The Drive, Part II

     So there we were, back in Sedona, contentedly sore and tired after hiking each day, our eyes almost as exhausted as our legs from the beautiful walls of the canyons around us.  Scanning the town from above (there's an overlook trail near the airport, its quick walk up a well-marked trail and steps providing you a 360-degree view of the valley and city) gave us the impression that some things seemed to have changed, the roofs of the homes now more visible, the arterial roads now as clear as scars.  But one needed only to look up from that, to gaze at the cliffs and rocks and even the red sand and broken century plants near our feet to realize that much of that impression was merely an illusion.  Things had and were changing but not at any speed that our eyes could record.  We would likely be generations gone before we would be able to notice any real change in the towering spires or massive arches that adorned the steep walls surrounding us.  The waters from the nearby creeks and rivers moved along as passively as ever, more friendly to the temporary visitors of dragonflies and gnats, their short lifespans much more in tune with what was happening than our trampling boots and walking sticks, our near-instantaneous pause at the sound and beauty of that cool dichotomy as quickly forgotten as the other100,000 humans who passed this way annually...beautiful, but what's the next trail to conquer, where should we go to eat?

    My phone, of course, was still going haywire.  Photos or texts I sent would take hours upon hours and would get sent out in random order.  One text would send but no photo, then a photo from the other day would go, then this morning's text.  To those few on the receiving end, it must have seemed that I had been bitten by a poisonous bark scorpion or attacked by a collective of Africanized bees, each group now fully settled in this state.  It was time to just quit and forget about the phone, to just let the navigation system of the car we'd rented do its work of "acquiring satellites" and then accurately guide us back to our own human hive of a comfortable bed and a shower.  Those of course, and a book...

     This time my back up read was the follow-up book from Will Schwalbe, a prolific reader and editor who sat with his mentor and equal as she was dying...his mother.*  He more or less started out his recent book this way: We all ask each other a lot of questions: "Where did you go for vacation?"  "How did you sleep?"  Or, my favorite, as I eye the last bites of chocolate cake on a friend's desert plate, "Are you going to finish that?...But there's one question I think we should ask of one another a lot more often, and that's, "What are you reading?"  This time, for me at least, it was his book, Books for Living.  As I gave up on my vortex-infected phone, I came across this passage in Schwalbe's book: ...connectivity is one thing; constant connectivity is another.  I alert others when I am going to go "off the grid" for a few days or even, sometimes, for a couple of hours; the implication is that unless you are notified otherwise, you can assume I am always on it.  Constant connectivity can be a curse, encouraging the lesser angels in our nature.   None of the nine Muses of classical times bore the names Impatience or Distraction.  In his book, the first book that he offered, one he listed as one of his favorites which he would read and reread over and over...Lin Yutang's book on slowing down titled The Importance of Living.   

    It's what my wife and I were here for and what we would almost seem to fight against until our legs strained and our well intended plans for a quick additional hike that day would be met with resistance once we plopped our packs and behinds into the car.  What a beautiful place we'd gasp, as if we were the only ones looking at these cliffs after hiking and wanting that ideal home nestled in that ideal location with that ideal view and an even more ideal sale price.  Surely it's there, we'd think, as we took a picture of a for sale sign of an immaculate lot adorned with only a few Bill Gates-style homes in view...we might get that lot for a song and a dance, we excitedly thought (the development turned out to be a collection of 41 such lots, each with architectural restrictions and covenants, the  few completed homes there starting at a mere $5,000,000).  What were we thinking?  And just for dreams sake, let's say we did win that lottery and had that lot and home with us proudly staring out of those floor to ceiling windows and admiring the views we had, coupled with what would likely be the views of envy from those hiking on the other side looking in.  Would any of that really make any difference to us?  Couldn't we just as easily emerge from a tent or a simple house if all that we really wanted was to be on the trail and close enough to feel the ground under our feet and the walls of those massive cliffs close enough to touch.  With that grand house and equally grand debt (as if we would even be considered since that just wasn't us), we just might begin to feel more comfortable inside and behind those windows and no longer as comfortable outside walking those trails with the dirt swirling about and filling in every spot and speck that wasn't already so plastered.  To the ancients that once lived here in this area, the very idea of settling into a permanent home or even declaring such, might have made them scratch their heads.  You want the cliffs, then just sleep there on the ground right below the cliffs, they might wonder; tomorrow, find another spot...it's all here, all around you.  The beauty, the earth, is all around you.

    We can get caught up in that, that poker game of life where you have so much money or wealth that you lose sight of what you really want or perhaps what you already have.  Watching the rapid-fire Alan Sorkin film Molly's Game, a true story based on the life of Molly Blume who ran a poker game empire for the wealthy where just to play eventually cost you $250,000; players such as Toby McGuire, Leonardo de Caprio, and Ben Affleck played weekly alongside mobsters and the simply wealthy, the money seemingly being of little importance compared to the act of winning and the comeraderie of competitiveness.  $47,000 bet?  Maybe time to raise the bet or bluff or go all in...didn't matter as there was always the game  next week.  We couldn't help but think of that lost direction, that maybe if we were in that $5 million house in Sedona, high on that hill in that ideal spot with that ideal view and that...well at that level, who would really be caring about the price?

    How we live is no trivial matter, Schwalbe writes: Racing around in a state of agitation and greed and envy isn't just wasting our lives; it's a symbol of much that is wrong with our world.  And reading all different kinds of books is not simply reading all different kinds of books; it's a way of becoming more fully human and more humane.  We mean no judgement or envy for the owners in those homes for maybe they were and are quite content in their lives and that that expensive home was something which they had worked for all their lives and was their dream home.  But for us, gazing at the cliffs as we walked a different spot each day, there was no price.  The views, the experience, the  slowing down this special place was bringing to our lives, it was all --we would soon discover-- something even $5 million couldn't buy.  And the best part, it was all free...free and yet priceless.


*That experience became The End of Your Life Book Club, which I reviewed (in a sense) in an earlier post.