Desert Latitudes
Adam Kibbe
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Not all of Albuquerque was endless desert skies and appealing adobe, the waxing moon rising poetically each night over the rugged Sandia mountains in the impossibly blue high desert air.
Earlier this winter, the downslope neighbor had read my father the riot act after the septic pumper backed around the lone pi’on and onto her property while preparing to pump his system. Crushing nothing but scrub, but violating her invisible boundaries and offending her sensibilities by crushing…… well, something, I’m sure. Hard to tell with scrub chapparal. Delicate, slow-growing ecosystem, but it generally naturally looks pretty crushed anyway.
To take responsibility for future actions, however, my father set about finding his property lines, in the otherwise unfenced, unmarked rolling terrain of their neighborhood at the foothills of the Sandias. A plot plan quickly led him to the northern two survey markers down one long side of his house, and in a recent visit, my brother helped him relocate a short stretch of fence to allow the septic truck to turn before the pi’on, still on Dad’s property. But despite measurements and trigonometry, Dad had been unable to locate the southern two, covered, presumably, in the shifting topography of a dry wash arroyo.
Sons love to be helpful to fathers they love and admire. And they like to show them up, too. So on our own recent visit, I took advantage of the useasonably warm blue-sky day to get outdoors and wander a bit, enjoying the desert sun and pi’on-scented air, and hoping to find that which had eluded Dad.
The downslope neighbor’s son was rumored to have surveyed and staked the southwest corner, thus completing their perimeter defense. I did my own calculations and found a bit of pipe — which otherwise had no earthly reason being in the arroyo — sticking up a few inches out of the pebbly sand of the desert within a foot or two of where my cruder methods placed that corner. My “spot” was less to my father’s advantage (and also under a thorny bush), so I deferred to the greater precision of a level transit (and the thornless open earth) and accepted their verdict.
The last corner was never found. But I did find my father’s discrete wooden stake gratifyingly exactly where I first looked, though I calculated the SE corner marker to be several yards further away from the road. I got Tricia to come out and help me sight that line down to the SW plumbing pipe corner — a line which was suprisingly close to the south side neighbor’s house — and we began to look along that swath of scrub for the last marker.
About that time, though, that neighbor came out to see if their mail had come, and wondering who we were and what we were doing, came over. After introductions and explanations, he acknowledged a similar interest but launched into a long rationale involving legal setbacks and why it couldn’t be that close to his house, and then marched north about 10 yards into the arroyo (and my father’s land) to show us where we SHOULD be looking. Very friendly, mind you. We politely listened, and then gave up our search, rather than rub his nose in our theoretically more rational accuracy.
The previous day we had driven up to the crest of the Sandias (10,678′) and taken a brief hike in the snow 1/4-mile or so along the precipitous rim, until we’d come to a point where we could look down into the foothills and my parent’s neighborhood a mile or so below, and hopefully see their house. I took a telephoto image, which I could then also digitally zoom in on, and indeed, we could hazily make out their drive, and the neighboring houses. But from roughly a mile away, the land looked so spacious, ample beyond words. Houses dotted innumerably about, yes, but sharing that vast openness the western desert offers.
I thought of that contrast — the lack of borders from the perspective of distance, the rationalized but irrational, greedy protectiveness of humans in close proximity — as I trudged back into the house to report my failure to my father (I couldn’t tell if he was disappointed or relieved). And I thought about the age-old adage that good fences make good neighbors. Here I’d admired the neighborhood’s lack thereof (the one my brother had helped move was just a very local ex-dog compound of the previous owners), but it seemed that the sense of borders was very strong indeed, and that the unmarked uncertainty led to broad, pre-emptive, antagonistic assumptions.
Anybody remember The Guess Who? (No, not the more famous band one Guess short of that……). And their hit song Share the Land? http://www.lyricsdir.com/g/the-guess-who/share-the-land.php
“Maybe I’ll be there to shake your hand
Maybe I’ll be there to share the land
That they’ll be givin’ away
When we all live together”
Another 60’s lyric rendered absurd. But I’d loved that song, and I could hear it, distantly, as I stood atop the mortared mound of rock that is the Sandia Crest official peak elevation marker and taken a panorama the previous day. I’ve never believed in communal property — sounds oxymoronic, frankly — and I have an abiding respect for (some would say worship of ) privacy. But I wondered why I’d been so interested in finding those markers. Let them go unfound. They’re there should they be required to inform some future discussion. But to learn to forget them would be the true accomplishment. Reacquire that higher perspective. And learn a new adage. Good neighbors make needless all fences…….
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Complete Abuquerque gallery
Wonderful photographs. We were in some of those places last April. It’s interesting to see how different the light is in January. I have a question about “Adobe Shadow”: What threw the light that cast the shadows? I’m thinking it was sunlight reflected off something like the hood of a car. It’s NOT direct sun though, is it?
Comment by Jennifer — January 24, 2005 @ 11:21 am
Good eye! That was taken in an inner open-air common courtyard of a block of buildings in Santa Fe, and it’s sun reflecting off higher windows behind me, hence the bounded and “double-exposed” patterns…….
Comment by cameraman — January 24, 2005 @ 11:35 am
Having done similar search for property corners in Gilsum Woods and elsewhere, I enjoyed your story about searching for the boundaries of your family property. Back in my earlier youth, working as a sous-surveyor for my Uncle Ed, I searched many an LA-county briar patch and poison-oak garden for property markers.
But I share little of your dislike of communal property, and, indeed, you, with the Miller clan, and the Schmahls surely have enjoyed traipsing over the 400-odd acres of communal Gilsum Woods.
The Sandia Peak panorama recalls fond memories of days of winter skiing and summer hiking up there.
Comment by rakkity — January 24, 2005 @ 11:47 am
Your photos are stunning, as I remember they were last year as well. I like fences too.
Comment by admirer — January 24, 2005 @ 11:49 am
I don’t in the least dislike the concept of communal property, just never aspired to it. And Gilsum woods IS a good model — one I’ve greatly enjoyed on numerous occasions, thank you.
I suppose there’s really no oxymoron at all, even when one extends communal to communism. But I guess I’ve wondered that if something belongs to everybody, then what significance does the concept of ownership really have? In that my concept of ownership usually defines certain exclusivities. ‘S all……..
Comment by survey sleuth — January 24, 2005 @ 1:02 pm
Hey, how did I miss the gallery? Those are great photos, Adam! I particularly like the ghostly Adobe Shadows. (Looks like there were two suns that day.)
Comment by rakkity — January 24, 2005 @ 1:11 pm
Well, communal property certainly has its drawbacks, as the “Tragedy of the Commons” illustrates. When everybody owns something, there usually isn’t much incentive for an individual to take care of it or not to misuse or overuse it. The old New England Commons where everyone grazed their sheep springs to mind. Adding one sheep to an overgrazed common hurts the group, but benefits the individual who does it. Continuing the process of adding sheep can lead to complete disaster. So, yes, common property needs common goals and common sense to work. In the absence of common goals and common sense, the Commons doesn’t work.
Comment by rakkity — January 24, 2005 @ 1:18 pm
What a voice! Your story would make great radio on a Saturday morning; I’m thinking of “This American Life.” The lyrics were great,too.
Privacy need not involve property. In Japan it’s just a matter of looking the other way, or simply choosing to not listen. Space is purely cultural.
The Commons survived only as the last shred of a communal, trans-generational stewardship of the land and its ecology. “Indian Giver” hides the irony of land presented to the Puritans for specific uses, in the same way that one clan might use it for hunting a specific animal, and another might use it to grow food. When the walls went up there was disbelief. In wanting to also use this land, they were Indian Givers.
Private property is simply the expression of a dismembered landscape (itself a nostalgic image of a lost relationship) mirroring lost souls enslaving nature and one another.
Exhale.
Comment by peter — January 27, 2005 @ 5:42 am
I agree with the last paragraph from above. The boundaries as described in Desert Latitudes refer to something more than crushed scrubs, fences and wooden stakes.
I read AdamÃs story and the subsequent comments about communal property, and though the discussion is compelling, I thought, I have nothing to add, I donÃt care a whit about boundaries. Then the light bulb blinked on, yeah, that would come as a surprise to no one. .
Comment by michael — January 27, 2005 @ 6:18 pm
Comes as a surprise to ME, both that you have no opinions on property/boundaries, AND that you feel you’ve nothing to add. I was waiting for your input, as human relations — your specialty — are at the root. I’d assumed it’d be remarkable……..
I’ve loved the discussion, from rakkity’s unforeseen retort and subsequent expansion, to Peter’s deeply insightful elegy. Talk about remarkable. What’s a couple pretty pictures next to that?
Of course, you COULD’ve just commented on the pretty pictures (he says, hopefully not too transparently immodestly obsequiously needily…….)
Comment by edified — January 27, 2005 @ 6:32 pm
I didn’t comment on the photographs because they deserved a completely separate commentary, drawing on different faculties of the brain where, in mine anyway, there were no words, only wonder.
Photographs provide the privilege of seeing and knowing another in a way that we would never otherwise experience, looking through their pupils at the world, from that fluid instant snapped by the facet of (in this case) awe shared by heart and soul.
Comment by peter — January 29, 2005 @ 1:39 pm
Mike said something about you promising a poem a week for the blog, and even if less than accurate, in two comments along this thread alone you’ve more than lived up to that challenge, Peter. Beautiful insights into both ownership and photography, thanks!
Comment by other — January 29, 2005 @ 3:43 pm
Mike is a pushy, lying, boundary-defying bastard, but then you knew that. Peter promised nothing of the sort.
I thought the author needed to find his dadÃs property lines on the other side of those truck tracks, and therefore I saw the story as defining familial boundaries, not physical ones. I was wrong. He told me so as we were driving out route 2 for yet another breakfast at QÃs.
Comment by michael — January 29, 2005 @ 8:43 pm
Peter taught me the difference between boundaries and borders, and I have never been the same.
I think this whole conversation has been about borders. Boundaries simply make us different and valuable and permeable in our differences; borders divide us. Sometimes a fence can be a boundary, sometimes a border; we choose.
Michael showed me a letter to the editor in the Boston Globe, which quoted a mantra in recovery, “Identify, don’t compare.” Boundaries lead to empathy and identification, borders to comparison and competition.
I’m for boundaries, for Peter’s comments, for Indian givers.
Comment by di: fan of boundaries — January 29, 2005 @ 8:46 pm
I should let that last comment ferment, but …
Mending Wall
SOMETHING there is that doesnÃt love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing: †††††††â€
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made, †††††††â€
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbour know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go. †††††††â€
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
ìStay where you are until our backs are turned!î
We wear our fingers rough with handling them. †††††††â€
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across †††††††â€
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, ìGood fences make good neighbours.î
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
ìWhy do they make good neighbours? IsnÃt it †††††††â€
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall IÃd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesnÃt love a wall, †††††††â€
That wants it down.î I could say ìElvesî to him,
But itÃs not elves exactly, and IÃd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed. †††††††â€
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his fatherÃs saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, ìGood fences make good neighbours.î
Robert Frost
Comment by michael — January 29, 2005 @ 9:13 pm
Arrive late, and the only thing left to comment on is on the number of comments — a record 15 (16, counting this one)!
And broad, meaty ones too…spanning art, philosophy, human relations, word etimology, and the current events that weave our frail lives together.
Instructive, beautiful, awe-inspiring, the whole lot. I think I’ll delete Eye Spy .
Comment by a-record — January 30, 2005 @ 10:32 am
The Tuft of Flowers
Robert Lee Frost
I went to turn the grass once after one
Who mowed it in the dew before the sun.
The dew was gone that made his blade so keen
Before I came to view the levelled scene.
I looked for him behind an isle of trees;
I listened for his whetstone on the breeze.
But he had gone his way, the grass all mown,
And I must be, as he had been,–alone,
`As all must be,’ I said within my heart,
`Whether they work together or apart.’
But as I said it, swift there passed me by
On noiseless wing a ‘wildered butterfly,
Seeking with memories grown dim o’er night
Some resting flower of yesterday’s delight.
And once I marked his flight go round and round,
As where some flower lay withering on the ground.
And then he flew as far as eye could see,
And then on tremulous wing came back to me.
I thought of questions that have no reply,
And would have turned to toss the grass to dry;
But he turned first, and led my eye to look
At a tall tuft of flowers beside a brook,
A leaping tongue of bloom the scythe had spared
Beside a reedy brook the scythe had bared.
I left my place to know them by their name,
Finding them butterfly weed when I came.
The mower in the dew had loved them thus,
By leaving them to flourish, not for us,
Nor yet to draw one thought of ours to him.
But from sheer morning gladness at the brim.
The butterfly and I had lit upon,
Nevertheless, a message from the dawn,
That made me hear the wakening birds around,
And hear his long scythe whispering to the ground,
And feel a spirit kindred to my own;
So that henceforth I worked no more alone;
But glad with him, I worked as with his aid,
And weary, sought at noon with him the shade;
And dreaming, as it were, held brotherly speech
With one whose thought I had not hoped to reach.
`Men work together,’ I told him from the heart,
`Whether they work together or apart.’
Comment by michael — January 30, 2005 @ 8:59 pm