Thoughts I Have Thunk*

Am I going to die?

*after realizing that the Worcestershire sauce I used to make black bean burgers is at least four years old.

Grasslands in winter, No. 2.

Grasslands in winter, No. 1.

Trail encounter.

At San Pedro House, Cochise County, Arizona. The faint line of blue hills in the distance are the San Josés across the border in Mexico.

I’m currently reading House of Names by Colm Tóibín (2016), a retelling of the story of Clytemnestra, her revenge-killing of her husband Agamemnon

―who sacrificed their daughter Iphigenia to gain success in battle― and Clytemnestra’s eventual matricide by her son, Orestes. It’s all very Greek, and tragic. Don’t get excited about spoilers. I don’t see how I can spoil a story that’s been around since Aeschylus wrote it down in the fifth century BCE. It’s not my fault if you never read Bullfinch.

I’ve been fascinated with the story since I was a teenager, when I first saw this remarkable, ghastly painting based on the triply tragic end of the story. Walter P. Chrysler Jr. made a gift of his formidable private art collection to the Norfolk Museum of Art in my hometown, and this showed up on a gallery wall. His gift transformed a sad little local museum into an important regional institution, which was renamed in his honor. Seeing paintings like this for the first time was life altering. I’ve never been the same because I had access to that amazing place.

The painting, Orestes Pursued by the Furies, is by French painter Adolphe-William Bouguereau, completed in 1862. Its overblown romanticism and staged melodrama were already quaintly outmoded before the paint had dried, since the
au courant

impressionists were already re-inventing art. But I think it is marvelous. The furies, Tisiphone, Alecto, and Megaera harry Orestes, pointing accusing fingers at

Clytemnestra’s

bloody breast. Poor guilty Orestes covers his ears, but he can’t block out the Furies’ denunciations. They are already in his head. And if the subject and execution of the painting don’t get your attention, its scale is hard to ignore. It is huge, over 90 by 110 inches (about 230 by 280 cm).

The book has been a terrific read so far. Like all Greek tragedies, the audience takes up the story already knowing how and where it will end. The power of seeing the end from the beginning, while the characters struggle in ignorance, is really the point in these ancient morality tales. We see where they can amend and atone and alter the outcome, but they never do. I’m not done with the book yet. If Tóibín manages to slip in a surprise twist, you won’t hear about it from me.

Shard.

Pottery shard at San Pedro House, Cochise County, Arizona. I did not find this in situ. I suspect it is a bit of Hohokam redware pottery. Its fired finish included tiny bits of pulverized mica that gave it a pleasing sparkle.

Yes, the skies here are often that color blue. And discouraging words are seldom

―if ever―

heard. For that you’ve gotta go into town.

Off the main trail at San Pedro House I noticed an old fence post covered with bits of pottery and debitage. It’s a curious collection. While the pieces probably never held much archaeological value, now that they have been removed from the spot where they were found, they have no historic value at all. I think I understand the impulse to collect. When I’m walking I always think its better to move a little pottery shard than to crush it underfoot. But better still to leave it in situ, to step over or walk around, though I’ve been on paths that were so littered with pottery it was impossible. When I was a boy, walking on private property, every bit would have gone straight to my pockets, to show off to my grandfather, or to bring to school. Most of my hikes these days are on public lands, where such heritage pilfering is explicitly illegal.

I made a new friend on my hike at San Pedro House this afternoon. This is Belle of Bisbee, Arizona. As soon as she realized that I was casting a basset hound- sized shadow, she flopped down in the shade I was making, and kept adjusting herself to stay out of the sun every time I moved a bit. Even in January, direct sun can be too much, too bright, too hot this far south.

While I chatted with her owner, Mary Anne, I learned that like me, Belle is fighting cancer. Though I am at a stage where I can confidently call myself a cancer survivor whose fight is largely done, Belle is in the early days of her battle. Mary Anne told me Belle had her first radiation treatments just two weeks ago; this was her first day back on the trails.

A lot of folks I know who are battling cancer or have brawled with it in the past rely on a mantra, uttered every day, a way to speak out into the world belief that cancer is not in charge. So today I taught it to Belle. I gave her pats and told her, “Fuck cancer, Belle.” Fuck cancer you beautiful, bewildered, champion, sweetheart of a dog. Sometimes the universe just needs to be told.