Mercifully little to think about today.
We drove into Mesa today for the giant flea market, a long-standing relic from my childhood and yet another thing that wasn't quite the same as I remembered it, another memory distorted by time, age, and distance.
I don't think it's aimed primarily at tourists, so I'm inclined to believe that consumerism and the bastardization of Native American art and lifestyle are what passes for culture among the locals. The closest thing to art in the whole place was some kind of burned/brushed steel; there were enough booths offering them that I guess the technique must be pretty well-known in AZ. They were basically metal sheets cut to a circle, then cut and burned into desert scenes with roadrunners, coyotes, cowboys, geckos, horses, "Indians", Aztecs playing pipes, or, somewhat inexplicably, people golfing. Sunsets also came frequently into play. Other than that, it was various cactuses grown for sale, carved or ceramic dogs/coyotes/desert animals/etc, printed t-shirts with the same. There were socks festooned with "USA" and various patterns of stars and stripes. A hundred or so stands in the middle of the rows boasted cooke-cutter leather goods including (but of course not limited to) fanny packs designed to hold YOUR PISTOL. Seriously.
Without exaggerating, there were hundreds of vendors at this thing. It spans a space equivalent to dozens of city blocks. Booths are co-ordinated by quadrant, like a massive parking lot. Which it basically is.
The food provided no further insight into local customs of cuisine. It consisted mostly of salsa, popcorn, nuts, hot dogs, and pretzels with plastic liquid cheese and giant rocks of salt draped over them.
It's like this place is strapped somewhere between a foreigner's vision of middle America, Texas, and Mexico and nothing else really belongs here. It's where people from elsewhere come to settle down in an inoffensive place with no discernible climate and no local customs or traditions to be forced upon them. Even the Native Americans that seem to influence some of the culture (undoubtedly in the most stereotypical way possible) rarely stayed here. Before white settlers came they followed food and water through the state, leaving behind the structures and sensibilities that served them while they were here.
Arizona today is new, indistinct, directionless, and absolutely fleeting, vague and non-descript and overwhelmingly white.
My memories of the flea market 20-some years ago were more colourful but likely represent the exact same thing, possibly in an outdoor setting. Aside from a few tasty/humorous brands of salsa and hot sauce there was little redeeming it for the adult me. The world doesn't need 200 more water features in rich people's backyards or another thousand cut-price off-brand golf clubs. Almost got a sweet faux-snakeskin belt though, so I guess it can't be all bad.
Not much else happening today though, which isn't a bad thing on a vacation. Dinner with other retired couples at G & S', delicious but way too much food. I'm so tired of overeating. The book B lent me is already helping though. Sixty pages in and I've already learned eating fatty/salty/sugary foods only leads to more of the same, something that should be obvious but I think I definitely try not to think about the addictive aspect of my often-horrible diet. I have to start considering it more actively. Sixteen-hundred calories a day should be achievable. It's been years since I was more than halfways satisfied with my appearance. Maybe Kate Moss is right and nothing tastes as good as skinny feels (no, she isn't).
I had a nap this afternoon; the last vestiges of my dream involved me having dozens, maybe hundreds of dimes in my mouth. Disconcerting, to say the least.
A moment of total regression followed: after waking from the nap I found everyone gone to G & S' for dinner. I saddled up Pa's bike and headed over. A slight decline in the grade of the sidewalk had me picking up speed so I downshifted as fast as I could and pushed for top speed the whole way there. I flashed back to thousands of summer days I was left to race home at dinner time for grits while the sun waned behind me, pushing myself to squeeze the last bit of excitement and joy I could out of the daytime. Nothing as an adult makes me that happy, not even the re-creation of those moments.
Where does that leave me? Drunk and lonely, evidence would suggest. Dad told the dinner guests about how my brother J and I, at about four months old, managed to somehow shift our separated cribs from opposite sides of the bedroom to the point where we could reach through the bars for each other. We were never so happy, he said, as when we could be in contact with one another. We even used to literally sleep on top of each other, stacked like Lego pieces. One on the bottom watching TV at like 3 years old, the other in the same position, lying on his stomach, literally on top of the other.
Where is that today? Is that need for a symbiotic relationship something I'm inadvertently looking for in a partner? Do I want too much, to be too close? Something tells me that's something that can't be replaced.
No comments:
Post a Comment