A Living Magazine - Day 291 - Homecoming - Ashland: The Dying of the Corn

The sky was a whitish, pale orange. Dust in the air. Rain had forsaken this part of the desert for a whole year. 

We sat around a very grand granite countertop, talking. My two friends, a couple from California--the ones who had kept me close to them and offered so much support in my Journeys, had bought land in Arizona. They'd built a strawbale home. Spending most of their life savings on this intricately designed and carefully constructed house, they had planned to live out their lives in self sustaining comfort, but it wasn't working out that way.

He was downcast, not able to look me in the eyes. All the things I had promoted about simplifying life seemed to have poisoned his. He was very polite as he spoke about each thing that was falling apart in their plan. I know he didn't hold me responsible for it--or wouldn't admit that to himself, but there was a underlying and simmering resentment in his forced smile.

She was just drinking, constantly. She sat across from me, smiling. But it wasn't a happy smile. Her eyes were red. 

I'd dropped in on them, as I hadn't spoken to them for a long time. Yet, I was becoming painfully aware that my timing was very bad. I'd always said that I wanted to be listened to, but not relied upon. "Think for yourself," was my mantra. Either I wasn't ever clear enough with them about this, or I was clear, but somehow they missed the memo.

The sun turned red as it slid slowly across the stucco wall of the kitchen. The house was remarkable; an open concept. There was a place in the living room wall, made of red rock, for an indoor waterfall. But the water didn't flow. A large fireplace took up the entire wall on the opposite side of the room.

Finely-stitched patches of animal skins, covered the cool smooth concrete floor. I wanted to look around and asked if I could. They were happy to give me a tour.

In the bedroom was a wall where recycled colored bottles had been built in all over the wall. The gorgeous hues of blue and green, yellow and red projected the sunset upon a series of mirrors meant to reflect these colors to every point in the room.

We walked into the bathroom, where a large hot tub stood, bone dry. The water wouldn't run. Tiling in Aztec turquoise, framed by Spanish silver formed an intricate scene of pre-Columbian life on the adjacent wall. It astounded me with its clear depictions of women scraping rabbit skins, men cracking flint into arrow heads and war clubs. Children carried water from the lake and poured it into the animal troughs, while two ornately dressed priests stood, surveying their vibrant world from the porch of a giant pyramid, far in the distance.

When I turned back toward the doorway, they had already walked out onto the porch. I followed and looked at them. They were small, somehow. Shrunken by despair; broken by unrealized dreams. There was only the lingering violet hue where the western sky met the coming of the starlight.

What were they looking at? I had to walk around the corner to see. Then I did. It was a south facing hill about 100 feet long and 200 feet high. It gently sloped to a flat peak where the desert wind spun dust devils that would dance around until they came to the edge of the hill, then fall to earth.

And on the hill were ten thousand corn stalks. They gently swayed, with empty ears occasionally rippling up to flicker in the wind, then lightly falling back down to a static resting point. They were light tan; some broken, with their tops bent over at uncomfortable angles. Dead. They were all dead.

I looked back at the couple. He stood facing the hill with a far away look, as if he could see through it to the mesas beyond. She was looking at the stars as they became more prominent. Then, she leveled her head, and turned to face me. A tear was just forming. And as we made eye contact, it welled up in the corner of her eye until breaking the surface tension; being freed to stream down her cheek.

I said, "I'm sorry..." She smiled that sad smile and just nodded. The entire situation was beyond awkward. I knew they were blaming me for all of this. But, I hadn't even spoken with them in the time we were apart. They had done all of this on their own. 

I actually tried to feel guilty--something that usually comes quite easily for me. But instead, I just felt sorry for them. I needed to leave. This wasn't fair. It wasn't fair to me, but they had not been fair to themselves. They'd had expectations about me, about the momentum that had somehow grown beyond my rambling writings and made itself an institution within their lives. When their idea of my prescription didn't pan out, instead of looking at themselves in the mirror, they looked back at me. 

That was why they hadn't contacted me for so long. Now I realized; now that it was too late. It is strange how we sometimes make the people around us the exclusive sources of our joys and sorrows. 

When I'd walked out the front door  and climbed the adobe steps to the top of the hill, I looked back over my shoulder and the house was gone. It was replaced by saguaros and mesas silhouetted against the blackness of space, poked through its fabric by a million stars, as if cactus points had been used to puncture the darkness and reveal tiny points of the infinitely bright Light beyond.

And... I woke up.

* * * * * * *

It felt like the whole night had passed. Surely it must be close to sunrise. But when I checked my watch it showed 12:38 a.m.

I had to pee. And, learning from my experience the night before, shone the flashlight up into the spine of the inside of the tent. Sure enough, sitting proudly in his cobweb was a male black widow. I had to laugh! Out came the spider-bag. This time I sprung the trap successfully and released him outside into the litter of leaves and pine needles. 

I did my my thing and returned to the sleeping bag; all the while, contemplating the vivid dream I had just experienced. I resolved to check in on my friends later that morning. I thought that for sure I would have other dreams that night. And, I probably did, but I couldn't remember any when woke up at sunrise.

The day would be bland, except for one uncomfortable punctuation. I went to Starbucks and worked all day. I remembered my intention to check in with my friend. I found her. In the past she would periodically disable her Facebook account and then reestablish it under her name, refriending those she wanted to deal with, and excluding those she didn't. But, I didn't find a different account. Instead, I went to her husband's page and saw that she still had the same account, she had simply changed her name, and I had been unfriended. The dream made perfect sense now. I had a pre-knowledge of this morning's discovery in visionary form the night before. I was hurt, but honestly, not that much. There was a feeling not-unlike relief. So be it. 

After I'd become exhausted with writing, I knew it was time to stop. As if the evening before had looped around to this day, the storm clouds returned at exactly the same time. I left Starbucks, to buy a small meal...

I did it quickly. I could see the cloud-smear of rain falling in the west...

I thought briefly of walking a couple miles up Route 1 so that I would be further ahead when I took off in the morning for Ruther Glen. But I vetoed the idea, because of the uncertainty I faced in locating a new sleep spot, especially under the specter of this dark storm. Playing it safe, I returned to my spot near I-95.

Feeling like I was reliving the evening before, I found the same exact spot, and assembled the tent. The heavy drops began on cue, right when I was done. I climbed in, pulled out the sleeping bag and lay on top of it. As I faded back into unconsciousness, I let my mind drift back to sunny California, my time there, and the almost artificial sense of well-being that I used to become acutely aware of...

I thought to myself: Sometimes, in order to be forced from the desert...one must await the dying of the corn.