So here goes:
Burnt Orange and Blue
At the start of the Civil
War, leaders of the yet-to-be-annexed state of Utah sent settlers down to
Southern Utah on a cotton mission, hoping the growth of cotton would help to
achieve their goal of self sufficiency. The endeavor, although eventually abandoned,
earned Southern Utah the nickname “Utah’s Dixie.”
I can image the first
settlers’ reaction when they came to Southern Utah. Many of them, coming from
the lush green countryside of the eastern United States, must have cringed at
the sagebrush laden landscape. The rust colored dust, kicked up in the
suffocatingly hot breeze, forms dust devils that look like a weak, red-tinted
version of a tornado. Unlike a tornado, you probably couldn’t be killed by a
dust devil; it doesn’t do much more than blow around more dirt and roll around
the dried up tumbleweeds. I hope the settlers didn’t show up in mid-July, when
the heat seems to sink down from the sun and rise up from the ground
simultaneously, creating the uncomfortable feeling of being inside a waffle
iron. Granted, I’ve never been inside a waffle iron, but I can imagine how it
would feel.
Despite the unrelenting
heat, the settlers would have been impressed by the sweeping vistas of brightly
colored rock against skies of unbelievable blue. The rocks are called red by
residents and visitors alike; really, their hue is correctly categorized as
burnt orange, a fusion of bright orange and brown. I suppose it’s easier to say
“red rocks” than “burnt orange rocks” Kind of like it’s easier to say “redhead”
instead of “burnt-orange head” (which would also be a more accurate
description). The land, previously occupied only by Native Americans, has earned
every inch of its ecosystemic category: desert.
When my family first moved
to the desert, we house hopped around Southern Utah until we settled in Ivins.
Ivins is right outside of St. George and, being much less populated, is more in
touch with the desert and lies in the shadow of the big Red Mountain (burnt
orange mountain). When my parents purchased our home in Ivins, I was four(ish).
Before the initial purchase, my sisters and I were allowed to accompany our
parents to “check it out.” I remember peeking my head into the windows, on my
tiptoes, seeing not much more than dingy emptiness inside; I explored the overgrown
backyard, a veritable wilderness decorated with spiked stickers and worn weeds.
The lonely house, previously
vacant, came with unabashed 1970s style, complete with left-over linoleum,
assorted colors of carpet (boring brown, sage green, neon orange, and dusted
pink), a large backyard that looked like a true desert field, and a gnarled,
half dead rosebush planted smack dab in the middle of the front yard. In no
time, the six of us (soon to be seven, later to be eight) plus two cats, Calvin
and Hobbs, permeated the bare house with activity and Barbie dolls.
Over the years, little by
little, the house has been painted, tiled, refurbished, updated, added onto,
and landscaped. When I look at the little picture of our house in its original
state of desolation and compare it to the home it has become, I can barely see
the resemblance. Several times my parents have looked into buying a newer
house, but somehow (happily) it has never worked out. Our home has been lived
in. Six girls, two dogs, a few birds, a gerbil (who chewed through his cage and
got stuck in the corner kitchen cupboard) and who-knows-how-many cats later, it
is ours in every sense of the word. And situated conveniently in the middle of
the desert, it provided ample entertainment for my girlhood days.
As a girl growing up in the
desert, I fondly recall my sisters and I (my mom, even) screaming and standing
on chairs as intruding lizards raced through the house. Our cats, well adapted
to the environment, didn’t bring us gifts of dead mice on the doorstep like
usual tamed felines; instead, to show affection, our domesticated desert
housecats brought us lizards. I remember Yoda, our grey tabby, strutting around
with a deceased lizard tail hanging limply out of her mouth (so appetizing).
My sisters and I would race
through the fields, risking ticks and scratches, and catching horny toads. Horny
toads (as we called them) are actually called Horned Lizards; they were
slippery fellows, and quite tricky to catch. Once caught, the reptiles would sit
annoyed, waiting for us to tire of petting and investigating their scaled and
bumpy skin. Their exterior appeared hardened, spiked, tough as a helmet, and
able to inflict harm on anyone who touches it. One touch, however, reveals that
the lizard’s skin is like a dog whose bark is worse than its bite; the
roughened texture is satisfyingly fun to touch. After letting the lizards scurry off to their
sheltered retreats, we would continue to race and frolic under the brilliant
sun. The tumbleweeds provided more opportunity for sport, though not much more
than desiccated sagebrush shriveled and dehydrated to the point of being a ball
of prickled twigs. Ranging in size from a few inches to four feet in
circumference, they could serve as soccer balls or high-profile hiding spots;
we played carefully with tumbleweeds, because one slip and the offended
tumbleweed would bite back with its prickles. After returning home, panting and
beat, we would pick the stickers out of our red-dirt stained socks and brush
the orangey earth from our play-worn clothes. The oxidation of iron in the dirt
makes it burnt orange, but I didn’t know that. All I knew was that it’s nearly
impossible to keep white socks white in the desert.
A culmination of childhood
memories collected under the Southern Utah sun branded me with an endearing,
yet not often expressed attachment to the desert. Last summer, standing on top
of a mountain in Zion National Park, I realized what I had always known: there
is a part of my soul, epidermis-like in size, that can only be touched by the
desert. Located in Southern Utah, Zion contains some of the most stunning,
almost unreal, sandstone canyons and cliffs I have ever seen. Castled, imposing
cliffs jut out of the ground, towering over and intimidating the surrounding
landscape with their majestic display of warm-toned rock. Angels’ Landing, one
of the tallest peaks in Zion, affords a sweeping view of the park, as well as
the miles of sagebrushed desert beyond. The climb to the top of Angels’ Landing
is no easy feat; the two and a half miles to the top appears menacing at best. Determined
to tackle the beast, I put my right foot forward on the trail and started up. After
I trudged up the seemingly endless switchbacks that make up the first part of
the hike, I held fast to the chains anchored in the rock that provide a safe
passage up the cliff. Finally, I stood windswept, enchanted, and three feet
away from 1500 feet of down, down, down; and I understood. I understood how the
sum of prickled sagebrush and dried earth and red rock can be a soul’s perch; I
understood how settlers braved the imposing southern heat to settle the wild
land; and I understood how this geographical location can be a home for me as
it was for them.
Loved it Natalie, that was a pleasure to read :) And I really want to start calling red-heads "burnt-orange heads" from now on, haha.
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