Playing Fair and Being Kind

ROADSIDE CROSSES

New Mexico sanctions the placement of crosses along public highways. The crosses locate the points on earth where loved ones have left us; mostly as the result of traffic accidents. The crosses are typically decorated with plastic flowers and other memorabilia. Crosses placed for children have stuffed toys. The sites marking the placements are tended to regularly. All the variations of cross design and size and material and style of floral arrangements deeply interest me. The only thing in common with all the styles and placements was that a grieving person had pushed the cross into the earth.

During my travels I have grown more interested in these sites. They are indicators of a culture dear to me and an intensity of love for those who have passed. So much can be read into the words, flowers, shape and material of the cross placements. I have been having trouble collecting the words I need to adequately describe in verse or prose what these alters mean to me personally. I have struggled with the meanings and the symbolism. I am affected by the sites to the point of picking out the similarities and the subtle differences but I cannot put words onto paper to describe these feelings.

Two nights ago as I lay in the  back of my car at a campground in Borrego Springs, California. I was still struggling with the alter descriptions and the emotions they elicited in me. The rain was falling on the roof of the SAAB and I pictured the mountains surrounding the area where I had pitched my tent. I was not able to sleep in the tent this night because the wind was wild and making the tent snap and shake too much. I was lying there in a comfortable position and dreamily wondering how to write about the crosses. The rain continued to fall and I knew the land, the flora, the fauna outside the car were listening to the same sounds. Listening and thinking; my imagination wove a scene, a series of events.

Lying there listening to the rain hitting the roof and the windows and the ground near the car I imagined the mountains sitting solidly in a row between the desert floor where I was lying dreamily and the Pacific ocean fifty miles of so to the west. I created a mental image of the mountains sheltering the desert from the ocean waves crashing against the continent. I saw the ocean waves growing in size and power and continuing to grow and crash and then I experienced the waves crashing directly against the tops of the mountains and splashing over into the desert and over my car and flooding the flat desert and washing the car with me in it across the desert and flooding the land. The flood of ocean was freely spreading across the open land down slope toward the Salton Sea one hundred and fifty feet below sea level. I rolled over and over inside the car with the ocean outside rushing toward the Salton Sea with me and the coyotes, jack rabbits, road runners and rattle snakes, cacti and the sand and rocks from the desert floor all in a wonderful soup.

Inside the back of my car I experienced the emotion of the roadside crosses I’d been seeking. The small, simple crosses pushed into the earth in grief and despair that grows from helplessness and accident entered my life through my imagination of being out of control. Making the connection was a lesson in learning to live in the moment with no regret. There is so much available to me if I listen to all that is around. I was grateful for the images because then I had a story written in my head and I only had to edit it slightly.

G. M. Goodwin

3 March 2015