The Absence of Civilized Things

Heading out onto the mesa: Sunflowers and a cracked windshield

[Sorry about the formatting; Blogger is being difficult.]

The other day, we put down a deposit on the rental house out on the mesa, outside of Taos.  We're still trying to figure out how to get to Maine and back to take care of our belongings in our house there, given the need for someone to take care of the dog and Mike’s work schedule.

The house we'll be renting has a grey water system that waters the yard and garden.  It collects rain and melted snow from the roof and directs them to underground cisterns for household use. The electricity is generated through solar panels on the roof.  The house is on a twenty-five acres plot.  There are neighbors, but they are widely scattered and in most directions there are no signs of other houses or roads.  A National Forest is a very short drive away.

M. remarked that what he’s most looking forward to is the absence of things: the absence of noise, the absence of light in the night sky. To this, I added the absence of rvs in my line of sight: no aluminum boxes blocking off the near and far views of the landscape.  What I have is a desire for the absence of almost all signs of human civilization: advertisements, metal roof panels, fences, concrete parking lots and sidewalks, cell phone stores, and billboards.

At the same time, we'll have several means of accessing the internet.  And multiple restaurants, grocery stores, a movie theater, and the gym are within half an hour's drive on a hard-top road. 

 

During the process of deciding to rent this house, I had that flash of mind I sometimes have, where I question my own judgment and sanity:  Compare life in places like D.C. to life out on the mesa.  It seems crazy, by common standards, to prefer the mesa to D.C.  There are no close-by restaurants, no museums, no live music, no ethnic grocery stores, no documentary film festivals, etc.

But I do prefer it.  I like being able to leave for periods to seek out those other things, but in my daily routines of living, I prefer the quiet, the world mostly undisturbed by civilization and culture.  I want living connected to the seasons, and closeness and some control of the natural resources that I depend upon for my survival.  I want an enormous open sky that I can stare at, surrounded only by the sounds of birds.  I want to watch the rainstorms and clouds and stars move across my entire field of vision on a life-sized canvas. 

John Nichols, New Mexican author of The Milagro Beanfield War trilogy and other fiction and non-fiction, describes the cycling of his mindset, from  optimism/activism to pessimism/futility.  This is similar to my own mental cycling, which moves back and forth between a desire for exposure to the stimulation of culture and civilization, to a craving for quietness, solitude, and the world untouched by humans.  Inevitably, my exposure to culture and civilization leads to a feeling of over-stimulation, and ultimately, disgust and despair. 

Nichols points to the power that the natural world has to turn him around: 

“I am familiar with the curative powers of the natural world.  In fact, I have turned to that world more than once in time of need: how silly of me to forget”(On the Mesa, 5).

As soon as I park my truck [on the mesa] and step upon that sagebrush earth, the quiet land envelops me in a protective cocoon of solitude, and all the hard structures begin to melt inside my tense and tired body. And as I walk farther onto the mesa, I realize that already the mending process has begun.”

I understand this.  After almost a year on the road, surrounded by the markers of civilization, I'm ready once again for the mending powers of the desert and its stillness.