Shades of Soylent Green

I had an incredible experience yesterday, my mind is still full of feeling and it got me to thinking about some of the things in my life that really make me happy.
I was hiking in one of my favorite spots in town. It's a little mountain preseve with loads of trails, all of which I thought I knew, untill yesterday. I chose yesterday a particularly difficult trail wanting the intense workout. As I started, I was in tandem with a guy, I think his name was Bill, anyway the conversation was so good I missed my usual turn. Before I knew it I was about two miles away from my normal hike. Bill stops at a fork in the road and points straight up a rather daunting looking hill. Stopping for a minute to catch my breath and thank him for his company I'm thinking, "okay, just over that rise and I'll be back on track." So, up and up I go panting to the top and what a sight to behold! I am not actually where I thought I was, I'm in a spot I've never seen before. Now, I hike pretty regularly the hills at Dreamy Draw and pridefull me thought I had been everywhere and seen everything. Standing at the top of this mountain I was breathless. The valley below me was covered with angel soft rye grass and bright orange California poppies spread out like freckles on a little girls nose. There were so many wildflowers and quail. I saw a roadrunner, a snake and a rabbit. The black lava rock against the red clay dirt made the vibrant colors all around me seem even more bold.

So I got to thinking, about the movie Soylent Green. You know, at the end when Edward G. Robinson finds out the truth and goes to the building where they euthanise people. They kindly take him in a room that is surrounded by a giant TV screen and he lays back and pictures of the earth as we know it start to play. They acompany these pictures with beautiful music and give him whatever drug it is, all for his last minutes to be peaceful and filled with beauty. Incredible beauty.

Now, I confess, the first time I walked into a grove of ancient Redwoods I sat down and sobbed. The magnitude, the history and the beauty of it literaly overwhelmed my senses. It was a moment in my life I want to always remember. The first time I saw the Pacific ocean was much the same, I was transfixed, almost mezmerised by the waves, and the Rocky Mountains and Mesa Verde and all the little places in between.
But, if I had to chose the last images to see as I lay dying, aside from my husband and children, I want to see my Arizona. I want to remember everything about her because she is in me and I'm a part of her. I carry a piece of her spirit with me everywhere I travel. More than that it is the place I know I belong. I LOVE the summer! It's true, my friends and I all joke that if I was to be reincarnated I would want to come back as a gila monster and traipse all over the sonoran desert.(and because I like the idea of being poisonous. But, that's another story.) I love the mountains and the platues and the Native ruins. I am moved by the culture and the history and the fact that my family is a part of that history. I can't imagine ever living anywhere else, but if I did, Arizona will always be my heart and my home.