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walk with me, friend…

January 17, 2023
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In the distance is Piestewa Peak. The foreground is typical of the nicely-tended horticulture in the Biltmore district of Phoenix, Arizona, USA. This is a “nice” part of town, and we’re northbound on the west side sidewalk of 24th Street, on a hike to bring the mountain closer.

Just south of the street that is both Glendale Avenue and Lincoln Drive is one of the outposts of Charles Schwab, an investment firm. This outfit has a clientele mostly in the upper socioeconomic strata of the world population, and it entrusts Schwab with the management of its wealth. There are many parking spaces on the Schwab complex, but this Sunday, the New York Stock Exchange being closed, almost none of them are occupied. To the west is a water treatment plant, and to some minds both Schwab and the treatment plant traffic in effluent.

We are quite close to the mountain now. If the range is considered a “rockberg” analogous to the icebergs of the oceans, we are walking above a subterranean chunk of the Rocky Mountains. And it is time to turn back. The climb to the summit requires more energy than we have left.

If our weekly mileage continues to steadily and sensibly increase, some day we will walk from our doorstep to the mountain, climb the mountain, and walk back. It’s a wonderful part of The Great Human Adventure to make a grand plan, follow it, and achieve it.

tooth techtonics

March 23, 2016
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IMG_20160323_105901

with faultlines and slippage and cracks in the crust,
our toothscapes erode and degrade–for they must.

When Piestewa Peak was Squaw Peak, the footstrikes of thousands of hikers accelerated the erosion of the mountain, especially at the base. When this became a safety issue, concrete was poured over the eroded ground in certain places. It was analogous to a dentist putting fillings in a tooth.

My own toothscape includes gullies where four extracted wisdom teeth once resided, a years-in-the-making buildup of plaque that is disgustingly visible in the front lower teeth, and the shattering and/or calving of three broken teeth. My investment in tooth care has been restricted since 2006 to dental floss, toothbrushes, toothpaste, and toothpicks, incorporated into a rigorous schedule of personal oral hygiene. I don’t eat anything harder than a crisp apple, and  I must always chew carefully, and mostly on the right side.

“Get thee to a dentistry–go!” you say? “No thanks,” I reply. I know a good-souled woman whose tooth-investment since 2006 is in the tens of thousands of dollars, and issue after issue with her much-tinkered-with mouth has come up. And my long-suffering, breathtakingly-brave younger brother Brian has had not a tooth in his head for years.

I will see a dentist, probably within the year. But not now and not soon. My toothscape helps me take nothing for granted.