life to the animals and people who live there

The wide-open and seemingly endless desert valleys

Highlight the stars, the moon, planets, galaxies

And other strange objects of the sky

There is so much more to the world and the universe

But these are the places I have been

And where I am

On this day, there is no breeze, but as I coast on my bike, my sweat dries and I cool down for brief moments at a time. I shake out of the daze I was in (I take this route so often that I sometimes don’t remember how I actually got there). I go to my favourite spot, which locals and archaeologists call the Sistine Chapel. Weird how a place with such an important sounding ‘name’ is always left desolate. Of course, I don’t mind. I can’t think of anywhere else I would rather be at the moment.

[frondidi-blog]

Childhood

“When we are children we seldom think of the future. This innocence leaves us free to enjoy ourselves as few adults can. The day we fret about the future is the day we leave our childhood behind.”

-Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind

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It was still light out, but dusk was setting in

The bridge I crossed was old and worn, but sturdy

The creek I waded through was low and slow

The air was sticky, but I didn’t mind

I grew up in the middle of nowhere. A lot of people I’ve met throughout the years have also said they grew up in the middle of nowhere when I tell them where my family is from. They really have no idea what the middle of nowhere is until you visit a rural mountain town with only one road that leads in and out, and that road traverses several mountain passes.

Summer days were spent trying to find those soft but urgent meows of kittens that I could hear in the distance. There was always at least one kitten family that I came across in the short distance from my home. It felt like the best gift in the world when I would find them. These are some of my strongest memories as a child. I know that so many of these memories are distorted with aging, and that maybe I only found kittens one summer and for some reason I have it in my head now that I was constantly finding little baby creatures like some Disney princess living in the woods. I hate to think that my favourite memories might be unreliable.

By the time I was 13 or 14, I started to really hate that place. It was so clear to me that the people were close-minded and simple. I hated being grouped in with the type of people who live in rural towns, and just like all the other unsatisfied teenagers of the world, I couldn’t wait to get out and finally live my life.

It definitely never occurred to me at the time that I would ever miss the dense forests of the rolling mountains, or the way that coyotes sound like some ethereal creature, eerily crying into the deep night. I also didn’t think I would miss the simplicity of things. When I was younger, I thought that I was stifled, trapped and that every moment in my life was scrutinized because everyone knew each other, and if they didn’t know you directly, then of course they knew your family.

I now know that those unreliable memories of crossing hand-built bridges, wading through the creek, catching crayfish, and finding kittens was the least ‘trapped’ I would ever feel. There’s no way to recreate these feelings, and there’s also no point in feeling sad over these lost experiences, because it’s really just a part of getting older. I do feel an overwhelming sense of uncertainty about my childhood, and how maybe my teenage rejection of my childhood home has negatively shaped my adult experiences.

[frondidi-blog]

Dying

After years of waiting nothing came

And you realise you’re looking

Looking in the wrong place

Radiohead, Pact Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box

Although I have lost loved ones throughout my life, I don’t really have a good grasp on what dying will be like. I think of dying like I think of something very distant and complex. And because of this, I just don’t really think about it at all.

My favourite cat, Henry, is 8 years old

He was a part of an abandoned-kitty family

I knew from the moment I saw him, I loved him

I realise he is just a cat

But I just really never want to think about him dying

It’s funny how when I think about death and dying, I think about Henry. I also think about my mom, and that is just too difficult to think about, so I put a stop to it pretty quickly. I have a brother and a sister. My two grandmothers are still living. Sometimes, I think about what will happen in the distant future, like 20-30 years from now. Life will be unfathomably different.

As a child, I spent my time searching creeks for fish and other little water creatures. I once had two butterflies that I kept in a jar for too long and I killed them. I cried and cried, and my sister and brother made fun of me, and well, now that I think about it, I was pretty stupid for trapping something that was so pretty that I wanted to stare at it while it slowly suffocated behind walls of glass.

I never intended to leave the East Coast. I always thought I would live in a large city like DC or Philadelphia. Somewhere where streets buzz with people and purpose that can easily be seen and defined. Living somewhere where you might feel isolated takes more effort and patience, I think. Living in the desert and experiencing the quiet nature that lives here, I have a renewed appreciation for what it feels like to make connections with others and with the land. I left my hometown because I felt trapped, which makes sense why I would choose the expansiveness of the desert over a city.

Even though I know that I will likely never live in the small town I grew up in, I think about what it would be like. On the surface, there are so many significant differences between that childhood place and the place where I live now, and I just can’t see myself going back. Who knows, though, because so many weird things always seem to happen, things that are unexpected and unplanned. Death, though, death is mostly unplanned, but it is definitely not unexpected.

Picture credit: Artemisanthrop {Fotogräfin}, 2014