Art in the Sonoran Desert

It seems strange to be in Tucson in December with a steady rain pouring down. The same thing happened yesterday. Today, though, there’s thunder and lightening, making me feel more as if I were at home in Kansas. Even so, I'm thinking of desert art.

Some people who live in the Arizona desert country use the desert as a junkyard, abandoning old metal pieces to the elements. These pieces survive for years of burning heat and monsoon rains. Other desert-dwelling people like going into the desert to shoot their guns. They shoot up cacti but their favored targets are those abandoned metal pieces.  

Our friend Gabe, who is a welder of ornamental and artistic pieces, likes to walk in the desert, collecting the old metal, including the metal used as a target. After he flattens and shapes them, they become pieces of art.

I love found art, and have many examples on display in my home. I was naturally drawn to Gabe’s art, and told him so. My enthusiasm earned me two gifts from Gabe. 

Last year he presented me with this piece. Gabe offered to hammer it out flat, but I loved it just as it was.

When we returned to Tucson this fall, I discovered another gift. This one has not been a shooter’s target. The shape is wrong for that purpose. The piece appears not to hove been in the desert long enough to develop rust. Grant tied it to the shed wall with wire for display..

I love these pieces partly because, like me and like many of us, they are bent and twisted, but they have survived. 

Copyright 2018 by Shirley Domer 

And All That Stuff*

After they had both retired Mother and Dad left their six-room house and moved into a two-bedroom apartment. I was amazed to see how little they took with them when they moved. The 1930’s dining table, six chairs, and buffet were at my house, I knew their Haviland china for twelve, sterling sliver tableware, and the teardrop crystal were now part of my brother’s household. But where was all the other stuff? 

There hadn’t been room in the 1925 bungalow’s small rooms for a lot of stuff. I finally figured out that Mother had pared life’s necessities to their bare essentials. Her bathroom medicine chest seemed spacious because just a few things lined its selves. Her bedroom closet, likewise, seemed much larger than it was because Mother had simplified her wardrobe to a few coordinated polyester outfits, housecoat, and winter coat. Gone were the costume jewelry, the cultured pearls, the blouses that needed to be ironed, the pants and blouses that didn’t go with any other piece of clothing, the high-heeled shoes. The only nonessential she didn’t throw out was her dozen or so bottles of cologne. 

Mother died at 78. Now I’m 83 and longing to be as free of stuff as my mother was. I’m tired of the boxes of materials and tools, pictures on the walls, books and papers, and all the other stuff in drawers and closets and cubbyholes. I want simplicity like Mother achieved.  I’d better get cracking on that right away.

Early autumn on the patio

*I use the term "stuff" rather than "things" because of the verb "stuff" means fill tightly with something.

Copyright 2018 by Shirley Domer

Wrinkles in Time

Making my bed this morning, I noticed a number of wrinkles in the covers, and tugged at a few, trying to straighten them before deciding that was good enough, and walking away. Once upon a time I would have left the bed covers perfectly smooth. That woman – the one I used to be – believed that if something was worth doing, it deserved obsessive attention and care. She certainly would not have made a bed poorly or walked away while a wrinkle in the covers remained.

What happened to that vigorous woman? She is gone, replaced by a disabled old woman, who looks back at that old self with astonishment and jealousy. That old self was endlessly studying, planning, figuring out how to accomplish her goals, and pursuing them with joy and strength. She used a 35-pound crowbar to move 700-pound slabs of rock to make a tiered garden on the slope behind our house. She raised vegetables and made baked goods to load in the truck at four a.m. and carry to the local farmer’s market, where she set up a tail-gate display and served customers until late mid-morning. She gave parties, invited people to dinner, and was hostess to many large family dinners. 

She was a wonder, yet something was missing. In her strength she was somewhat arrogant and indifferent to others. She hadn’t experienced sufficient pain. Her body was strong, reliable.

Now, many years later, having suffered pain, lost strength, and deteriorated, she is a different woman. She has learned humility and empathy for others. She has learned to ask for help from others and to give thanks for it. She knows how to reach out, one human being to another, look them in the eye, and smile, as if to say, “I know what it is to live and struggle, yet we two find humor, and persevere.”

Her bed covers are wrinkled, as is her face, but they are merely the surface. They are merely the wrinkles of time.

San Xavier Mission near Tucson, Arizona.

Copyright 2018 by Shirley Domer 

First Soup Day

The first autumn rains came last night, chilling the air and sending us searching for warmer clothing. Already some leaves have yellowed and Virginia creeper is snaking flaming leaves up tree trunks in the woods. The sky is grey and we feel lazy and sleepy. 

This seems a good day to make the season’s first soup. It will have to be chicken soup, because there’s half a roast chicken in the fridge. That’s fine! We have onions, celery, carrots, and garlic. What else? There may be a quart of chicken broth in the freezer, but if not, we can use chicken base and water. There is thyme for seasoning, or we could use Poblano peppers for heat. Finally, do we prefer noodles or brown rice? Noodles if we use thyme or rice if we choose the pepper version. We can decide that later when we’re cooking.

Meanwhile, we can take a nap. It’s the perfect Saturday afternoon activity on a dreary autumn day.

Copyright 2018 by Shirley Domer 

Jammin'

This morning Dennis and I made red plum jam – 7 pints of it plus about a cupful in a bowl. I hadn’t made jam all summer because the fruit crop, along with almost every other crop from garden or field, failed this year. The weather has been mean to us. Too cold, too hot, too dry, plant diseases, all conspired to disappoint.

Our stock of homemade jam was getting low. There wasn’t enough left to last until the next growing season. We had options. We could buy many kinds of jam and jelly at the grocery store. Nevertheless, I wanted to make our own jam, so I bought 5 pounds of red plums and a bag of sugar. 

Financially it hardly made sense. The plums and sugar cost about eight dollars and the cost of heating our stove burners to cook the jam, and sterilize the jars and lids increased the cost. We both spent two and a half hours completing the task, including clean up. The value of the product was just $35. Homemade jam was not a profitable use of our time.

So, we asked each other, why did we do it? We found good reasons. We had worked for the satisfaction of carrying on tradition, the pleasure of seeing our handiwork, the ultimate pleasure of smearing the jam on our morning toast, and the perhaps irrational joy of doing it because we know how. Having made jam and jelly so many times, we move like clockwork, each of us knowing exactly what to do and when to do it. That, alone, made jammin’ worthwhile.

Copyright 2018 by Shirley Domer 

Grandma's Apology

Like it or not, climate change isn’t just coming – it’s here.  This year, along with the three previous years, make the hottest years ever recorded.* I don’t need to lay out the details for we all know wildfires are raging all over the world, people are dying from heat, and crops are failing worldwide. This, scientists say, is notthe new normal, for temperatures will continue to rise.

I’m an old woman and won’t have to live long with climate change, but I shudder to think what my grandchildren’s lives be like at the earth heats up. This is my apology to them for our stupidity and for the human weaknesses that have created this mess.

We love ease. We want machines to do as much of our work as possible. Machines wash our dishes and clothing, mow our lawns, carry us from place to place, and much more. We even need machines to help us build and maintain muscle strength, because we no longer use our muscles to perform the work of living. Machines run on electricity, most of which comes from burning fossil fuels.

We love convenience. It’s so much easier to carry a plastic bottle full of water than to fill a container from the kitchen faucet. Never mind that great-grandmother had to carry a bucket of water from the well or the creek. Poor old soul; she had to work so hard. We don’t want to bother with cooking when it’s so convenient to get packaged meals from the grocery store or carry out from a restaurant. We prefer to ride in motorized cars than walk or exert ourselves riding a bike.

We love our tribe.We are suspicious of people who look different from us or hold different beliefs, and we often make war on them. War is a tremendous waste of resources and requires clean up and rebuilding when it’s over. 

We love luxury. We must have not just one indoor bathroom, but two or three of them. We crave the latest style clothing, and discard things that are out of fashion. We want new carpet on our floors and the latest model cars in our garages. We want, want, want, and are never satisfied. 

We love money.We will happily destroy our environment to get more money. Renewable forms of energy – solar, geothermal, wind – can’t be promoted because oil has made so many people rich, and continues to do so. 

We love self-indulgence. We will do whatever it takes to immediately gratify our whims. No matter what a mess we make or how much debt we incur, we must have everything now.

The upshot, dear grandchildren, is a foul world, drowning in rising sea levels, wallowing in plastic trash, stinking with poisonous air, and awash in filthy rivers and streams. I’m sorry. 

*“The Year Global Warming Turned Model Into Menace,” page 1, The New York Times, August 10, 2018. 

Copyright 2018 by Shirley Domer 

I Couldn't Believe It

I was shocked by the map that AARP published in its July/August 2018 Bulletin: 

This is a national map of eligible voter participation in the 2014 mid-term elections.  In only six states did more than half of eligible voters actually vote. In fourteen states 30 percent or fewer of eligible voters participated, which means that in these states, a mere third of voters determined the elections outcomes.

This, of course, is not how democracy works. Democracy requires every one of its citizens to participate by voting; otherwise it is not a democracy. None of us can afford to become complacent. Our personal lives consume us, but we must remember that we live freely because of the foundation of the democracy we share. 

By voting we give voice to our preferences by supporting as our representatives in government those who believe as we do.  If we do not vote, we have no voice, no say in what happens to our country. 

November is not far away. SPEAK UP!

Copyright 2018by Shirley Domer