A Fascination with Paths
My grandparents were desert folk, though my grandmother would not have liked the simplicity of that statement. When she spoke it was always with astounding grace and accuracy. She hailed from Pennsylvania where she studied painting, weaving, and piano and her poise is forever in the capsule of memories I hold dear. My grandfather died when I was young, but I remember his nature and love for the desert. I remember his light heart and how he scooped me up. Visits to the place they lived were magical in my youth. They preserved a large piece of land in the desert near Tucson, Arizona.
Pictures of their journey always inspired in me a desire to homestead. I wanted to follow in my grandfather’s footsteps and learn to build a house from the sand, building bricks, and using saguaro ribs as rafters. Their early brick house was soon too small for the growing family of five, my aunt, mother, and uncle were all born to the desert. Their next house was further from town, bigger, and sat on a large piece of land that was fenced off to prevent cattle from overgrazing the desert plants. Barbed wire stretched all the way around Lonesome Valley Ranch. This was a preserve from the outside and was one of the first times I learned by example, the concepts of ecology.
The land was far from barren, while at first glance it is still, with Yucca, Cholla, and Ocotillo as the main plants of this small sanctuary. My grandmother carefully created a garden here along the house in beautiful natural swath islands. The paths between them became a magical maze that transformed red wagons into race cars and everyday walks into magical adventures. We took turns being the engine and the driver. The twists and turns of those paths are so precious to me still, I feel enclosed in the memory like an out of breath child. initally
We initially build paths to move safely from one place to another, yet the trails soon become a part of our lives. Our gardens are not simply ornaments to add to the home, done well, they will be remembered for years to come by those who play, rest, and gather in them. As Gary Snyder said, “choose a place, dig in, and take responsibility from there.”
The place in the desert with the snake barrier at the porch, and the shed, and the pine tree that my mother planted for Christmas, is as much a part of what my grandparents were as almost anything else I can think of to take as a treasure to remember them by.
