The Grand Canyon
The riverbed loves the river. At the edge of the canyon it hits you hard, like a flat no after a month of praying to Our Mother of Guadeloupe for clarity.You've heard that no before, but this is more like a yes, but.
Yes, you can yell anything you want into this canyon. You can ride a mule down to the bottom. Kneeling, you can put your face into the Colorado River and say that name underwater. Yes, you can write it down on a clean sheet of paper every day for 17 million years.
Yes, you can want whatever you want, but this is not your story.You are a visitor like the five thousand visitors who will come next year to see this story told and re-told in echo and erosion. Red orange. Visible from space.
Disclaimer: Hey reader. This project of writing and posting something everyday is wonderful, but I"m feeling a little wobbly putting out some rough stuff. I went to the Grand Canyon recently and I've been trying to write about it since. Mostly, I've been annoyed at my arrogance at trying to project my experience onto this natural wonder. I know I'm not alone in guilt of this habit. Without it we'd have never heard of Sun Gods and monsters who are brought into existence by the moon. The above is me trying to work around this arrogance by acknowledging it and writing something anyway. Yeah, it's rough, but I'm writing.
I know what you mean, Rachael. Hard to reveal the incomplete, hard to be judged on something you didn't have much time to make. And--I think this is actually really lovely, though. A sense of being absolutely dwarfed by the encounter. You're amazing. Thanks for the bravery of making & pushing it out.
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