drought (revised)

[mnaz]

kind of a "companion piece" of sorts to "exit 286" (preceding it).

So you leave concussive Arizona and run to drought-plagued El Paso. Except lead-gray rain follows, the same indelible mud you disowned. The locals thank you, buy you drinks. Must be a trick, though you take the offer. It will take a mighty effort to break this drought. If it rains in the Dark North it's par, the long, cleansing pall. If six winter weeks pass without rain, talk of "drought" begins. If it rains in the desert, it ceases tomorrow. If tomorrow, it ceases the next day. If next day, then next week. If next week, it's personal. No drought over your head, only a cloud cult. You command it to multiply on the nearest reservoir.

"Don't begrudge us a little rain, tree dweller," Ned says. He is painting a tall canvas when you show up, a fantastical, interwoven stream of souls and shapes. "What is it?" "A totem." "Didn't recognize it." "It's upside-down." He is on a surge, and his bunker is strewn with unfinished canvases, sketches and notes. "First rain in almost a year. I should buy you a drink." And smudges of gray and warm beer start to seep in. The desert is self-sufficient and lean, annoyed by this embarrassment of riches, shed clumsily in torrents at the bottom of nameless arroyos.

"I make rain," you told Ned. "I should turn pro." "Raise the shaker and do a dance, is that it?" "No, it follows me." You're drinking the bell curve, but not over the top; no need to turn drought into a flood. But thoughts are coursing, like radar swirls on the weather channel, streams and blotches, melted fractals, a Pollock throwdown harmless at a distance, except when the war special comes on, and a sandstorm pounds tank columns caught by wind in excess of blind faith. Desert rain follows. You will bring this drought to its knees.

At the height of your powers you turn back to Nevada, realm of a million variations on tan, but your cloud cult got there first. You note a few changes when they break. Not sure what to make of butterflies and tandem power dives. Flutter has surprising velocity. You never imagined burnt rock as alpine wildflower meadows, orange and blue, paintbrush and rue. Only vague, far hills resemble a hard desert revisited. The road is washed out so you gush, resort to obvious metaphor, your fair and bare earth as a woman, her curves into other states. She is under the weather, blushes unhealthy green, threatens to break up a marriage of bleached tan and casino tintinnabulation, two altered states made for each other.

Too much relief, too much scale in green. That was the point here, lack of scale. It was about crude mountains, a bad sketch, or clumsy crayon splotches. But you still have an ocean that defies reference, one that bends baselines upward, can take you up a two-thousand-foot arc before you catch the ruse. Ocean? The flat blue is even more wide open. It has a peculiar ability to stack miles over itself, negotiable to denizens with unbreakable pressure plates at the bottom, many still unknown, reliant on contracts with fiery fissures. If you had a camera down there, the feed might resemble your first desert dawn. Rock, and spiky shapes, intense space, shaded differently.

Compare oceans. You'll take a two thousand foot arc over a forty foot swell. A desert ridge could give you a hundred-mile view, and the blue ocean gives a twelve-mile horizon. But they both share a degree of wonder, or wanderlust, even despair, the only entities capable of filling that much open space. So where to now? The angle of Interstate 15 in your window, red lights stuck to the eave. There's no point to this wander, yet you had one when you left, now lost in a golden sweep swept past to get to another one, and the map promised more. But you're always halfway up a desert road, give or take, and Zen is a lesser road to ruin, need to pick one. Caught the forecast: cloudy. Where you were between roads, between thoughts. You miss that drought.

[dadio]

love this fine prose story.

[mnaz]

thanks terry. a couple-a more tweaks added. had to re-arrange the last couple paragraphs a bit. ned's painting inspired by cecil...

[goldenmyst]

Mnaz you take me along those ancient sea beds, and oceanic mountain vistas like a true orienteer of lava upheaval relics where time slows down along lay lines leading you onward in a pilgrims quest.

John

[mnaz]

thanks john. it's a long-running "labor of love"...

appreciate the comments very much.

maybe some day i'll turn myself into a geologist...

[creativesoul]

this guy you are in the book is a marlboro man, or camel shorts and i like him- he is my kind of guy.. indiana jones and john galt

[sooZen]

always enjoy your journey(s) mnaz and the prose. I recognize the drought as well. The desert is airborne here, not much difference between sand and sky lately. I see Totem every day, I recognized that too.

[mnaz]

thanks soozen. a little "literary license" here, haha. (i've told cecil that he's "ned" in my quirky narrations-- he seems mildly intrigued). that trip in '05 was quite memorable for me. (and i'm not exaggerating about the nevada desert in march of that year... it really did turn green...)

meanwhile, right now, seems the whole west is having extreme weather of some sort lately...

[Steve Plonk]

mnaz, interesting piece, your "drought"...Did you ever see the high water marks
that Dr. Hunter Thompson spoke of? Once, a great part of Utah & Nevada was
a shallow sea back in the days of the mammoths & before...

[sooZen]

Mnaz, Cec (and Nate and all of us I suppose) has multiplicities of personalities. Ned seems appropriate. I have met Simon Slappe and Lawrence J. Kobie, otherwise known as Cecil at some point or another. Love your wanderings and hoping you'll wander back this way again at some time. He and you can solve the world's problems on the back deck (or dance with Yogi.)

Hi Steve, all of this area here was also an inland sea and I have the fossil proof, crinoids and shells of rock that litter the ground in places. I can only imagine what it must have been like. Marc has a way of taking us for a ride!

[mtmynd]

an updated/revised chapter in your redo, I assume? excellent, as usual, amigo... taking the reader so closely on your travels is rewarding for those who enjoy travels and travails, even if armchair is as close as they can get.

thank you... and looking forward to other ramblings...

our drought is part of a much larger area, with no clear recall of when we last saw a good rain. the weather is not bad other than those freakish winds that rattle the windows and cover the house with fine layers of dust that refuse to be wiped away but for a few minutes. thanks to the beer makers, droughts aren't what they were a hundred years ago!

[mnaz]

thanks steve. hunter s. wrote about ancient shorelines in the desert hills? which book was that in? i've only read "fear and loathing"... don't recall seeing it in there... maybe i missed it. utah's red rock canyon country in particular has a long geo-history of rock drama, and the advancing and retreating ocean. hence all the layers of brilliant sandstone.

the canyon country is a mind-bender. seriously, even if you can't afford the trip, get "google earth," the application where you can virtually fly anywhere, and even drop down on trails for a closer look around (though close-range resolution is poor). try the burr trail for starters. then maybe canyonlands national park. much stark, beautiful bizarreness... in n.w. nevada, i've seen tufa formations, which are said to be the former high-water shoreline of pleistocene lake lahontan. the black rock desert used to be under 500+ feet of water!..

soozen... next time i make it down, we will indeed solve the world's problems. yet again! (and this time we'll remember to write it down)... hopefully soon.

cecil... yeah, an update, a little leaner, hopefully meaner, with a sprinkle of "sardonic" quips. can't remember the last rain? maybe you need my help again... ha. (we've had rain up in the saturated "great NW" for something like 47 out of 50 days. that's nuts! even for here!