I could spend a lifetime in the southwest, just wandering around taking photos and painting everything I see.
This is what it's all about. Just messing around with friends. My buddy on guitar in the back is a genius. He plays guitar, cello, drums and writes his own music....just for fun.A new friend playing violin there with his back tot he camera works with needy children as an event co-ordinator. He makes up the best games! And myother friend on guitar is a survival expert, he can tellyou exactly what todoif you encounter cannibals out in the jungle, and he can sing great. This made Arizona a great week as if the scenery werent enough. We just played games, drank beer, sang and hiked...what more could I want?
Saguaro Sunset
But today I was sitting at the bottom of a canyon just listening to the music of the river with my camera in my hand thinking about taking a shot of Angel. And she saw something in the brush....I recognized the look as the same one as when I go "Here, Kitty" and it allcame together....Im smarter than the average monkey:) Now all I have to dois make her think theres a cat around and she poses!
But now,it seems a place where if you stop moving you have to start spending. And when you stop spending, they want you tostart moving again.
There are signs EVERYWHERE....do this, dont do that.
And the people barely even look at each other.
They shuffle down the street with a cell phome attached to their ear and never speak to anyone.
My friends came down to buy a boat and we all went out to a sports bar that boasted the biggest selection of beer on earth, which is crap because I know a guy back in Alabama that has more beer in his refrgerator. But they kept everyone isolated. The booths had high backs so you could just see the other customers if you stretched and peered. People sat and stared across the room at each other, just watching. A beer was 6 bucks, a burger 10. And parking was 16 for 2 hours(stop moving, start spending) But I think this place was reflective of the mood of Southern California.
I think theres hope though. I know Im not the only person out there that feels this way. That wants to engage people and wants to be engaged. So, I started talking to people, And they were very responsive, once they knew I didnt want money. I sat down by the water and drew the harbor, and the people....and that always gets a crowd. And they loved it...so, if youre out there in San Diego....dont be afraid to stop and talk to folks....they like it!
The snow hides its many beautiful faces and covers them with new while the low lying clouds envelope its jagged peaks, like night, closing the world in around me making only a small bubble of its entirety visible....a bubble that follows everywhere I go giving me a sense of solitude that makes the park feel like it belongs to me alone.
What I can see in my ever moving, fog edged, ineffable private bubble is an icy winter wonderland providing recreation and psychological refuge where, once, many years ago it provided a way of life for the few fortunate enough to live there.
It makes me sad to think that with 6.5 billion people closing in on this and every place like it that this same pschological refuge will vanish to extinction, and then we surely all go insane.
But, for now, it is all mine!
I recall Steinbeck returning to the valley on a cross country trip with his dog, Charley. While he was there he revisited a spot overlooking the valley and described the changes of 20 years in a way only John Steinbeck could do, and I wonder if he returned now....would he even recognize the place?
Every fertile valley consists of the same elements,...its borders, mountains from which the water that gives it life trickles down, and the river itself. Of which I know little. I only see the beautiful fertile land bursting with artichokes ready to be harvested by the men who arent ashamed to reach down and pick from the dirt the food that adorns our tables.
The canneries are still there, ironically it was likely the tourist industry that saved them, where it replaced every other sign of Steinbecks world with coffee and souvenir shops and no less than two Thomas Kinkade galleries. But the canneries were able to survive on the small depression era scale by retailing to the tourists.
