My Grand Tour

I’ve just spent a half hour looking at the NY Times.  Of course trouble around the world and here at home fills the headlines.  I realize that my recent trip out of town did not provide me with the respite I had hoped for.    For four decades now it has been difficult for me to focus on my own back yard where there are enough problems to grapple with.  I care about what is happening in the next town, state, country.  Thank goodness I don’t have to worry about those on other planets in other galaxies.

So, in April I will get into my wee, gray, mouse of a car and do my favorite circle tour.  First stop: The Grand Canyon will put me in my place, rather small in the scheme of things.  A hike along the rim, (70+ old knees are no longer happy on Bright  Angel Trail.) will give me moments of solitude, the antics of song birds, the soaring grace of a raptor—a reminder that there is a life, a vast, vast life beyond the disappointing acts of humankind.

Then perhaps being refreshed by Nature I will gather my strength to drive on to Flagstaff where I will go to the Museum of Northern  Arizona where the work of artists past and present will feed my soul.  Then drawing on more courage I will attend NAU Theatre Department’s  TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD.  This will require courage—not because the acting will be poor, not because the directing will lack texture, not because the crew fails to support the work fully—experience has taught me that the students and faculty there do great work!  But, I will be plunging right back into man’s inhumanity to man or if you prefer humankind.  And having grown up in Texas I carry, perhaps, a greater awareness of and sense of unwarranted responsibility for the plight of Tom Robinson.  These themes of injustice in the south gnaw at me like no other.  And yet I want to support the work of young people taking those first tentative steps toward careers in the world of theatre.

So I will go and then after a restless night’s sleep in Flag, I will meander down Oak Creek Canyon catching glimpses of a bounding creek, trees arching over the curve of road,

and finally the wonder that is the red rocks of Sedona  will unfold before me. 

After visiting all my favorite spots and having lunch with a friend,  in the late afternoon I will make my way over Mingus Mountain-- one of my favorite drives, where at one point the expanse of the valleys appears framed by the slope of mountain and my heart expands to the distant horizon.  I am almost home…  Spirit renewed, a gift from artists, from friends, from the great Southwest, from Nature herself.