Just finished C. E. Murphy's Coyote Dreams and the book is the best so far in the Walker Papers. Murphy has definitely found her voice and it's wry, witty, and well worth reading.
A major point in the novels is the 'interior garden.' Everyone has them--even those not horticulturally inclined. The gardens reflect a person's character, perhaps even their souls.
Joanne, the protagonist, has a very orderly garden with a waterfall.
Gary, the 73 year old cabdriver, has a lush jungle--and he looks like he did when he was in his prime, dressed in Army uniform.
Morrison, the police captain, has a rugged landscape reminiscent of the Pacific Northwest.
I wonder what my garden would be like? I sat for a few quiet moments and just breathed to see if I could have my own vision quest on the start of a hero journey of my own.
The first thing that came to mind is the desert. Mom's wedding dishes were the Desert Rose and that typifies so many of the women in her family. Grandma Mac, Grandma, Aunt Florence--all these women lived in semi-arid Western Oklahoma and somehow managed to bring blooms from a terrain of the stiffest red clay with one scrubby wind-shaped piece scrub about every mile and wide swatches of black from cigarette burns occurring even more frequently.
By Jove, I think I have it.
It's hot and dry as hell most of the time. The soil is red clay and sand, not much good for anything. Geckoes, spiders, snakes all live there--and chiggers that leave their painful little stingers in your flesh, mosquitoes that suck the very life out of you. The only crown in that place is thorns and brambles.
The scrub that grows is deep rooted. Wind's whipped it into shapes that quite often represent agrarian renditions of Edward Munch's "Scream."
Rusty cries from crows carry for miles. Redtails preside over the skies with roadrunners and scissortails scurrying near the ground.
Nighttime, the eerie Devil's Choir of coyotes' song offers tribute to the endless strings of stars in winter and the blue-velvet summer skies.
Then, occasionally it rains and the desert blooms with a fragrant profusion of wild flowers. The colors are riotous and it's a sight you don't often see. Yet, even those delicate blooms are warded. Sage, the great cleanser, lives next to Datura and Jimson weed, the deadly dreamweavers.
This is home and it's good. The place is littered with bleached bones bearing the echoes of the life they once caged. Life's not easy, but once in a while it's glorious and you live for those days.
