bad ass

i cried when i saw the grand canyon. though this probably won't come as a surprise to most of you, it did surprise me. we drove from santa fe (santa fe: my mom and howard go every summer to see the opera, which is performed in this spectacular open air dome, and they took me with them a few times during college, so i knew going into this trip that i knew santa fe, but i didn't know until yesterday that i actually love santa fe, with its turquoise skies and its peacefulness. it is the ultimate city in which to take an incredibly long, deep breath), drove past more unending views, views of what feel like all of america splayed out before you, and then entered arizona, which was at first pretty underwhelming. its gets flat again as soon as you cross the border, and then around flagstaff there are trees again, which is jarring after so many days of desert. but then we start down the 40 towards the south rim of the grand canyon, and we're chasing the sun across the sky, trying to at least catch a glimpse of it before its dark.

and we do. we park the car, we get out and i'm in the middle of a sentence when i see it, right in front of me, waiting like it has been for the past two billion years. its frustrating for someone who writes to feel stunted by words, because i generally love words and i know that there is always a way to express a feeling, even without dipping into clichedom, but i'm afraid that in this circumstance i am going to have to let myself and you down and just say that the sight of it was stomach dropping, gut wrenching, something from a movie about another planet or the most fantastic dream of your life.

and it felt like a gift. not necessarily from god or anyone like that, but from chris. that was the first thing i thought, and i hope i said it to him in the midst of that moment- thank you. thank you for bringing me here, thank you, you british boy, for showing me america, for letting me find it, for guiding me there and for loving my reaction to seeing it more than seeing it yourself.

i think that living in new york i've forgotten a lot of things, or maybe its possible that i never knew them to begin with- mainly that there are hundreds and hundreds of miles in this country that are uninhabited. hundreds of miles of trees, hundreds of miles of desert, hundreds of miles of strange small bushes, of dunes, of mountains, of bayous, of valleys, of rivers, of canyons. its shameful, what we've done to earth, and its true that there is so much sprawl in this country and so many big cars and so many stores selling so much shit. but this trip, thus far, has reminded me that its not dead yet, its not all gone, we aren't yet holding on to one small little bloom planted in a boot as our hope for the entire future. in most places in america you actually can't find the new york times, in most places no one gives a shit that you are wearing a bright pink glittery button with barack obama's face on it, in most places a road trip like this would be seen as the greatest luxury you could dream of.

i think what i understand about america now, more than i did before, is that my reaction to the grand canyon is just as right and as beautiful as this young guy's was, probably about 20, with a classic greased back hair-do and a hollister t-shit on, when he said to his friend: "that's so freakin bad ass."