Ain't It Grand? — Unruly Skoolie

I text with a mentor-friend this morning. Michael is back in San Antonio on his nascent but already respectable farmstead and we "talk" briefly but candidly. His style is soft and laconic, honest, but not harsh as I can sometimes seem. I respect him, and when he says to me about his life, "I am never entirely home," it strikes the core of my longing.... and my defiance. I knew what home was as a child, but not anymore.

Earlier in the narrative I recall my seeking as a means to be humbled by nature, for her to take my breath away, but now, after a month on the road, I remember that awe is not what I seek.... not what I really need. What I need are space and silence, like only she can provide....

From afar the desert seems barren, but it is alive and well

The stretch of The Navajo Nation we traverse is as desolate and vast as any desert we've spanned, but somehow it's more-so. I am haunted by visions of the proud tribes of this land reduced to the reservations and all but fully assimilated. We pass by the Tribal Christian Reformed Church and I shudder, ghosts in ritual dance and song disappear in the dust.

Strange formations begin to appear in the desert as we head north to Page and by the time we reach the Little Colorado River, the wave-like land reminds me more of Utah than Arizona. We are taken with this dry, red ocean bed and waste no time jumping into the cold water, washing away the drive and musing on how quickly the landscaped changed around us. We are headed to The Grand Canyon, and the anticipation is somehow palpable... I can sense something massive in the distance....

Antelope Canyon has been on my bucketlist for years, and although we are within reach, other's have planned their itineraries with more care than we. Tours are required and booked through the month so on the bucketlist it will stay, waiting for our eventual return. We're a little surprised- it isn't spring break... we should be firmly in the sweet spot before the season explodes, but upon entering Grand Canyon National Park, we quickly come to understand that we are wrong. Maybe it was Desert Solitaire. Maybe it was the drive through Navajo Nation. Whatever it was, I envisioned having the canyon to ourselves. I had no idea we would be surrounded by thousands of pilgrims from all over the world coming to gawk at one of the largest canyons on Earth. Silly me.

The sight of it is hard to take in. The scale of it... it doesn't seem entirely real. I read a quote somewhere from the first European to explore the canyon for months, John Wesley Powell and it says something like, to truly know the canyon you can't just stand on the edge and look down once, at the very least you have to get down inside, so that's what we do. The next morning we take the Kaibab Trailhead (along with a hundred others) down into the canyon. We go only to Cedar Ridge, about 1.5 miles in, but the unrelenting downhill trek serves to constantly remind us that the only way out is up, up, up.......

It's exquisite. It's what we needed- a big hike through a massive crack in the sacred Earth. We are exhilarated with the size of it all and I begin to feel a closeness and camaraderie with the other pilgrims around me. Accents and languages of all kinds swirl around adding melody to the beat of my hard but steady breaths and I am honored to be here with my man and child.

Too quickly, the day is done and we are back at our campsite in the Kaibab National Forest just outside of the park already reminiscing on the trek. At camp, we are in good company with two sets of Germans, well, two Germans and one German and one Austrian. I'm happy to hear that they are enjoying America so much and I laugh with amazement and slight jealousy that the two Germans, two young male cousins ages 19 and 20 ran the whole depth of the canyon that day- down to the river and back up. It took them seven hours of fast going. I'm proud of them; they seem sweet and respectful and healthy and bright eyed. I hope Phoenix finds some adventure when he's their age. In fact, that's what his time capsule project is all about. More on that later...

For now, the kid is mostly content to be with us. He asked where Saguaro went and we talked about the chickens, ducks and fish back on our farm he helped bury. We talked about how the goats passed and how he isn't sick anymore. He seemed a little sad, but satisfied with this explanation.

May we accept the changing seasons and tides like a child.