We just returned from a week in Death Valley (thanks Iris, for this and many other beautiful shots). Every aspect of that place was profoundly different from my life in Eugene. Here I have been suiting up to keep dry, searching out the sun for it’s thin glistening gentle warmth. Life here grows thoughtlessly, no concern for location or viability. I am always pulling persistent and ridiculously matted clumps of vivid green weeds from cracks in my driveway, constantly staging tiny battles (in my shower stall, on my roof, even in the corners of my closet) to stave off the damp and doggedly determined life forms that will grow grow grow anywhere anytime if we just step back and let them.
Death Valley is a glorious illustration of barreness. The dust is a constant presence. The sun is a focused beam of heat. It parches anything but the very toughest that attempt to take root and survive. Life there is intentional, and twisted from it’s patient effort. Plants take root along spring fed cracks in a rock. Animals come out at night when the sun’s relentless heat has passed. Plants and animals seem smarter somehow, thoughtful leaves, hardened curious old branches, clever coyote, patient praying scorpion, as if the difficulties they’ve weathered and the evolutionary trickery of their ancestors has left a lasting mark of wisdom on the dusty grey face of life in Death Valley.