State of Aimless
Posted: May 31st, 2005, 2:51 pm
I am on the verge of aimless; the most holy state attainable in pursuit of an asphalt ribbon. I am on the verge of a ministry. My wander has no beginning and no end... my alpha and my omega. Anyone who chooses the road for seasons on end without grasping its continual wasted motion is likewise eligible. In fact I would like to round up the road-weary within a tri-county radius and storm the local white steeple this Sunday for some haggard soul and forgotten exits.....
I would stand before my hijacked congregation with envy. They have a home. They have what I gave up, and I have what they never much valued. But it was my only path to the ministry.... enforced, rootless soul.... a slow death of stasis rejected for slow death of movement, where the views change radically on my daily commute. I live in cheap motels and the back of my truck. I spend next to nothing, yet the money is nearly gone. And even if I was bankrolled to roll indefinitely, the indefinite roll would finish me off in due time.
I find myself in remote stretches of southern Utah. I couldn't tell you why, except for rumors of steep-walled canyons..... the kind I used to watch on Saturday morning cartoons..... Road Runner versus Wile E. Coyote, who by last count had plummeted over various two-thousand-foot cliffs some 28,897 times, only to pop up each time with cartoon head stars and contemplate his next dive. He had a peculiar affinity for the Acme Corporation as I recall, which delivered all sorts of rocketry and overkill to his den by mail order. There might be a parable here, but I can't be bothered with it right now.
The rumors are true. I am caught in a grotesque wonderland. A torrid red tint pervades both rock and soil.... deep, subversive rust red, like the cartoon.... possibly beyond anything the Red Planet itself could muster.... a vivid, overwrought psychedelic nosebleed, seen in the right light. In Nevada, I could observe rock strata from a safe distance, in more sensible tones and much more sensibly eroded. But this place is on fire. Sandstone flames leap from the desert floor.... vertical and unapologetic..... sheer walls, preposterous spires and boulders balanced atop much smaller ones. This place makes virtually no attempt at reason.... a stunning presence, yet it can't entirely be labeled a pretty "designer" desert..... it is beyond any conceivable "design".
The earth is ripped open here. There may even be an unmapped New Age vortex through my motel room, or more precisely, six miles out on the canyon rim road, where it seemed to emanate from a bloody cliff point. That road is marginal, and Monument Valley is but a faint purple squint from there, so there couldn't possibly be a tourist angle in this alleged vortex..... Something tripped my sensors, that's all.
Thirty miles up the road is a respectable town with a wide grid, in conformance with Brigham Young's decree some 150 years ago. In fact, every settlement in Utah conforms with this street system because the tireless Mormon ethic of order and hierarchy is entrenched for the ages.... Main Street, 100 North, 200 West.... look for the signs. Look for the orderly grid of standard White Steeples against a twisted red rock backdrop. How all of this tightly-controlled order found its way across this chaotic landscape is beyond me. One would be hard-pressed to find a more improbable juxtaposition.
Mormon pioneers were fearless. The 1879 expedition at one point actually had to blast and hammer its way through a cliff to lower its wagons down the precipitous walls of Glen Canyon. And they surmounted countless other solid rock obstructions after that feat of pure will. The town of Bluff, Utah is said to be a town improvised out of exhaustion.... the team could go no further.
In the last town, the motel owner was about six-five and the proud owner of a devout card. He worked a struggling desert farm until recently.... his hands were enormous. He explained how The Salt Lake Tabernacle ceiling is an unexplainable nine-feet-thick, and how Brigham Young ordered strange passageways built into the structure for unexplainable purposes.... corridors now utilized for more modern concerns such as climate-control ducting. But then, one would expect such practical foresight from such a hardcore and practical sort of prophet....
I listened with a measure of due respect. I tend to do that. It really wasn't such a bad little town.... some hard-working, unassuming folk for the most part. But there was no place in town to get a beer, so my wander had to resume..... only a few more towns now and I'll have my ministry.....
I would stand before my hijacked congregation with envy. They have a home. They have what I gave up, and I have what they never much valued. But it was my only path to the ministry.... enforced, rootless soul.... a slow death of stasis rejected for slow death of movement, where the views change radically on my daily commute. I live in cheap motels and the back of my truck. I spend next to nothing, yet the money is nearly gone. And even if I was bankrolled to roll indefinitely, the indefinite roll would finish me off in due time.
I find myself in remote stretches of southern Utah. I couldn't tell you why, except for rumors of steep-walled canyons..... the kind I used to watch on Saturday morning cartoons..... Road Runner versus Wile E. Coyote, who by last count had plummeted over various two-thousand-foot cliffs some 28,897 times, only to pop up each time with cartoon head stars and contemplate his next dive. He had a peculiar affinity for the Acme Corporation as I recall, which delivered all sorts of rocketry and overkill to his den by mail order. There might be a parable here, but I can't be bothered with it right now.
The rumors are true. I am caught in a grotesque wonderland. A torrid red tint pervades both rock and soil.... deep, subversive rust red, like the cartoon.... possibly beyond anything the Red Planet itself could muster.... a vivid, overwrought psychedelic nosebleed, seen in the right light. In Nevada, I could observe rock strata from a safe distance, in more sensible tones and much more sensibly eroded. But this place is on fire. Sandstone flames leap from the desert floor.... vertical and unapologetic..... sheer walls, preposterous spires and boulders balanced atop much smaller ones. This place makes virtually no attempt at reason.... a stunning presence, yet it can't entirely be labeled a pretty "designer" desert..... it is beyond any conceivable "design".
The earth is ripped open here. There may even be an unmapped New Age vortex through my motel room, or more precisely, six miles out on the canyon rim road, where it seemed to emanate from a bloody cliff point. That road is marginal, and Monument Valley is but a faint purple squint from there, so there couldn't possibly be a tourist angle in this alleged vortex..... Something tripped my sensors, that's all.
Thirty miles up the road is a respectable town with a wide grid, in conformance with Brigham Young's decree some 150 years ago. In fact, every settlement in Utah conforms with this street system because the tireless Mormon ethic of order and hierarchy is entrenched for the ages.... Main Street, 100 North, 200 West.... look for the signs. Look for the orderly grid of standard White Steeples against a twisted red rock backdrop. How all of this tightly-controlled order found its way across this chaotic landscape is beyond me. One would be hard-pressed to find a more improbable juxtaposition.
Mormon pioneers were fearless. The 1879 expedition at one point actually had to blast and hammer its way through a cliff to lower its wagons down the precipitous walls of Glen Canyon. And they surmounted countless other solid rock obstructions after that feat of pure will. The town of Bluff, Utah is said to be a town improvised out of exhaustion.... the team could go no further.
In the last town, the motel owner was about six-five and the proud owner of a devout card. He worked a struggling desert farm until recently.... his hands were enormous. He explained how The Salt Lake Tabernacle ceiling is an unexplainable nine-feet-thick, and how Brigham Young ordered strange passageways built into the structure for unexplainable purposes.... corridors now utilized for more modern concerns such as climate-control ducting. But then, one would expect such practical foresight from such a hardcore and practical sort of prophet....
I listened with a measure of due respect. I tend to do that. It really wasn't such a bad little town.... some hard-working, unassuming folk for the most part. But there was no place in town to get a beer, so my wander had to resume..... only a few more towns now and I'll have my ministry.....
