Friday Philosophy: An Underview of a Trip

( – promoted by Robyn)

So I spent two weeks wandering in the deserts, mountains and valleys of southern California…and another family.  The difficulty of living an examined life is constant monitoring the levels of context and metacognition roiling beneath the surface of every interaction.  One fences one’s in-laws at one’s peril when one knows that ultimately to the majority of them, for one reason or another, one is not family.  I’m welcomed because they love Debbie…who they still call Linn.  That’s enough to separate us right there.

The deeper level asks, whether for good or for bad, for happy or sad:

Step one is to establish locations and state of mind.

[Note:  Contains photos.  I have tried to minimize their file size as much as possible.]

I suspected some difficulty starting about a week before we left New Jersey.  Word was leaked to me that our Iranian sister-in-law was struggling with my gender.  I promised that I would only try to ameliorate that…allay her fears…if it came up while I was there.  In the way of these things, we were told of many family problems concerning the health of her mother and father and her poor relationship with her brother, so she was only present in a few group outings…and we had no opportunity to speak the words that could have healed a rift.  Ah, well.

So seldom do people take advantage of the opportunities we have to step across those boundaries between us.  Barriers too often seem to be cherished.  On the other hand,

Something there is that does not love a wall

–Robert Frost, Mending Wall

I probably haven’t mentioned that some of our relatives are profoundly, big-C Christian.  And then there is Debbie’s brother who is profoundly atheist.  And Debbie’s a small-q quaker.  Religion did come up one night.  Heated debate did occur.  And here’s me the taoist.  My one offering to the conversation only managed to unite the chistian and the atheist in opposition to me.

Is anyone ever interested in finding meaningful coexistence which is not based in dominance and submission games?

And I probably haven’t mentioned how much time her family spends searching for its roots and trying to refresh their collective stories.  I totally enjoyed listening to the tapes of Debbie’s maternal grandmother and grandfather and hearing the stories of that side of the family…even the few about the father of Debbie and her brother.  I was disappointed to get the reaction I did to my own family history, sparse though it may be.  There was cursory interest…at best…to any stories I tried to add about my own ancestors.  I thought a little history of the Oregon Trail might interest them, given that their ancestors had traveled along it as far as the Platte and North Platte rivers in Nebraska.

During one of those discussions, one of Debbie’s cousins referred to me with incorrect pronouns.  Nobody even seemed to notice…except me, I guess.   It wasn’t the time to discuss it.  It never is.

I ceased offering much input.  I did try give a hint by leaving the link to the web page about my former sister-in-law and how her step-father designed the Alaskan state flag.  I thought that might indicate that I did have some interesting stories I was willing to offer.  It was not warmly received.

So I spent most of the trip taking pictures, probably even became overly-obsessed about that.  And reading Tony Hillerman mysteries.  I highly recommend them to anyone wishing a knowledgeable, observant outsider’s view of the religious and cultural differences between Navajos and Hopis and belagaana (not one of the peoples the Navajos historically and traditionally interacted with before the arrival of Europeans (i.e. Zuni, Apache, Kiowa, etc, are not belagaana)) and nakai (Mexicans).  That and my few forays online were basically my escapes into the nearer realms of sanity.

Don’t ask about the flights.  I didn’t enjoy them, anymore than I would enjoy being forced to sleep in a crib.  Debbie mentioned that it would probably be more comfortable had we taken a Greyhound.  A few of the car trips were nearly as uncomfortable.  I guess I do not travel well.

What did I learn overall?  One is amazed at how quickly ranks can be closed.  In a world where we should be pulling together, too much effort is spent pulling apart.

And I learned that I can take a pretty good picture, even as nearly blind as I am.  I hope to put some of them together into something to share over the next few weeks.  Trips to the high desert (the south part of the western edge of the Mojave…we were at 4000 feet in Hesperia, the land of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans and the Lone Ranger and their television shows), through the last big burn between there and Lake Arrowhead, part of the way up Big Bear in the San Bernardino Mountains south of Hesperia, San Diego’s zoo and its Wild Animal Park and Sea World, downtown LA and its La Brea Tar Pits, and Long Beach’s Aquarium of the Pacific have the ability to connect one, at least temporarily and morally, with the plight of our ecosystem and its inhabitants.  

That’s not a bad thing, from my perspective.  If it sheds any light on the human condition, that’s just extra.

Crevices After the Thrill of Living is Gone Is this an arroyo in the desert or a pass through a mountain chain? Is it a opening in my mind or a convolution in my brain? Oh, yeah…life goes on. Am I more like a krill in Mono Lake or a whale who swims the sea? Am I a caged up mountain lion or a springbok, bounding free? Oh, yeah…life goes on. Are the currents in the rivers or are they my uncertainty? Will I ever find the words to describe all that I see? Oh, yeah…life goes on. Are we gorillas behind glass or porpoises in pools? Have we walled the world away from us because we can use tools? Oh, yeah…life goes on. Awkwardly I ask the air am I living in a bowl? It’s probably time to listen to the music in my soul. Long after the thrill… –Robyn Elaine Serven –August 15, 2008