Big javelina chase me
Two for one day.
Tomorrow, my colleagues will be back on campus, in Flagstaff, with students.
Because I have a gas bubble in my eye (the surgeon put it there on purpose) I cannot be in altitude for a while yet. Flagstaff is around seven thousand feet.
Higher than Denver. True story.
I still don’t understand why my retina detached NOW.
Hurts so much not to be back on the mountain. I don’t understand
the purpose yet. Maybe I never will. Maybe this is just a karmic debt, or
bad dumb luck, or cosmic harsh consequence for not addressing my alcoholism earlier.
Stuck on Step 2 in AA.
God.
What, oh what, to do about “god.”
Would that I could easily believe in some divine creator.
I am jealous, frankly, of those of you who do believe: whether
you are Christian, Muslim, Hindu . . . Though I am so very (rightly)
wary of organized religion (not you, Buddhists) I am truly in awe
of people who can believe.
I do believe that our little lives are both fantastic trips, and a chance to know
The Truth. I mean, some of it. If we’re open.
I do believe there are truths.
I do believe “there’s what’s right and there’s what’s right” to quote one of my favorite American films, Raising Arizona. (This was a favorite long before I knew a soul in Arizona. In retrospect, if I’m being superstitious and silly, perhaps my fondness for the film was a kind of omen. I am also fond of Fargo. Please let that 100% NOT BE an “omen.)
The god thing.
The higher power thing.
Stuck. Open to the notion, but nonetheless
Stuck. The Buddhists make sense. That I am a small
little nothing in the universe makes sense. Sometimes Jesus
makes sense, too. And so does Mohammed. And Moses, and
what is an inherently curious, fairly well read American woman
to do with all this knowledge?
The first in-person AA meeting I went to, several days before
my retina detached, was in a park and in the park a blue humming bird
kept hovering before me to such a ridiculous extent that people in the meeting started remarking “that humming bird sure likes you.”
What do you mean? I asked the hummingbird. What do you mean? My face was still bruised from my fall. I was still heavy in guilt and shame and fear. (I am heavy on those things less and less each day I remain away from alcohol.) What do you mean? I asked the hummingbird.
Hummingbird had nothing to say.
Tonight, I saw a coyote casually strolling off my in-law’s property in the Catalina Foothills. At first, I thought it was a German Shepherd. Coyote, Sarah corrected me. Another coyote friend followed the first. Mangier looking. Just as casual in taking its leave from “our” property. Glancing briefly back at Sarah and I who sat in our car, waiting for them to go further into the desert.
Coyotes had nothing to say. What did it mean? I wondered, walking into my in-law’s house in a white cowboy hat, with a turmeric-dyed yellow scarf for healing around my neck. What did it mean?
After a lovely dinner, which included seeing Sarah’s 95 year old grandfather for the first time in over a year
(he’s still sharp as a tack).
Sarah’s grandfather spoke Greek for me while my father-in-law
attempted (with fairly great accuracy) English translations.
They talked about Street Greek and Ancient Greek and American Greek.
Her grandfather told stories of his late mother, his late wife — women whose stories were “complicated” (I’m using a generous word here) by the situation of being born female.
Tonight, at the dinner table outside, with a dramatic Tucson sunset behind us, I had my grandfather-in-law repeat his mother’s name until I could say it correctly: Pan-ey-yota.
Panigota.
I saw a photograph of her today.
She looked shockingly like my wife.
Looked smart. Family legend has it she was “aloof” or “tough”
or maybe even “downright mean.”
I get why.
She was pulled from her family, sold into a marriage,
sent to a country whose language no one ever bothered to teach her.
She was lonely. She must have been so powerfully lonely.
When Sarah and I left, after eggplant lasagna and chocolate, fascinating, funny, and painful family history (aren’t family histories always this way?), we stood with Sarah’s parents, saying goodbyes, Sarah clutching keys when all of the sudden —
Baby, look! A javelina with babies!
Sarah pointed, and there, ambling from my in-laws’ garage, a mama javelina and her adorable, not-so-little, piglets.
Before I could open my mouth to say anything, about six javelinas — frightened, confused (them and me)
came barreling from the garage.
They were running, snorting, loud.
One charged me.
I mean, in its confusion and terror,
the fucker CAME FOR ME.
I think my mother-in-law screamed.
I remember Sarah shouting “Stand still!” as I narrowly dodged the wild pig, passing my body so closely I could feel the wind of its speed and smell its body odor.
Holy shit! I exclaimed, watching the javelina run off into the foothills. Holy fucking shit. Goddamn!
I was breathless and vibrating and laughing.
My father-in-law and I were the only two who seemed
more thrilled than shaken by the encounter.
What did you think of that? He asked with a smirk.
Goddamn exhilarating, I panted.
Never had an experience like it.
See, where I’m from (Illinois/Iowa/Wisconsin — that general area),
nothing in nature (except maybe hornets and creepy people) PURSUES YOU. Like where I’m from, if some animal is RUNNING AFTER YOU TO KILL YOU it’s 1) been abused or 2) has rabies or 3) is maybe on some bad shit.
Deer don’t just randomly run AT you,
sweating and snorting.
Goddamn that was fuckin weird.
What does it mean?
Probably means: holy shit. What a fucking trip being alive is
if you’re awake enough to notice.
This is basic, Ferris Bueller shit.
Spotify bedtime music: T
he Grateful Dead. Specifically “Bird Song” (written, I believe,
for Janis Joplin). Tonight, I really like the lines: Tell me/all that you know/I’ll show you/snow and rain &
Don’t cry now/don’t you cry/don’t you cry anymore/la da da da
Goodnight.
