Memories

When I was younger and had traveled out of California and then returned, I used to sing "California Here I Come" upon crossing the border, proud and excited to be "home," where the streets and sounds and sights and the people were familiar. I get a tinge of that feeling even now, when I cross into California, but I got a big dose of it last week when we entered Colorado. Indeed, I realized, I had lived in Colorado longer than I had even lived in California, and so it was like coming home, in Breckenridge, but even more so, in Colorado Springs.

I sometimes wonder why we do this to ourselves - return, year after year. Wouldn't it have been easier to make a clean break with the past? Move on? Every time we come back, it hurts - it's like an aching, for what we had, for what and who we left behind. Is it fair to our new friends, our new home, our new life to constantly remind ourselves of what we had, instead of what we have?

We felt comfortable, loved, and missed by our friends in our old church and enjoyed the services we attended there. We laughed and reminisced with neighborhood friends with whom we endured years of swim meets at the racquet club each summer...and caught up on the lives of our now-grown children, and their children!

We hiked with an old high school friend in the beautiful and serene Garden of the Gods, flashing on so many similar experiences. What a wonderful afternoon we had.


And I finally got to play some tennis with my old teammates; it felt so good and so natural and so right. We even got our teeth cleaned by our former dentist (and skiing buddy) and then topped off the week with an evening of USAFA Falcon football, complete with parachutes, flyovers, and spending time with our "cadet" who is now a Lt. Colonel and will soon be retiring from the Air Force. We spent so many Saturday afternoons cheering the team on over the years.

It was all fun, and heady, and very, very comfortable. It was so easy to slide back into old friendships, old memories, old experiences. And that's the wound - the wound that we open every time we come back. Not because it's bad, but because it is so very, very good! Leaving Colorado was so hard, although it was a joint decision made for all the right reasons - Sandi, Tom, Dylan (and eventually Andy), and my mom. Coming back is also hard. But should we stop? Should we stop connecting with old friends? Should we dim the memories we have of those 27 years? NO!


Why? Because memories and friendships are what life is all about. It's not the things, it's the people and the things we DID with those people. And just because we miss those times - those people - and want to "re-enact" them occasionally, doesn't diminish the importance of current friends and current experiences or future friends and future experiences. I believe we are all the richer for those important and meaningful connections...and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Much of this trip is about memories - remembering old ones and making new ones. We'll be seeing a lot of old friends and family along our path and we look forward to sharing stories and laughing and talking about old times. And then we'll venture out with or without them, to see new things, experience different places, always trying to live our lives to the fullest.

But for now, we are so HAPPY to be in one place - Salt Lake City - for a month, living in a really nice KOA, spending time with Erin and her family, and getting to know their city a little better.
 

P.S.
And I'm so grateful to Lew! I'm grateful he does all the driving! I'm grateful that he figured out how to get the RV started early Monday morning - after much hand wringing and gnashing of teeth. And I'm grateful that today he fixed our leaky toilet...a most disgusting job. He deserves a medal, but will have to settle for a nice lunch, a "thataboy" pat on the back, and maybe a big thank you kiss from me! And the leaky toilet and the silent engine will just be two more memories we will file away with the rest.

Reflections on "Home"

Reflections on “Home”

In 1868, a weary band of 8000+ Navajos began their long walk BACK after four years of relative captivity at Ft Sumner, NM – back to what they left behind. HOME.

It is nearly impossible to understand a culture when unless you are born into it. We outsiders can appreciate it, learn from it, and perhaps even adopt some of it for our own, but it will never be fully ours. What a treat it has been to spend last week with the Navajo people who did their best to show us, and tell us, and encourage us to understand and feel what it means to be Navajo and why Canyon de Chelly is so important to them.

To them, this is and will always be, home, no matter where they may be living. It’s the land, stark, but beautiful, combined with their sense of kinship with all things, their traditions, their stories, their music and ceremonies, and their history. 

I won’t bore you with all the details – if you want to learn more about the canyon and its people, please go online or check out a book. Instead, I will tell you what this Road Scholar program shared with us, what the Navajo people who ran the program shared with us, and how we reacted to it.

Through various lectures and experiences, we learned about the archeology of the Canyon, about Navajo creation stories and spiritual beliefs, about the clan system (every person represents 4 clans – mother, father, and two grandfathers), the Long Walk (one of many shameful episodes in U.S. history we never learned about), the World War II Code Talkers, native music and ceremonies, traditional foods, and native arts and crafts (jewelry making, silversmithing, rug weaving, pottery making). 

And, of course, we explored the Canyon itself via 2 rim drives and an exciting 4x4 jeep ride in the rain (complete with rising waters and waterfalls). Lew and I, along with another couple, had the added delight of hiking 900 feet down into the canyon itself (and back) – awesome.

It was, however, the totality of the experience that was so meaningful. The Navajo people are resilient, talented, funny, and very open. They are a culture that has “adapted” and “adopted” over the centuries – adapted to changing circumstances and adopted features of other cultures with which they’ve interacted.  After the talk on what the Navajo people had to endure on the Long Walk in 1864, I was nearly brought to tears. I kept asking myself “why”? Why are we so cruel to one another? Why don’t we listen? Why do we treat people who are different from us with such contempt, with such disregard for their humanity? And how is it, with so much pain in their past, that these people endure and many even have renewed hope for the future?

The land is hauntingly beautiful, but it no longer provides for the people as it has in the past. Drought. Invasive species. Loss of livestock. Failed policies. And yet they persist, and dream of a better future. This is home, the home of their ancestors, and this is where they will remain.

What is “home” to me? It’s not where I grew up – I no longer have familial ties there, nor do I care to go back to Los Angeles. It’s not where we raised our own family – we moved around in the Air Force, so no one place stands out as home, and the kids have scattered. It’s not where we live now, although we plan to remain there. And, of course, now that we are nomads, home is where we happen to have parked our RV for the time being.

Home to the Navajo is a visceral feeling – this is where I belong, this is where I find peace, this is where the ancestors lived. This is part of my being. I used to have that feeling when I returned to California, but not anymore. I suppose Colorado comes the closest, but in reality, it’s the mountains that call to me, that give me that feeling of peace – any mountains. Or when we're with our daughters and grandchildren, wherever that may be. That is where I feel most at “home”.

Lew’s addendum:

Two thoughts:

I was seriously impressed by the Navajo attachment/reverence surrounding family and home as defined as a place of their ancestors, their elders.  They carefully trace family and clan based on matriarchal lineage and tenaciously maintain those family ties.  The sense of “home” as a specific place, a place where my elders, my ancestors, lived and worked has made that place sacred.  I must maintain that sacredness for my family and for future generations.  Is there something for the rest of us to learn from their tenacity to these values?  Most of us were raised with the trite concept, “Home is where the heart is.”  I have no particular reverence for “home,” but Home is where my family love resides. 

 

We all learned a bit of American history in school, but we probably didn’t get the Native American version.  Nor did we receive the level of detail involved in what instigated the Navajo Long March.  We certainly weren’t taught the kinds of changes to Navajo culture that the return from the march caused.  Yes, some results were positive, but the process provides a new chapter in my understanding of man’s inhumanity to man.  But that’s a discussion for another time.

Exploring the Southwest

Since leaving Sandi and family in California, we've seen a lot of the Southwest in the past two weeks. Our first stop was Fort Mohave, where the temperatures reached over 100 degrees (but, oh well, it's a dry heat!) and vegetation was scarce. We appreciated the time spent with Diane and Bill Vigeant, old friends from Colorado Springs, where we could relax, laugh, get tips full timing RVing, do our laundry, and wait for the remnants of Hurricane Rosa to pass. We did take a couple of "field trips" -  first to Oakman, an "almost" ghost town in the nearby mountains with donkeys wandering the streets with lots of tourists and the next day to Lake Havasu City to see the London Bridge spanning the Colorado River. In both cases we had nice walks and lunches in local eateries, but were glad to return to the air conditioning!

By Wednesday, October 3, we thought it was safe to head out of the desert and up to the Grand Canyon. On this trip we are trying to be more spontaneous, so, of course, we did not make any reservations at the Canyon campground. We just crossed our fingers and hoped to get a spot. As luck would have it, the campground and the RV village at the Canyon were full. So we turned around and drove about 10 miles south to a forest service campground we had seen. They had lots of spacious, shaded sites available (for the huge sum of $5/night), so we were content to enjoy the rest of the afternoon and evening there, hiking and relaxing.

We arose at 5 a.m. the next day so we could experience sunrise at the Grand Canyon. Unfortunately, it was quite cloudy and the sunrise was not as spectacular as we had hoped. Nevertheless, the canyon was still beautiful and we enjoyed an early morning walk along the rim (in 40+ degree temperatures, I might add. Colder than expected!) The Grand Canyon takes your breath away and no pictures or words can really grasp the essence of the experience - everything, our lives, our worries, our troubles, are put in perspective. The canyon is vast and its rock layers span nearly 2 billion years, which is unfathomable. Who am I, but a speck? Our times, but a thin moment in geologic history. What will we leave behind? How will we be remembered? This question, we were to learn quickly, will haunt us the next few weeks as we explore more of the southwest.

After being drenched by a sudden downpour later in the morning, we returned to our RV to change into dry clothing, and then returned to the park when the sun returned in the afternoon. We hung around, hoping to see a beautiful sunset, but were again disappointed. Too many thick clouds in the west, but, still, the experience was awe-inspiring. (Lew is always looking for the perfect picture, which wasn't there, but everything else was wonderful)

Our plan was to leave the Grand Canyon the next morning by way of the east entrance and head up to Monument Valley. Fortunately, Lew encountered some Dutch neighbors at the campground who asked us about the road closure. Road closure? Yikes! Apparently the road we needed to take north after leaving the Park was washed out until Sunday. Well, one of the nice things about this sojourn is the fact that we have few absolutes, few deadlines to meet. This was an opportunity to prove we could be flexible. Can't go there? Ok, if we have to go south to Flagstaff anyway, why not head east to Aztec, NM to see an old friend I hadn't seen since I graduated from high school 53 years ago! Why not, indeed? So we went.

It was along drive - which we vowed we wouldn't do - but it was worth it. Besides a reunion, which was great, we were treated to a trip down to Chaco Canyon, which we hadn't anticipated. It was amazing. I had no idea who the Chaco people were or what incredible building techniques they had perfected some 1000 years ago. Chaco Canyon was a central location for all the people living in this four corners region, and beyond - a trade center, a ceremonial center, a central gathering place for far-flung peoples. I am so glad we had the opportunity to visit here and feel the power of the place as people long ago must have felt that power, that specialness.

The whole southwest is dotted with these ancient settlements. These people, the ancestral puebloans, forged a culture that still lives today in many of the American Indian tribes - the Hopi, the Apache, the Navajo, and many others - people that the invading Europeans called savages. But these people had developed a complex social organization, deep religious customs and ceremonies, amazing irrigation and agricultural systems, precision building techniques and sophisticated methods of communication over a wide expanse. They revered the land, wisely learned how to live in a sometimes hostile environment, and developed a way of life that lasted for hundreds of years.

I am humbled by what they accomplished with so little. I wondered if my experience at Chaco Canyon could prepare me better for what I was about to learn at Canyon deChelly. I don't think so. I'm most of the way through that experience, but will leave my musings for another post. I need to think. It's all a bit overwhelming. My emotions are raw.