SuperNatural

Saturday March 18, 2006

My goal for Saturday was to get out early in the morning and reach the Devil’s Punchbowl in the morning light, take a hike, sample some desert scenery on the way to Palm Springs and cache some water in Joshua Tree for my Tuesday overnight hike. Due to a poor initial attempt at sleep I ended up waking up at 9am. I started loading up the car and returned to the room whereupon I shifted my hand into my pocket to search for the room key. My finger slid ‘thuunk’ into something sharp. An open mini pocket knife on my keychain. Genius! How did my mini pocket knife get open in my pocket? Well, I used it the night before to open a package and counter to my Dad’s teachings since my youth I left the knife open on the table. In the morning I must have grabbed my mess of keys without noticing the open knife and threw them in my pocket. Sorry Dad. You were right.

I had spent the sleepless evening before reading a book called ‘American Gods’ by Neil Gaiman. There was a reason I was reading this book. Pam had been trying to get me to read it and another Gaiman book called ‘Neverwhere’ for a couple of years. Now don’t get too harsh on me yet, I do listen to my wife sometimes. I mean it doesn’t always take me years to fulfill her requests. In a bookstore at Jack London Square recently we had co-picked out another of his titles, ‘Stardust’ and I enjoyed it so much I read a few sections twice or three times which is an almost-never kind of experience for me. Some parts of Stardust reminded me of poetry except I could understand them. And ‘American Gods’ looked to be a tale of the road among other things so it was a good choice for my trip.

So I’m reading this book which is somewhat reminiscent of Jane Lindskold’s ‘The Changer’ and Joan Osbourne’s (or really songwriter Eric Bazilian’s) ‘What if God was one of us?’. You know the lyrics, ‘What if God was one of us, just a slob like one of us’. Well in the book ‘American Gods’ I think we’re talking more gods with a lower-case g. But the slob part definitely fits. The premise of the book is that these beings that were once the proud old gods of the old world are slinking around America up to no good but without out the flash of their early years.

Now you can’t expect a book about Odin and a leprechaun mentoring a two-bit ex-con with an undead wife to not stretch your sense of belief a bit. I realize that. I mean, just because I throw open knives in my pocket doesn’t mean I’m a complete idiot. But some of the dialogue of the Odin character (Mr. Wednesday) to me was hard to believe. It’s just that he talked in a way that was so forward I have trouble imagining him not creating alarm in those around him on a plane for instance. Or without making people just walk away. You’ll have to read it to really know what I mean but here’s an excerpt that shows a little of his forwardness in displaying knowledge that our main character (Shadow, a complete stranger) is not yet privy to..

“I have taken the liberty,” said Mr. Wednesday, washing his hands in the men’s room of Jack’s Crocodile Bar, “of ordering food for myself, to be delivered to your table. We have much to discuss, after all.”
“I don’t think so,” said Shadow. He dried his own hands on a paper towel and crumpled it, and dropped it into the bin.
“You need a job” said Wednesday. “people don’t hire ex-cons. You folk make them uncomfortable.”
“I have a job waiting. A good job.”
“Would that be the job at the Muscle Farm?”
“Maybe,” said Shadow.
“Nope. You don’t. Robbie Burton’s dead. Without him the Muscle Farm’s dead too.”
“You’re a liar.”
“Of course. And a good one. The best you will ever meet. But, I’m afraid, I’m not lying to you about this.”

Now people don’t really talk like this, do they? But of course Mr. Wednesday is a god if only with a lower-case g.

About now if you’re still with me you think I’ve got pretty far off-track from my story of traveling the desert. But that’s what traveling for fun, especially in the desert, is all about : getting off-track. And I’m just about to swerve back on to the road so hold on a sec.

I’m all done washing up my bloody finger and loading the car and I head off for the continental breakfast room at the Inn of Lancaster. I don’t even want to waste time making my usual coffee pot instant oatmeal so I can get on the road quicker. I unlock the room and the only patrons in the place are two older women. Now by ‘old’ I mean that if one of the women had told me it was her hundredth birthday I wouldn’t have blinked. And the other was probably young enough to be the centenarian’s daughter. I head to look for some cereal and before I’m even tempted by the Fruit Loops the centenarian announces in an almost outside voice, something like, “Oh a young man has come to join us. There were two men here earlier but they’re off to start their day”. Then more clearly to me, “My name is Lorine and this is Bridgit and that’s Imelda over there”.

Imelda is a hotel maid cleaning up the breakfast area and gives me a real smile with an unsure look that says, “I just met these ladies. I don’t really know what they’re up to and my name may not be Imelda”. Now in fact her name wasn’t Imelda and neither were Lorine and Bridgit their real names. Not that they lied to me. Not that I’m trying to protect their identities. You just can’t expect me to remember anything I learned in my first hour awake after a rough night. You might go ahead and expect someone else to but not me.

Now here’s the kicker. I tell Lorine ‘I’m Jason’ and then turn to look through the packaged danishes. I’m especially fond of the Butter Horns by Svenhard’s. Lorine says ‘we know several Jasons, but right now you’re the only one that matters’. I have to admit I have never heard an older woman talk in a forward, almost sleazy salesman way like that. I once knew a young woman from Missouri who spoke like that and it always made me (and mostly everyone) cringe. Right now I don’t know if I should cringe or laugh. I decided to keep my mind on business and fill up on other quick items for the car ride like orange juice.

Lorine proceeded to talk more about me than to me in a loud sort of way talking about how most men get up early but ‘this one likes to sleep in’. It was remarkable in a funny way – she obviously was craving attention. But I admit part of me was tempted to sit down and chat for the novelty. My gut reaction and my need to get on the road won over and I bailed out the door while Imelda attended to Lorine’s refill request.

I thought about how a famous author (was it Tom Clancy?) once said that you can learn at least one thing from every person you meet so learn to listen. This definitely would have been one of those situations. But more importantly I thought Lorine sounded like one of those old gods in the book. So maybe it’s better I high-tailed it out of there.

Does ‘American Gods’ portray a dwindling sense of spirituality in a modern world? I don’t know. Fact is I haven’t finished the book yet so I’ll refrain from giving my final word on that yet.

There is something about spending times outdoors in 'Nature' as we call it that makes me focus more on the supernatural. I guess for a lot of the people in this world who spend almost all of their time outdoors such as hunter-gatherers there really is no distinction which makes my premise a little silly maybe. Or maybe it reinforces it. But for some of us spirituality resides on some plane of the human mind that must be ascended to through some means or method. Maybe it's by dressing up and going to church, or kneeling on the ground, taking our hats off, bringing our hands together, or maybe climbing the steps towards a lofty ziggurat like the old Mesopotamians used to do it.

For me heading 'away from the things of man' works. How it works I'm not really sure. I think it has something to do with being in quiet places makes me feel at peace and thankful. Sometimes it's more the exposure to the power of nature like standing next to a flowing river can make me feel pretty insignificant or part of something much greater than myself. But it's not too important how it works. It does, so I use it. Sometimes I feel like I need a hike like someone else might need "churchin' up".

I thank God for every day I get to spend outside kind of like Cahuilla Indians (as I learned on my trip) thanked the spirits of a mesquite bush for all the beans they took off it to eat. But how spiritual could a visit to a place called the ‘Devil’s Punchbowl’ be?

The Devil’s Punchbowl is a County Park. I’ve driven past the sign to the Devil’s Punchbowl several times on the Pearblossom Highway and considered a side trip. Why is it County Parks sound inferior in some way to State Parks or National Parks, like they’re only recognized locally, they must not be that spectacular? That’s a bad conception on my part.

For some reason, particularly peculiar examples of geologic curiosity have been labeled as the ‘Devil’s’. That’s a bad conception on somebody else’s part. I don’t know why in most cases. Then there’s the Devil’s Postpile, the Devil’s Golfcourse, the Devil’s Racetrack . I’m just guessing that the Devils’ Postpile has to do with the rock’s dark appearance, the Devil’s Golfcourse deserves the name because it would be a golfer’s ultimate nightmare and the Devil’s Racetrack gets its name from the mysterious rock moving phenomenon there. The only reason I could think of for the Devil’s Punchbowl name is a 5 foot diameter, 4 foot deep hole at the bottom of a steep rock pit at the foot of one of the tilted rock formations.

The parking lot at the Punchbowl park was a bit past the formations I wanted to visit so I turned around and parked closer on the sandy roadside. I decided to test out my new hiking equipment, a Camelbak ‘Blowfish’ 3L water bladder pack. I generally rely on bottled water but I also generally get mildly dehydrated when I hike so I thought I would try something that would make me sip more often. The idea is you have the mouthpiece near your mouth and drink on it more often due to convenience. You actually suck on the mouthpiece, but apparently ‘Suckfish’ was not quite as marketable as the debonair ‘Blowfish’ name. I filled the pack with my camera gear and headed out cross country (which is a bit easier in the desert than other climes).

After about 30 or so minutes of chugging up and down small canyons walking circuitously around high sage and other desert scrub I finally sight-navigated myself to a proper angle and treeless view of the tilted rock I wanted to photograph. This small break in the brush on the side of a hill must have been the only decent spot to get the photo I wanted. But the camera wouldn’t power up. Probably because I left the camera battery in its charger in the car.

Back to the car.

Back to the one spot I could take my photo that took a half hour to find.

Now I could start my day of photography.

Well, I made a lot of other stupid mistakes that day but do you need to hear all of them? How about the smart things I did? I figured out I could use the high shoulder strap cross strap on the Blowfish to hold my heavy water bladder pack onto my light tripod and keep it from vibrating during long exposures in the wind. And I ended up relieving myself at least seven times so the water bladder must have been a good idea too.

There was something really powerful about the place. Some people believe there are places of power. In ‘American Gods’ one is a carousel at a road-side attraction that transports you to another dimension. This wasn’t quite like that but I got a good feeling from just being there, waiting in a little divot high on the rock wall past where I should have stopped on account of the rock being darn easy giving and loose. Waiting for a perfect light from cloud and sun alignment to compliment the sun-bleached dead yucca rosette I was camped at. A few flakes of snow fell in the desert while I waited and rested there. It felt sacred to me. It made me patient which, believe me, is a transformation.

I’m thinking of petitioning LA County for a name change to ‘God’s Punchbowl’. If you visit there maybe you’ll sign my petition.

-j-