The Narrative Image

Maybe it starts with an archeological sketch in a book… …snippets of conversation in a bait shop… …river guides telling a story… Ordinarily, water courses through the bottom of canyons, but here, opportunistic desert vegetation greedily converts all available moisture into an impenetrable jungle. We end up with information one would expect to acquire at the end of a game of telephone – information whispered from connection to connection until it is all but unrecognizable. …walk half a day up the canyon… …look for a rock shelter… …3 meters high by 20 meters long… It’s the kind of thing where having the skills of an investigative reporter would come in very handy. So we set out…looking for the path of least resistance…trying to skirt the jungle of stickers, nettles and jumping ticks by clinging to the sides of the canyon. Game trails crisscross the slope, but whatever made these trails has little respect for gravity and is more interested in...

Paint a man’s house and he’ll have a nice painted house for about four years. But teach a man to paint and he’ll be able to make his canoe look like a fish. -Old Chinese Proverb- “So…” devil’s-advocate-Scott leads off, “…how do you have a personal relationship with a wetland area?” “Well…” I reply, “…it isn’t quite as complicated as having an imaginary dialogue with yourself, or believing in an invisible living God who was executed (briefly) in a political dispute with first century Romans…but…I guess what I’m really describing is a certain familiarity with a physical area developed over time.” “I see,” says devil’s-advocate-Scott (hereafter simply Rational Scott or R.S.), “you’re simply anthropomorphizing the wetland area.” “I wish you wouldn’t be so dismissive.” I say, sensitive to the smug tones accenting Rational Scott’s immediate conclusion. I continue, “This metaphorical framework for relating to an ‘area’ as an...