Sustainable Living: Here--Every Vital Place has its Scent.

Front Yard at Dry Creek.  Lloyd and I planted the oaks as seedlings in 1996. 
Large trees in the background are natural, following the canyon slope of Dry Creek Canyon.

It has been cool at Dry Creek since our return--with cloud cover, with rain.  Yesterday, it only reached 86.  Nice.  I sit in the arranged living room that only yesterday morning was so crammed with boxes you could hardly walk.  A cool breeze blows gently in the window.  Jack, our cat, sits on the sill, twitching his nose as he catches wafts of moist air from the canyon.

Living room after Marci arranged it.

Every vital place has its scent.  I loved August afternoons hanging up laundry in Tsaile.  Cool wind would bring the warm scent of summer pine as the monsoon clouds would build along the Lukachukai Mountains.

Here the predominant smell is of creek bottom and cottonwood.  It rises out of the canyon in waves on even the hottest of days.  Walking up to Mom's house is like going for a swim--how currents in the water bring ever changing temperatures.  Even though yesterday was mild, while we were walking up the lane, Marci hit a pocket of hot, humid air and commented on it.

Likewise, on the hottest of days, you'll be walking up the lane and a moist, cool pocket of air will perched on the canyon edge, waiting for you.

I have come to realize these small moments are worth whatever job I might have to take up to put food on the table and remain centered on this land.

Marci turns to look at the rainbow while looking after the chickens.  Autumn, my brother's dog, stays focused on the chickens.

Life, at least for the poet, is about place.  I don't need to be here, but I need to be some place alive with wild sights, smells and textures.  Alaska would probably do as well.  But as this is my home, heritage, it seems more ethical to make it here if I can.

I don't know how to explain this.  It may be something only people who identify with a minority group can understand.  Navajos get it.  A Navajo may have to live, may even enjoy living in Seattle, New York or Phoenix, but to most Navajos the only real home is the reservation.  They may enjoy the malls, the lawns, the restaurants in the big city, but their center is always the hearth at the center of grandma's hogan.

Utah is the Mormon reservation.  Zion.  For some, like me, it is a tainted garden, and we have a love-hate relationship with it.  How could it be otherwise for a liberal living dead center of Republican Land?  Yet, it is still home--the sights, sounds, smells, textures we identify with being.

The garden at Dry Creek--Our summer hearth.