Well, er, it's been awhile. I've come back from my wilderness therapying a changed woman. I suppose I could have dropped stories here and there instead of trying to explain the summer in one quick entry like this, but I guess I don't really need to explain myself to anybody anyway.But I would like to say that I am a new appreciator of the Arizona deserts...it's hard not to feel like a hoity-toity camper now...I have strong urges to brag about drinking leeches from cowtank water and climbing up steep cliffsides with a fifty-pound pack made from a wool blanket and pack string only to run right into a cactus at crotch level because the moon wasn't out to show it clearly. I never knew I had it in me to survive, um, survival camping.
But however cool bragging makes me think I am, that's not what I really want to relay here... I guess I just want to say before school starts and my mind reverts back to books and email and store-bought bread, that you can learn a lot about people when you're all huddled under the same ragged tarp in a monsoon hail storm (the same day as a 115 degree afternoon). I realized I don't usually see people as people often enough....they're so easy to turn into tools or obstacles--to borrow the Arbinger philosophy, I see them as objects instead of people. But after seeing these brave children face their fears and learn to whittle spoons and flake their own arrowheads and turn a frustrating, disappointing situation into a beautiful one, I think I'm coming to realize that you don't have to go to the Arizona deserts eating nothing but rice and lentils to witness or experience this kind of courage and change.
So I guess that's all I want to say right now, in an effort to restart this blog and re-enter society. I had the opportunity to speak at my grandpa's funeral today and it just confirmed an aching desire to see people as they are because aside from all the distractions and shiny objects and selfish desires that suck away at my time, it's people that are worth living for and being with and I'd like to notice more often the equivalent sacrifices and bravery in the people of my suburban life that I've always overlooked because it lacks the dramatic backdrop of mountain lions and heat stroke. And it'll be nice to live chigger-free for a while, too.
