“Please refrain from photography for the next thirty minutes,” the voice crackled over the speakers, clearly something stated a hundred times before, but almost impossible to enforce.I could, however, see the temptation to disobey it. The sunset that we had raced from Albuquerque had illuminated the land in a light that reflected back the color of bronze, speckled with the lengthening shadows of shrubs and Joshua trees that grew sporadically over the now-rolling hills. It seemed more Biblical than American, distant and solemn, almost holy and healing to those willing to purge what had made them sick. Both beautiful and dangerous at the same time, it made perfect sense that photography would be prohibited. This was, presumably, how it must have looked before it was realized that people were just as willing to pay four hundred dollars a night to have their spirits and bodies healed in a mud bath with Enya playing from a speaker in the corner.
“Again,” the voice returned a moment later, “Refrain from taking pictures. We are in tribal territory, and they have asked for privacy.” It was a tone that assumed empathy of people who disregarded the history of the land, who ooo’d and ahhh’d at the cacophony of Navajo and Apache-themed decor that covered the airport walls in carefully chosen places. The Albuquerque airport was the kind of building that could only be commissioned by white people who recognized the problem at hand and, thoughtfully, decided to beat people to the criticism. Hiring indigenous artists would disarm anyone uncomfortable with genocide or reservations, and those not cursed with such consciouses could even buy war bonnets in the gift-shops. The aesthetic was, unintentionally, something from “The Shining.” I could all-too easily imagine Shelly DuVall running frantically from an ax-wielding Jack Nicholson, stopping, against her better judgment to comment on the use of color coordination in a Navajo vase behind glass or the precision of the lines in an Apache weaving.
I had no interest in photography of landscape, no matter how enchanting, snapped by an iPhone from a moving vehicle. Only the day before, the couple sitting next to me on the plane had been disgruntled by the severe turbulence over Iowa that had simply ruined their picture of America’s breadbasket. “Someone,” I thought to myself, “Crashed during severe turbulence in Iowa. Carol Lombard? Patsy Cline?” For obvious reasons, I elected to keep such thoughts to myself. “No. Carol Lombard was in Nevada. Patsy Cline was near Nashville, I think. Ritchie Valens sounded right, and the irony of it all was that he hated flying and won the seat on the plane as a bet.” They soon grew bored and talked about how Phoenix was such a romantic city, despite, I privately added, having a terminal named after Barry Goldwater. I could never fall in love in a city that would electively name something after Barry Goldwater. It was an impulse against glorifying the evil white emperors of yester-year who lined their pockets tormenting innocent people under the guise of a “Moral America” that I inherited from my mother, who insisted on flying into Dulles rather than have her name and Ronald Reagan’s on the same page. It was, I presumed, on the off-chance that someone hundreds of years into the future might find her ticket and assume she had some sort of fondness for him.
My thoughts were on them again as the landscape blurred by us. They seemed, I concluded, like the exact type of people who had voted for both Reagan and Goldwater. They were dressed meticulously (too well for the flight) and reminded me strongly of the type of people who complained in public that no one ever dresses in white to play tennis anymore and that a refusal to send handwritten “thank you” cards was directly related to the moral decay of American society. They would be here, I determined, taking pictures. Ignoring the requests of the people who owned the land, preferring instead to bask in the delights of capturing something lovely on film without knowing that a picture couldn’t accurately portray what was whizzing by from behind plate glass. “There,” I said to their imaginary personas, “Is your Moral America. Centuries of small pox, broken treaties, and stealing children away and returning them unable to speak with their parents and all they get is a plot of land big enough for a train to cut through in half an hour. Snap away while the lighting is good.”
A trailer park appeared. No doubt that would be the photograph they would delete, whoever was sneaking pictures. The concept of people trying to carry groceries from the car in one trip, or putting rocks on the trashcan after seeing a raccoon gnawing on an empty pizza box one morning distracted from the natural beauty.
More open fields and hills. More Joshua trees. More ghosts of prophets who wandered off into the desert for no good reason, rubbed mud in their eyes, and hoped against hope that their prayers would rise like paper kites into the heavens and something other than silence would be returned. This, of course, could only exist in the ancient world. Instead, people now assume forgiveness on the parts of those they wronged and left their prayers discarded behind them like candy wrappers they assumed would be picked up by someone paid to do so. What person now would crawl on their knees through the desert and cry out to a space they privately knew was empty?
“Who have you wronged?” I ask myself the question out of nowhere as I wonder if I would ever be the kind of person to try to keep raccoons out of the trashcans and if the desert could heal illnesses that you yourself hadn’t thought of. I think of something else before I answered, although I knew it perfectly well.
“Ladies and gentlemen, you may now take photographs again,” the voice announced. Yet no one stirred. Those who wished to take pictures had not refrained, and those bored by what was outside the window continued to read books, send text messages, or think about how the streets in Santa Fe smelled like cooking food with hints of expensive spices that people breath deep in their lungs to ward off the husks of their own sadness.
And no one, no matter how tender hearted, seemed to notice the fleeting sight of the little black calf, a spot of spilled ink on the now-golden hillside illuminated with the last brightness of daylight. Her new legs trembled on the incline as though they were too fragile to sustain her weight much longer. The pink velvet of her mouth was gaping upwards where, I believe, she was calling for someone. The incline would have been too steep even for an adult cow to climb out of, though I could somewhat imagine this wayward calf, the baby that the rancher might affectionately moniker “a rascal” stumbling down into the loose, deep soil of the embankment without concern for how she would climb out. I, too, could imagine her panic when she realized her predicament (or at least that she no longer felt mild and free in the linger warm of a blessedly temperate February afternoon). Seeing no living around and unable to get her balance, she opened her mouth and screamed the pitiful wail of an animal in peril with no familiar face around. She looked, I imagined, to the crest of the hills, hoping to see the juggernaut of copper-brown fur and horns, or the smell the diesel exhaust from a ranchers truck as it frantically scanned the property for the mischievous little calf with a raven pelt. Instead, she is answered only by the whistle of the train passing her without incident as her cries turn to frost in the evening air.
“Again,” the voice returned a moment later, “Refrain from taking pictures. We are in tribal territory, and they have asked for privacy.” It was a tone that assumed empathy of people who disregarded the history of the land, who ooo’d and ahhh’d at the cacophony of Navajo and Apache-themed decor that covered the airport walls in carefully chosen places. The Albuquerque airport was the kind of building that could only be commissioned by white people who recognized the problem at hand and, thoughtfully, decided to beat people to the criticism. Hiring indigenous artists would disarm anyone uncomfortable with genocide or reservations, and those not cursed with such consciouses could even buy war bonnets in the gift-shops. The aesthetic was, unintentionally, something from “The Shining.” I could all-too easily imagine Shelly DuVall running frantically from an ax-wielding Jack Nicholson, stopping, against her better judgment to comment on the use of color coordination in a Navajo vase behind glass or the precision of the lines in an Apache weaving.
I had no interest in photography of landscape, no matter how enchanting, snapped by an iPhone from a moving vehicle. Only the day before, the couple sitting next to me on the plane had been disgruntled by the severe turbulence over Iowa that had simply ruined their picture of America’s breadbasket. “Someone,” I thought to myself, “Crashed during severe turbulence in Iowa. Carol Lombard? Patsy Cline?” For obvious reasons, I elected to keep such thoughts to myself. “No. Carol Lombard was in Nevada. Patsy Cline was near Nashville, I think. Ritchie Valens sounded right, and the irony of it all was that he hated flying and won the seat on the plane as a bet.” They soon grew bored and talked about how Phoenix was such a romantic city, despite, I privately added, having a terminal named after Barry Goldwater. I could never fall in love in a city that would electively name something after Barry Goldwater. It was an impulse against glorifying the evil white emperors of yester-year who lined their pockets tormenting innocent people under the guise of a “Moral America” that I inherited from my mother, who insisted on flying into Dulles rather than have her name and Ronald Reagan’s on the same page. It was, I presumed, on the off-chance that someone hundreds of years into the future might find her ticket and assume she had some sort of fondness for him.
My thoughts were on them again as the landscape blurred by us. They seemed, I concluded, like the exact type of people who had voted for both Reagan and Goldwater. They were dressed meticulously (too well for the flight) and reminded me strongly of the type of people who complained in public that no one ever dresses in white to play tennis anymore and that a refusal to send handwritten “thank you” cards was directly related to the moral decay of American society. They would be here, I determined, taking pictures. Ignoring the requests of the people who owned the land, preferring instead to bask in the delights of capturing something lovely on film without knowing that a picture couldn’t accurately portray what was whizzing by from behind plate glass. “There,” I said to their imaginary personas, “Is your Moral America. Centuries of small pox, broken treaties, and stealing children away and returning them unable to speak with their parents and all they get is a plot of land big enough for a train to cut through in half an hour. Snap away while the lighting is good.”
A trailer park appeared. No doubt that would be the photograph they would delete, whoever was sneaking pictures. The concept of people trying to carry groceries from the car in one trip, or putting rocks on the trashcan after seeing a raccoon gnawing on an empty pizza box one morning distracted from the natural beauty.
More open fields and hills. More Joshua trees. More ghosts of prophets who wandered off into the desert for no good reason, rubbed mud in their eyes, and hoped against hope that their prayers would rise like paper kites into the heavens and something other than silence would be returned. This, of course, could only exist in the ancient world. Instead, people now assume forgiveness on the parts of those they wronged and left their prayers discarded behind them like candy wrappers they assumed would be picked up by someone paid to do so. What person now would crawl on their knees through the desert and cry out to a space they privately knew was empty?
“Who have you wronged?” I ask myself the question out of nowhere as I wonder if I would ever be the kind of person to try to keep raccoons out of the trashcans and if the desert could heal illnesses that you yourself hadn’t thought of. I think of something else before I answered, although I knew it perfectly well.
“Ladies and gentlemen, you may now take photographs again,” the voice announced. Yet no one stirred. Those who wished to take pictures had not refrained, and those bored by what was outside the window continued to read books, send text messages, or think about how the streets in Santa Fe smelled like cooking food with hints of expensive spices that people breath deep in their lungs to ward off the husks of their own sadness.
And no one, no matter how tender hearted, seemed to notice the fleeting sight of the little black calf, a spot of spilled ink on the now-golden hillside illuminated with the last brightness of daylight. Her new legs trembled on the incline as though they were too fragile to sustain her weight much longer. The pink velvet of her mouth was gaping upwards where, I believe, she was calling for someone. The incline would have been too steep even for an adult cow to climb out of, though I could somewhat imagine this wayward calf, the baby that the rancher might affectionately moniker “a rascal” stumbling down into the loose, deep soil of the embankment without concern for how she would climb out. I, too, could imagine her panic when she realized her predicament (or at least that she no longer felt mild and free in the linger warm of a blessedly temperate February afternoon). Seeing no living around and unable to get her balance, she opened her mouth and screamed the pitiful wail of an animal in peril with no familiar face around. She looked, I imagined, to the crest of the hills, hoping to see the juggernaut of copper-brown fur and horns, or the smell the diesel exhaust from a ranchers truck as it frantically scanned the property for the mischievous little calf with a raven pelt. Instead, she is answered only by the whistle of the train passing her without incident as her cries turn to frost in the evening air.
