Skunks, Rattlesnakes, and Sour Cherry Pie

I pull out of our driveway onto Swan Road just as the sun lights a sky milky with monsoon mists. It is only 5:30, but the air is already warm, supercharged with humidity. Although it is still June, the month of skies that ring with clarity, that bake the desert with 110 degree days, it feels more like August, the days of thunderstorms and thick haze.

I pedal hard against the hill and then turn east. I am climbing the mountain today – Mount Lemmon - the big one around here. Not that I feel I can. I slept only a few hours last night, and those short hours were filled with nightmares. But being tired is only part of the problem. I am not in great shape, and the climb is a big one: twenty five miles of six to eight percent grade rising from 2500 feet to 8500. It is not easy under the best of circumstances, but heat, humidity and poor conditioning promise to make it a real bear. Oh well, there’s always something.

It will take me an hour to reach the base of the mountain, twenty miles of cross town traffic and then the long straight shot to the base. Those early miles are very long, unforgiving. My legs resist warming to the long task ahead. Once at the base, the highway steepens, and I shift into climbing gears. 

Grind, slog, grunt -- all words that describe this undertaking. It is not sexy or thrilling. There is no drama of attacks on the peloton, at least for me, and there will be times when I want to just bail for the pain of it, the slowness. But there are some rewards for just sticking it out. 

The low Sonoran Desert of saguaro, prickly pear, and cholla, gradually gives way to oak and pine forest and then Douglas fir. It’s like driving from southern Arizona to Canada in the space of thirty miles. For every thousand feet I ascend, I will travel the equivalent of about three hundred miles north.

As I reach the base I pass saguaro whose fruit have already ripened, a result of the warm year, a year that forms another link in a 15 + year long chain of drought years. The desert Southwest sits in the cross-hairs of climate change, a direct hit of dry, hot, weather patterns. Nobody knows for sure what the effects will be, but likely as not, the Sonoran Desert will lose much its plant and animal diversity as the weather warms. The northern range, too, of tropical species is spreading into Arizona. We already have been colonized by Africanized bees, and denge fever carrying mosquitoes will likely arrive soon. Bigger species, such as jaguar, are returning, and newcomers like ocelots have been captured on motion-sensing game cameras. The climate and biological sands are moving beneath our feet, and what I see today is a flora and fauna snapshot of changing ranges of critters and plants.

Some say that the saguaro this year bloomed so profusely because they were dying. They have used the last of their life energy to produce seeds. They have drawn precious water from their cores, water that sustains them until the rains come. Many may die if the rains are late. The poignancy of the thought slows me even more than my present crawl. A few bike racers pass, with no mention of the saguaro, but they do wish me a good climb. I reciprocate. We are on the mountain together and some of the usual hierarchy of cycling breaks down.

The opening curves of the climb cross contours in a steady, traversing ramp along the front range of the Santa Catalina Mountains. Mount Lemmon, the English name, contrary to what some think, is not named after a lemon, the shape or the color of a lemon, but after the first Anglo woman to summit the peak, Sarah Plummer Lemmon. She was a botanist and ascended the 9200' mountain with Native American guides. Her route took nearly a week; the new road cuts the ascent to a little over an hour for cars.

The highway winds through high desert scrub as it climbs from the base. Prickly pear pads, desiccated from the drought, have fallen onto the road from stricken specimens clinging to road-cut cliffs. Within a few miles I can see most of the city spreading off into the distance. It will go this way for the first four miles or so. The road is marked by pullouts for trailheads and overlooks and for slow vehicles. I pass one for Soldier’s Trail, and others for some unsigned canyons. I see the overlook for Babad Do'ag, the Tohono O’odam word for Mount Lemmon, or Frog Mountain. Then the road turns north and follows Molino Canyon. I can see the canyon's free fall through granite boulders and plunge pools and over dry water falls below me. The view ahead reveals the depth of the range, with generations of ridge after ridge going north. It has been 45 minutes of steady climbing already. I won’t get to Summerhaven until late morning at this rate. 

At Molino Basin I take a short break. A wrangler leads mules from a trailer for a trail ride. A pair of mountain bikers unload bikes for the rugged stair steps of the Arizona Trail. They will likely climb up over the saddle toward Bellota Ranch and then onto Reddington Pass. Different kinds of epics I think to myself. I know those trails and they will ask much of the mules and the dogs, both four legged and two.

After a swig of warm water and a crunch on some salted almonds I resume the climb, this time behind a couple wearing matching kits of a racing team. He takes off and she loses ground on him while gaining it on me. The slopes to the south used to be covered with scrub oak, but are now bare, having been hit by some of the worst of the Aspen Fire two years ago. I pass a dead skunk and a dead rattlesnake very near each other. I have to wonder if the skunk was making a meal out the snake when it was hit by a passing car. Their silent poses suggest dramas that I play on the screen of my mind as I pass them. It is a welcome distraction from the nagging thoughts of how far I have to travel before sitting down to some sour cherry pie in Summerhaven.

Wildlife on the mountain has been taking a beating between the droughts and the development, the twin death knells of the desert. Black bears, ursus americanus, have been coming into Tucson and Summerhaven because of the lack of forage. One even visited my front yard. Mountain lions too have come down following the deer only to find house pets as forage, and the humans who care for them carrying traps and guns. Ringtail cats range beyond familiar territories, crossing roads, getting hit by cars. Wildlife, like wild lands, has few defenders, but many pressures. When will we learn that our well-being is tied to theirs? 

These melancholy thoughts linger until I arrive at the answer that change begins with me. Let a love of this place lead to actions. The poignancy gives way to attending to the lovely living mountain that remains. 

 

I soon pass the plunge pools of Seven Cataracts. They are strung like beads along a string of runoff, glittering silver. I hear a canyon wren and a flicker, see a red-tailed hawk whose screech rings out over the canyon and follows me up the road. He cries again and again, making some point about this being his place. Life sustaining moisture hides deep in the canyon shadows. 

 

I climb over another ridge, pass through a narrow stone portal, and enter Bear Canyon. Here the road levels a bit, so I can upshift and sit up. Another group of racers passes me, complimenting me on my bike. As if the bike were all that carries me up this grade, I think, but I thank them anyway. The road steepens again as I shift back into my lowest gear. Here I pass beneath the first real shade of big trees. Maple, walnut, ponderosa pine, and oak fill the canyon and line the road. I hear birds and see squirrels. 

There is life in these canyons, now combined with a taste of the high country. I pass the picnic areas and the Hitchcock Trailhead. Now the road steepens again as it begins the climb out of Bear Canyon and up toward Windy Point. This used to be one of the steepest sections before the road widening. Now it holds an even grade as it winds along manzanita, oak, and even a few pines, but is back out in the open sun. The west-facing slope is scarred by recent burns. Spidery, charred skeletons of manzanita testify to the fire's devastation. Columns of rock rise on either side of the road. The granite hoodoos of Windy Point loom in the distance. This is the second true switchback of the climb and it hairpins above Bear Canyon. I can see the road I just traveled falling away below me and I can see the stretch I have still to travel far above me. The view is spectacular here as Tucson sprawls in front of me. Grind and grind. 

 

I feel I can’t take any more. My legs are burning as I pass 6000 feet, now 3500 feet above my starting elevation. Defeat whispers around the edges of my pain, but I don’t much listen. I am dogged and monomaniacal at times. This is one of those times. I won’t turn around unless rain or exhaustion drive me off the mountain. The wind has cooled some, but the sun increases intensity. We’re in the high country. I make Windy Point and pull off for a break. 

In a car, one has the illusion of the road leveling after Windy Point. Not so on a bike. In fact, although the road is now primarily passing through pines, it continues to climb, with some of the steepest grades of the ride a mile-and-a-half above the viewpoint. Several other riders turn around now, out of water, afraid they won’t be able to make Palisades, about six miles up the road, at about 8,000 feet. I keep at it, spinning the pedals just fast enough to keep from falling over. My legs have cooled and stiffened during the rest, but settle in to the work with only minor complaint. Soon I am over the saddle and into the woods winding again up to Rose Canyon Reservoir. I pass a caution sign with outlines of a mother black bear and cub. I’ve arrived at the sky island of Mount Lemmon, the high pine forest. The breeze now is cool, almost cold and I wonder if I should have brought a jacket. It is not supposed to rain, but it is a good idea to be prepared for it. I am not. I’ve been riding for about two and a half hours. 

I pass Green Mountain, San Pedro overlook, and climb toward Palisades Ranger Station. I roll in and out of large patches of shade given by the Ponderosa pines still living and green. But evidence of the big fires is everywhere. Blackened hulks of trees, naked ridgelines, erosion along the shoulder of the road, bare, white granite where before there was thick tree cover. Here on the road, though, it is cool. I have to stand because my butt is so sore, but my legs feel wasted. I don’t have any snap left. So far, though, no cramps. 

The miles grind away. Three more to go, two, one, and then I am there: Palisades. Water, bathroom, another needed stretch. It has taken me almost three hours from the base to get here. Three hours to cover 20 miles... I have another mile or two of climbing before closing in on Summerhaven. With a break here, it should pose no problem. I have made it. I remount and churn out the last of the big climb to the Bigelow ridge. I can see the observatory above me. This is the high point, about 8500 feet above sea level. 

Hemingway claimed that riding a bike through a place is the best way to know it, know it in the aches of the climb, the thrill of the descent. He said that the body remembers and internalizes exertion in a way that simple viewing from a car window cannot. If that is true, I am becoming more and more this mountain.  

 

The road suddenly and surprisingly descends. I tuck in for a fast set of curves and drop like a stone down into Bear Wallow before hitting the final climb. My legs burn again with the initial steepness, but I dig deep and keep spinning. No cramps but plenty of ache, plenty of screaming from the legs that there is nothing left in the tank. The hill slackens and then levels out before the final drop into Summerhaven. The austere nakedness of the north slope dropping steeply down to Oracle and the San Pedro is too brilliant to contemplate – all rock and lifeless, sharp-pointed skeletons of trees. That was the Bullock Fire, three years ago. In only four years, the mountain has gone from lush oasis to exposed rock face. Summerhaven dodged that bullet the year of the Bullock Fire, in spite of the odds, but then was a direct hit the following year when the Aspen Fire roared through the heart of the village. But Summerhaven survives. I have survived. That should be reward enough, but sour cherry pie fills my empty mind, plays to my survivor’s hunger.

The sun does not relent, but gains in strength. I see the Mount Lemmon Cafe down the hill off to left and pull in. I have done it. The prize is delivered on a gleaming white, ceramic plate. It is oozing beauty and perfection.

What does this teach me, if anything? 

Show up and just keep going, as long as you can, for one thing. The skunk and the rattlesnake are done with that, as I will be soon enough. But there is more. This pie, this piece of sour cherry pie, right here in front of me, the one with flaky crust hanging over a precipice of cherry filling made from real fruit right here at the Mount Lemmon Cafe, is bewitching me. I want to rush to it, inhale it, hastily harvest my reward for this long journey. But as much as I feel the joy and relief of finishing, and the desire to consummate this perfect epic, this beloved pie, I hold back.  This appetite for my favorite of all Earthly delights, this sweet and slightly sour delicacy contains a paradox. As much as I am pulled forward to taste and swoon at this life, I feel an equal shiver of cold fear that it will all be over too soon. I want the sweet consummation as much as anything in this long life, but in almost equal measure I want the wanting, the desire, the unconsummated longing, to never end.

Busted Flat in Ruby

When Dan tried to ride past Toothless, the old man's bony hand gripped Dan’s elbow like a tail hook stopping a fighter jet.


“Where do you think you’re going?” he spat. Holding tight onto Dan, who was now off his bike, Toothless kicked into high gear. He all but dragged Dan to the gate and closed it with a flourish on the latch.

“Call the Sheriff. Let him know we got some trespassers here,” he barked to another man who was wearing a cowboy hat and sitting in a one-ton, dually-wheeled Chevy pick-up truck. The tobacco stains on Toothless’s chin traced the path of saliva as it streamed out of his gummy grin.

About this time my bowels felt like they were ready to drop through my shorts. I looked at the gate, looked at Toothless, who was moving toward his truck with the gun plainly visible in the rear window rack, and looked behind me to see the other bikers pulling up to the gate, tired and guilty.

Toothless was shaking with rage and fear now. It looked bad and he looked desperate. The other cowboy wasn’t alone, and a few of them were out of the other truck now, waiting for further directions from Toothless.

                                                      ***

Let's back up a bit. A moment before we had been grinding up steeps, splashing through streams, and flying along jackhammer down-hills on our fancy mountain bikes. We were on Forest Road 217, down by the ghost-town of Ruby in deep Southern Arizona – drug and human smuggling country. Now we were stopped, wings clipped, surrounded.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. This ride was part of a tradition that had started years before. Every year, as close to New Year’s Day as possible, the Geriatrics United Mountain Bike Association (GUMBA) makes its way to Ruby. Ruby is a ghost town in the Atascosas Mountains west of Nogales and famous for its wild life as a mining town and its wildlife after the mine shut down. The mountains surrounding Ruby are still famous for drug smuggling and the attendant execution style violence. Of course, Ruby had its share of wild life before the mine shut down, with murders, brothels, bank robberies -- the usual signs of progress. Post-mine, ghost town Ruby is getting known for other wild life and was featured in a Nature documentary that examined how the native fauna are moving back in: scorpions, skunks, bobcats, mountain lions, jaguars, ocelots, trogons, and coatimundi now run the town.

It is the natural beauty that draws us to Ruby. Our road leading there treats us to some of the best views in southern Arizona, winding through climbs and deep canyons, and drops us into the perennially running water of California Gulch. We have ridden here every January since the years we first started mountain biking. We did birthday rides and bachelor rides and bachelorette rides and good bye rides, but the New Year’s ride was the best. Usually because it was the most unpredictable. Sometimes the weather was good and sometimes it got nasty. January, even though it’s in Arizona, can turn from sunny shorts riding into an exercise in hypothermia. Also, the route keeps accumulating new barriers and restrictions. Where once we followed a Forest Service road in a long horseshoe, we now ride over barriers intended to keep four-wheel drives from tearing the place up. A new and rather boring road has taken the place of our original Forest Road 217.

                                                      ***

So, this morning, the first Sunday in January, we assemble at the giant concrete cow skull in Amado. Lee, who finished well in the Leadville 100, is waiting in his old Suburban. Tom from Green Valley, Dave down from Colorado, and Mark, a serious expert racer are all milling around the parking lot when we Tucsonans arrive. There’s Chris “Caution” Gans, a local mountain bike entrepreneur, Dan “Danimal” Meyer, who used to work for Vermont Bicycle Tours, Gary who just got in from Spain, and the rest of us middle-aged weirdos. After some introductions and reunions we head for the trail via Arivaca. We only lose one bike off the rack as we cross one of the many dry stream crossings.

We park at the west leg of the horseshoe and begin the long ritual of suiting up. We have to decide whether or not we need raingear, leggings, fleece, Goretex, Ultrex, or Triple Point Ceramic. It’s always a tough call. Fully suited, we round up the ponies for final inspection. The tension is building. A final group photo and we’re off.

The road climbs to the south and begins a long series of rolling grades through canyon country. We pass some cattle tanks and some abandoned mines on our way to the Gulch. The pace is fast as Lee and Mark start burning up the road. Down a rutted, loose, rock strewn descent, though, Lee flats. While waiting for him to repair his tire, we find the chimney of an old furnace, probably used for refining silver. It’s just close enough to hit with medium sized rocks, so we begin the chucking. It’s a contest to see who can “score” first. Michael Jordan we are not and the tire is fixed long before we admit defeat and move on down to the Gulch. We pass some trailers, some working mines, and notice the many twin tracks that head for Mexico. This is not a place to travel at night. In the distance we can see one of the spy balloons watching the border.

The views are almost as breathtaking as the hills we have to climb, but we get our downhill reward of a waterfall and flat rock perfect for a snack. Someone wonders aloud if Toothless will come by. We’ve seen him before and want to make a point of avoiding him if we can. He’s not so much scary as he is tenacious. He is a legend, a toothless driver of a bald-tired, ancient Ford pick-up. Now Toothless isn’t a bad guy, but once he starts talking, he doesn’t want to stop. And now that our route is barred to cars, we doubt we’ll see him.

We review the various endos in mid stream that defined the previous Ruby rides: Gary’s double twister, Dan’s big splash, my weed wipe out. We know what we’re up against. We re-mount to begin the string of crossings that lead to heart attack hill and then on to Ruby.

Because no one goes over the bars we think we have it made and on the long grinds out of California Gulch and up to the Ruby turnoff we feel smug, victorious. The side road to Ruby has grown over even more than the Gulch road, but we follow it anyway. We ride through tall grass, mud, and even up a tailings slope to a fence clearly signed against trespassers. We deliberate. Chris says we’ve done this before.

“You think it’s alright?” Lee asks. He hasn’t done it before.

We consider our options. One is to retrace our steps through all that grass and mud. The other is to go ahead, take a chance, and get to the main road within a couple of miles by going straight through Ruby. We continue forward, but take on something of a burden of knowing we are not in the right.

We pass a huge pile of tailings that looks like something off the moon. Chris can’t resist. The rest of us follow. The place is filled with whoop–de-doos. We regain some of our bravado.

Then Ruby spreads out before us. It’s a ghost town all right. There’s a school, a bank, some houses, even a jail. We stop, sensing some danger. We all watch as Dan pushes off and drops into town. He rolls across an intersection and swoops into the center with no obvious consequence. The rest of us move as one. Something just doesn’t feel right. My legs feel heavy, reluctant, as I climb up to the gate, where, for the first time, I see Toothless and his truck, blocking the gate.

He doesn’t yet see us and is letting another pick-up out. We roll and try to find our way through the closing gap. No such luck. He grabs Dan and soon has the rest of us herded together between two pick up trucks.

                                           ***

“You’re going to jail,” he says. “You’re on private property.”

“What do you mean? We’ve done this before.” Implores Dan, using the wrong line of reasoning.

“How’d you like it if’n I went into your living room driving my truck?” Toothless sputtered. “This is a tour town now and you’re trespassing plain and simple.”

We looked at each other and knew he was right. We had broken the law and needed to accept the consequences. I felt like I did the first time I saw flashing police lights in my rear view mirror. Busted.

“I know your type,” Toothless chimes in. “You come in here and pick up anything you can carry and cart it off. Thieves!”

Things were getting a little shrill and Chris was getting testy. “I’m gonna bolt,” he muttered. “What’s he going to do?” Toothless made move for his gun and settled the matter for us. We were stuck. Chris gave up his plan to push past Toothless and make a run for it.

“As I say, you’re going off to jail if you don’t pay.”

“Pay what?”

“The eight dollar entry fee. Groups over six pay eight dollars a head. The way I see it, you, (he counts) I count eight of you (we were nine), and the whole lot of you owe me sixty eight dollars.”

“You’re wrong,” said Lee, and we all looked at him, drop-jawed, thinking he would correct Toothless’s count. But he just corrected the math. “We owe you sixty four.”

Toothless thought about it for a second, did some extra figurin,’ and agreed. “Sixty four then.”

While we counted up our collective burrito fund, Dan reminded Toothless of the other times we had seen him. Once he remembered, he softened up considerably. We asked about other mountain bikers in Ruby, and he admitted that he hadn’t really seen any. We declined to remind him of his stereotype.

We counted up our money, found we had enough, signed into his register with fake names, and were given free run of the town. We even got to visit the jail -- from the outside.

Don't Look Down: A Rant

You know the drill. You roll out of bed and punch the buttons. A soundtrack assaults you with music played at full volume and speed by musicians who are wide awake and pumped up by caffeine, or TV newscasters -- made up, dressed up, wired up and fired up -- who pound you with the cudgel of the latest sex scandal, blockbuster movie, or natural disaster; they wow you with smiles, wit, fashion, celebrity, and cleavage. Between sets and stories the advertisers jump in: tighten up that butt; sculpt those abs; augment those boobs; enlarge that doohickey; you aint good enough the way you are, so step up and drop that crying towel. It is Big Brother reminding you that you better get moving, get with it, that you better hurry up.

You’re not there yet and are given no quarter in time needed to get up to speed. You’re expected to be there already and to stay there – all day and into the night. No, there is no time to rest, much less time to write, in either this day or the long span of years of your working life, no time to rest until you have made equity traders rich with your stock investments drawn from a lifetime of saving and personal sacrifice. Then, in those halcyon days of arthritis and gray hair, you will be free to have a life, get out the notebook, pen that novel, and look down your nose at the rest of us, who are still under the whip of necessity to be up, to be perky, to be optimistic, at the head of the pack, urging others to do and be the same, or else.

Or else no retirement cookie for you.

You know somewhere deep inside that it’s a form of tyranny, this corporate optimism, this unceasing compulsion to be up, on, bright, better, to be an example to the rest of the slackers, doubters, malcontents, carpers, foreigners, liberals, all those losers who have yet to get with the program.

If the terminal speed and the lifestyle that goes with it (bad fast food, high stress, lack of sleep and steroid-free exercise) get you down, don’t worry. Just take a drug: the Purple Pill Prilosec for your gastric acids, the red pill Paxil for your anxiety, the black Zoloft for your depression, ivory Ambien for sleep, blue Viagra to keep you up, large, and in charge. Pfizer’s got your back.

Your secret misery, poor health, and need to be more than you are make the pharmaceutical companies rich, Madison Avenue flush, and Rupert Murdoch dizzy with his galaxy of influence. They like your need to hurry up and get ahead of everyone else, your lack of time to take care of yourself, your family, your community, your planet.

The megaphonic voices keep chiming: don’t stop; don’t look; if you’ve got so much as a sliver of doubt that this is insane, get over it. Distract yourself. Here’s a movie, a video game, some porn. Look lively and make money. Be a success. Get it up.

And, if the trappings of success mean we kill the earth, so what? At least you’ll have a split-level bungalow overlooking an over-fished, poisoned ocean and a Hummer in the garage next to your family set of matching Bush buggies.

So suck it up America. Let’s get behind this need to get ahead. Take no prisoners. This new world is for the winners. We’re gonna win the war against limitations, against nattering nabobs, and against thinking, if just for a moment, even if it kills us.

Give Teachers a Voice

Ed Burns, a long time teacher in Baltimore schools and current producer and writer for the HBO series The Wire, was interviewed on National Public Radio. In that interview, he said he doubted people “could handle going in to an inner city school.” Even “seeing it” would be more than they would believe.

I find these comments telling. Teachers I talk to lately feel that parents, lawmakers, and media have no idea what life is like inside our schools. One teacher told me she felt like she was “in a bubble” and that the rest of the world had no clue about what goes on behind school gates. They feel nobody sees the struggles, the joys, the sorrows, the challenges to teaching, nor does the society at large listen to what it is that teachers have to say.

Policy makers keep loading it on, increasing class size, mandating curricula, decreasing financial and professional support, and making it more difficult to teach in the schools that need it most by sanctioning schools with low test scores. Teachers have to play the role of coach, judge, counselor, cop, sometimes parent, and full time role model. Still, they are held accountable for student achievement on high stakes tests, student behavior, reporting abuse -- and all this while trying to teach.

Teachers in under-performing schools, in particular, have stated that they plan to transfer within three years. The places that NEED the best teachers are driving them away by punishing them for low student performance.

Here’s how it works right now. A good teacher with high standards teaches in a school that has low test scores, very little parental involvement, serious behavior problems, overcrowded classes, few resources, and an increasing list of responsibilities. School X then receives a score of “underperforming,” or “needs improvement.” Little thought is given as to WHY it is underperforming, nor are resources – such as supplemental instruction, time for teacher collaboration, or smaller class size – provided to address causes behind low achievement. The validity of the test is never seriously questioned, nor is it based on research, but that is another issue. The teacher, school, and principal are sanctioned with the underperforming label and told to teach more to the test. Morale drops. The school is stigmatized in the media. The teacher, who knows best what children need, likely transfers.

Every teacher knows that socio-economic level, family involvement, and planning time, as well as good teaching, contribute to success. Teachers know that current policies that focus solely on instructional fixes and narrow, punitive assessments will never work by themselves. We need to commit to improving working conditions, especially in the most difficult schools. Those schools are tied to their communities, and out-of-school issues such as economic opportunity and social welfare are prerequisites for raising achievement. . If we really want to improve education, we need to reward teachers who stick it out in the toughest schools, look beyond the test scores, and give teachers a chance to work with each other to shape thinking, feeling, creative, generous human beings.

Here and Now -- Not

The left hand turn arrow has been green for several seconds as we enter the left hand turn lane and approach the intersection. It turns yellow just as we enter, so I am in a hurry to complete the turn and exit the no man’s land between lights. A car is following closely, trimming the yellow light a bit too close. 

Then, there he is, a driver running the red, speeding through the intersection. I see him closely as I apply the brakes hard. He does not see me, but looks straight ahead. He is talking, animatedly, on his phone. I doubt he realizes he is running a red light. 

I am exasperated, lay on the horn, and hear the squeal of tires behind me as the following car almost rear-ends us. 

No one collides, this time. No one is hurt, though I am left wondering why it is that we so aggressively pursue distraction, even when we place our own and other lives in peril. The lament has become cliché: drivers are texting, CD jamming, DVDing, I-Podding, reading, crosswording, and generally running from the here-and-now task of driving. 

And this is not limited to driving. The most dangerous stretch of road in Tucson, to my eyes, is the block in front of the Memorial Union at the University of Arizona. Here, pedestrians, cyclists, long-boarders, skateboarders, roller-bladers, Frisbee throwers all walk, run, glide, stroll while wired, plugged in, tuned out, ear-budded, and generally distracted. The result is a kind of unconscious chaos of movement in which collisions are common. 

No one seems to mind. 

I think it raises a question: Why are we in such a hurry to be distracted, to flee from the reality of the here and now? Why not just focus on what are doing at any given moment and do it well? If driving, then we drive. If cutting across traffic on the mall, then we watch and move mindfully across traffic on the mall.

I am just as guilty of distracting myself as anyone. I just do so with my old-fashioned brain. It can serve up enough fantasy, worry, and fear to keep me distracted for a lifetime. I have decided to work a bit at quieting the “monkey mind,” as Buddhists like to call it, for the sake of focusing, especially writing. I am not talking about the snippets and sound-bites that pass for writing on FaceBook, etc., but the focused, sustained, attention to an idea or a question. This kind of writing seems to me oddly quaint now, if not downright incomprehensible to most readers. 

As a writing teacher, I am particularly concerned about the social lack of focus. Writing, for me, requires that I observe, or at least pay attention in order to sustain a train of thought. I see students having a harder and harder time doing this. The result is weaker problem solving ability, and shorter attention span. 

I admit that this is anecdotal, but I do count sometimes. On campus, I sometimes see 60% or more of students either on the phone, texting, or wearing ear phones as they walk to class. They seem unable to stop and continue to do so – in class. 

What is the aversion to enjoying the unmediated glory of October in the Sonoran Desert? Or at least watching for pedestrians...