Getting a glimpse of the total solar eclipse from the heart of Texas is what fueled our road trip. It provided the impetus we needed to contemplate an adventure across the deserts of the Southwest. I believe that a good shake-up of our perspectives, both physical and mental, can do a world of good.
Some of the windswept ghost towns we visited felt like God-forsaken territory while some tucked-away niches (from the natural variety to the community-oriented) held an almost sacred energy. I couldn’t predict which kind might lay ahead of the last. Being open to surprise made the path of travel more of an adventure. For two weeks Kent and I drove, camped, hiked, and prepared one-pot meals.
For the actual eclipse we took a walk to find a place with no street lights, since those would come on as darkness came. We found a deserted dirt road where we sat in our beach chairs for the experience. When twilight occurred in the middle of the day, a nearby herd of goats began carrying on for their dinner. I’ll bet they were a bit bewildered when ‘the night’ only lasted a few minutes. It was rather surreal for us as well. But back to perspective.
Take comfort for instance. For some it might mean lounging in a recliner with a full belly and a good movie. For another it might be a meager soup and a straw mat in a cave. A cat, or me for that matter, seeks a warm, sunny spot to lay down on the carpet. Or in the shade of an oak tree, gazing up through its leaves into the sky from a bed in the grass. Everyone is different, but there are also variances in how we feel, what time of day it is, if we’ve eaten recently…
The perspective of one who never has enough to eat or even a place to live can be a real eye-opener to another who has never experienced that kind of deprivation. With increasing numbers of refugees in the world who have no home anymore to the overwhelming abundance of homelessness in our own nation, perhaps it’s time we expand our views to include some of theirs. Those with so much can produce more waste than imaginable, and the rest of us who fit somewhere in the middle—but what does that even mean anymore?
Siblings who shared the same situations growing up can have vastly different perspectives on things as adults. Each person comes away from an event with their own memories which are undoubtedly colored by their opinions, biases, and countless other influences. Is anything truly a fact? Can we ever really know anything for certain? I don’t believe I can. This was something that plagued me even as a child. When someone asked if I was absolutely sure of something, I’d often respond, “No, I’m not sure of anything.” Maybe I’m not actually here, but just dreaming or thinking about it.
This idea alone should make us stop and try to see things from others’ perspectives. Who knows? Some locked gate in the recesses of our minds might unlock when we do. And then what? Why don’t we give it a try—each day—and see where it leads? If more of us in the whole wide world did a little more of this then we might be a lot better off than we are now.
We talked with a number of people during our two-week road trip, many of them on their own eclipse adventure. That was the common ground. In a neighboring campsite one night a small group sat around a campfire, playing guitar and singing James Taylor songs. Kent and I felt like little kids tucked into our bed, listening to ‘the grownups’. In another place we learned that the woman in the site next to us was traveling solo and actually preferred it that way. Her trip was a six-week loop from the East coast, through New Mexico and many other states. She wasn’t really all alone—a dog was her plus one. There was the couple who were our neighbors for two nights, followed by a surprise when we found them neighbors again in another state! Small world? Besides traveling for the eclipse, they were also pursuing ‘supernatural phenomenon…’ And there was the shop owner from South Africa who worked for several years on her accent so that customers wouldn’t say, “Speak English, please.”
It can be so much fun to meet new people from all walks of life and learn new tidbits or ways of looking at things because of our differences instead of in spite of them. We found hoodoos and walked through slot canyons in Big Bend Ranch State Park. When we were there, I observed the reactions of fellow travelers, from conversations we had with them— “We have much better hoodoos in Utah;” to just watching how people looked around. A city person might have a totally different feeling than a veteran nature adventurer.
Getting away from our regular routines and familiar surroundings can offer a whole bunch of benefits. The obvious being a vacation from the grind of our day-to-day existence. But also, getting away for a while can give us a renewed appreciation for our own home and, as luck would have it, a new perspective.
Chi Varnado has published six books including fiction, nonfiction and children’s books. They are available on www.amazon.com. Her collection of essays, Quail Mutterings, can be found on www.chivarnado.com or www.dancecentrepresents.com.
