Thoughts at Red Rock Canyon

Nevada, 1999

It stretches to the horizon. The powerful rocks looming into a blue, cloudless sky. The sun playing shadows on their faces, turning colors that seem impossible in the desert canyon. Yet here they are. Red. Purple. Gold. Eggshell. How is it possible that there are so many, many colors?

It's where I begin.

A small, insignificant figure in a vast range of time. Filled with ideas, fantasies, and visions that boil over and echo in the rocks. They don't move. In the canyon, time is a delicious luxury, it flows rather than races like in the cities.

I sit and record this moment, alone in Red Rock Canyon, a victim of myself and my biology. The rocks laugh. They're in no rush. Nothing to prove. Nothing to say. They simply are - beneath the sky, battered by wind, painted by sunlight, quieted by night. A tiny road, like a snake in a child's drawing, winds through Red Rock Canyon so people can steer their cars between the rocks. Human eyes stare at the stone faces that loom above, fear flickering within.

People end. The canyon goes on. It's all very, very clear.

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