[Photograph of yours truly, taken by Annie Gordon, at the Artist's Talk for my show "@1w/". This show runs for another week at the Tucson Jewish Community Center. Thanks to all who came to the opening, to all who came to see it at other times, and to all of y'all, for your help along the way.]
"Carmen Trotter's Spirals, The Steaming Bean, Shell Beach, California" (c) 2009 Stu Jenks
[A fellow traveler, Geoffrey Notkin, wrote a very nice piece for the Tucson Citizen's new blog. A little embarrassing at times, such high praise from a colleague, but very satisfying knowing that Geoff gets what I'm trying to do. Thanks, buckaroo. Lastly, the above image is entitled "Cradle Rocks, Dragoon Mountains, Arizona", and is featured in the article, and the weblog entry about me, on Notkin's The Logical Lizard page is called "The Sublime Spirals of Photographer Stu Jenks."]
"Signal Hill, Arizona" (c) 2009 Stu Jenks
[From top to bottom: "Cradle Rock Spiral", "Megalith at Cradle Rock", "Lizard Man Pictographs at Council Rocks", and "The Dragoons Reflected in a Puddle" (c) 2009 Stu Jenks
"Wedding Spiral from Easter, at Grace St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Tucson, Arizona" (c) 2009 Stu Jenks
The Transpersonal Papers: Chapter Twenty One:
"Spiral for Cesar Chavez, Molino Falls, Arizona" © 2009
The snowmelt's almost gone, yet cool water still rushes over Molino Falls. Sure, there was more water a few weeks ago, but there’s plenty of volume now, to soothe my soul with its big sound.
Cesar Chavez Day is my favorite holiday, for only I and a few thousand other Arizonans receive this paid gift. Actually California celebrates it on March 31st, with all its state offices and schools closed, but in Arizona, only Pima County employees get a paid holiday. (Thank you, Raul Grijalva.) And best of all, we get to pick our day to take off. Granted, this stipulation was so no county offices had to close, but Cesar would have liked that the workers got to pick their day off. I picked Monday, March 16th.
Distant friends are visiting. Last night we ate Carne Seca Chimichangas, Chicken Enchiladas and Chile Rellenos at El Minuto, one of my favorite Mexican restaurants in Tucson. It's really good to see these good people. We’ll be meeting up again in a few hours.
I'm grateful for these visits of faraway friends. Perhaps because I have no girlfriend right now is why it pleases me so, but I'm guessing it has more to do with my current fear of Death or rather my fear of Not-Enough-Time-Left. I'm thankful to the day job but it takes 40 hours of my week and so much of my energy, and I'm not young anymore. I have so many images to make, so many stories to find, so many people and places to get to know and love, but I now hear the ticking of that grandfather clock, a little louder every day. Having this persistent congested cough and no doctors having figured out exactly why I have this mucus, heavily weights on me too. (Even though I do know that my smoking doesn't help at all, but it's more than that. We have omitted cancer, and we did find a bit of COPD. But that's not it either. That wouldn’t produce the mucus. We still don’t know. More tests in a couple months.) I can still hike and do what I like and need to do, but I do fear that I won't kiss Her again (whoever She is), and that I won't ever again touch the soft skin of a woman's back. Poor me, I know. People are dying in the cold desert at night, but I do still long for such things. I ain't dead yet. Anyway. I am thankful to Charles and Maryann's visit. And I hear Charlie and Karen will be flying in tomorrow. Hot Damn. It’ll be great to see my Biscuit Buddy.
I look around the rocks for a place to make a spiral, see it, and I begin to draw. Not a good spot I quickly find out. I try again on some other surface. Still not right. I climb a little hill to survey the falls and then I see the rock, the shot, the angle. I open my water bottle again and begin to drawn a third spiral with my wet finger. The past failures have made my drawing tighter. Sometimes a bad thing is a good thing. I've said that for years.
I click off a bunch of exposures, and then just watch the spiral evaporate away, leaving only a dot or two of moisture. Everything is transient. Nothing ever lasts. Grab for all the gusto while you can. Pick your cliché. (They call them clichés because they are true. Boring, overused, but still true.)
A angry frog (or is it an annoyed bird I can’t see) screams at me again. He's been doing that for a while now. Reckon I should leave so he can find some peace. The roaring Molino Falls drowns out the little guy's displeasure, but he won't be happy until I’m gone.
I grab my Nalgene bottle and shoulder my Canon for the trip back to my truck.
He screams at me again. This time I sound back, imitating his loud croak. Suddenly, it’s all quiet. Pity. It would have been fun to have a little conversation.
The Transpersonal Papers: Chapter Twenty
"Aspens Reborn, Red Ridge, Arizona" © 2009
My feet are freezing, but I don't care. It's hard to level my tripod in the snow, but I don't care. The air is biting cold, but I don't care: for the Aspen trees are reborn.
It's been five and a half years since The Fire. The Ponderosas are still gone of course. They won't be back for a hundred years, but Aspen trees are not pine trees.
Ponderosas are solitary creatures, alone together, making a forest. But Aspen groves are one single botanical organism, a huge root-pack in which countless trees have sprouted from a single seedling germinated many years ago. (Many Aspen groves live to be thousands of years old, the oldest colony growing in Utah, estimated to be over 80, 000 years old.) And the Big Fire probably did the colony some good, allowing more baby shoots to sprout. In not too many years, a thicker forest will grow on the Red Ridge then even flourished here before The Fire in 2003.
But I still miss the Three Surrender Trees, still grieve the hole in the sky where they once grew, but this fledgling grove of Aspens just may fill a bit of that hole in my chest.
I see the shot. I draw a spiral in the snow. I take the shot.
Spiral up, spiral down. Spiral in, Spiral out. A helix inside and outside of me.
I touch the soft infant bark of one of the Aspens and pray for its safety. (I miss the Baby Blue Spruce too.) Then again, this grove will outlive me by thousand of years. They'll do just fine with my prayers, but the praying feels good. It make me happy to push some love out of the wounded hole in my heart.
"Aspen Rebirth, Red Ridge, Mount Lemmon, Arizona" (c) 2009 Stu Jenks
"Adam's Spiral" (c) 2008 Stu Jenks
[Taken at a Flam Chen performance last Saturday night. Adam Cooper-Teran is a very talented artist and quite the visionary if you ask me. And as important, he's a very kind and good man. Also, his mother is about as sweet as they come, and a great artist herself. I'm happy to know Adam, and happy, as well, that he loves the spiral as much as I do. Hell, he's more committed to the swirl than I, for I haven't tattooed a spiral on my body. Yet.]
