Red's Wrap
Happiness. It's relative.
Random Roadness
We are in an air-conditioned room at the Thunderbird Lodge in Chinle, Arizona. We are here instead of in a tent because it is very hot, there are rattlesnakes, and we’re filthy.
Chinle is a fairly large town in Navajo Nation. By that, I mean it has a population of 4,291 people. (I just looked it up.) This is a Navajo town with many tourists who come to see the spectacular Canyon de Chelly. I first saw the canyon seventeen years ago, walked down to the bottom with two of my teenage kids, and have loved it as a place in the world and imagination ever since. A large poster of the canyon, featuring a photo by Ansel Adams hangs on my office wall. There is more story there but I will tell it tomorrow.
This time we can’t walk down to the bottom of the canyon – where there are still Navajo families farming -because it will be too hot, both for us and for our two sled dogs, one of whom, Punchy, was described as “extremely heat sensitive” by his first musher owner in Alaska. There is something preposterous about bringing sled dogs to the American southwest just as the temperatures are bubbling up, although yesterday, we chanced on a sled dog art exhibit in Durango where our dogs were graciously welcomed in by the proprietor. I waited for one of them to lift a leg on some art but neither did. Some of the dogs in the paintings looked like their relatives.
In my writing group, we used to start the discussion about someone’s piece by asking “what is this about?” Each of us would write one declarative statement on that question and we’d go round robin. I’m glad the group isn’t tackling this piece because it isn’t about anything except how grand it was to fly down Highway 191 into Chinle, how glad I am that everyone in Navajo Nation is masked inside and sometimes just walking around, how I am putting off taking a shower because the anticipation is so lovely, and how I hope that Ted Henry is still alive so I can buy a very special necklace from him tomorrow.
Oh, and how relieved I am that my hips don’t have to do battle with the ground tonight.
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Snow Door | wisconsinacademy.org
Listen to Jan read her essay “Billy” presented on WUWM’s Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “At the Breakfast Bar” on WUWM Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “The Parish Hall,” on WUWM Lake Effect
“Fury Cannot Touch Me,” Modern Love, NYT, 9/29/11
My mother, 10year old daughter and I stayed there in 1985. My daughter wanted to ride into the canyon so we approached a man about it. He called over his son(also about 10) and sent my daughter and me out on a ride. I had a very very slow horse. He and my daughter happily galloped away. Great time that I hadn’t thought of until you wrote about Chinle. Thanks.