Life's Monkeywrenches

I am rereading Edward Abbey's Desert Solitaire. Great big chunks of gorgeous prose, as large and as intimidating as the rocks he writes about:

"Men come and go, cities rise and fall, whole civilizations appear and disappear - the earth remains, slightly modified. The earth remains, and the heartbreaking beauty where there are no hearts to break. Turning Plato and Hegel on their heads, I sometimes choose to think, no doubt perversely, that man is a dream, thought an illusion, and only rock is real. Rock and sun."

"Under the desert sun, in that dogmatic clarity, the fables of theology and the myths of classical philosophy dissolve like mist. The air is clean, the rock cuts cruelly into flesh; shatter the rock and the odor of flint rises to your nostrils, bitter and sharp. Whirlwinds dance across the salt flats, a pillar of dust by day; the thornbush breaks into flame at night. What does it mean? It means nothing. It is as it is and has no need for meaning. The desert lies beneath and soars beyond any human qualification. Therefore, sublime."

I tried to read this book when I was much younger - never finished it. I recall being bored and unable to connect with this western edgy Walden Pond. That particular piece of literature, Walden Pond, was thrust down my gullet in junior high school English and I had no appetite for the further adventures of any naturalist philosopher trying to "find himself".

Having visited the Arches National Park since that long ago first reading attempt, I now have the added benefit of seeing much clearer in my mind's eye the beautiful desert landscape Abbey so aptly describes. But more than that, my older soul senses the book's undercurrent more poignantly, its depth and strength a sudden surprise. My yearning to live in the Texas desert area of Big Bend is honed to a sharper urgency with each devoured sentence of Desert Solitaire.

Next week I will turn 52. My site photo is a bit dated, but I don't have the heart to try that get-up on now and sit for a photographer. Besides I haven't seen that waist since 1978. And, I find it amusing to look at that woman, nay girl, who was clueless to what life had in store for her. So many things have changed about who I am and how I see the world. Appreciating Abbey is just one small nugget, but like a miner for a heart of gold, I have come to realize the motherlode was always here, just waiting for a proper spit and polish.

Unlike my 50th birthday celebration atop that Chisos mountain peak at the end of the Lost Mine Trail, my upcoming birth anniverary will pass without the same exhilaration (and exhaustion). I will, however, still conquer something... that not-so-long-ago young girl's inability to understand the beauty of Edward Abbey's written word, and a new appreciation for the view of life from this summit of maturity.