Go Bengals

 It was eventual January. J's father came with his wife and spent almost week here. We took the opportunity to visit Taliesin West--Frank Lloyd Wright's winter compound, which is just a couple miles from here. We hadn't bothered to visit it yet--that's the way things go, when you live near a tourist attraction. During the visit I was ashamed at how long it took me to enjoy that marvelous place, which has existed in its current location long before the rest of Scottsdale grew up up around it, to almost surround it.  We also visited the Desert Botanical Gardens. J had been before several times but it was my first time, andI greatly enjoyed it as well. 

One thing both places--Taliesin West and the Desert Botanical Gardens--have in common is that they are currently the location of an installations of Chihuly glass sculptures. The guide at the Frank Lloyd Wright compound made a big deal about this, as if it were more important than Wright himself, who is old and boring. I have to admit I don't particularly like Chihuly's work, and I found it almost a form of postmodern graffiti to have it placed in front of the great architect's buildings. It seemed typical of our era, the experience.

The next weekend, on our own, we spent a night in downtown Scottsdale at a boutique hotel solely for the purpose of attending the Parada del Sol parade and watching the Pony Express riders come into town, which they do once a year. It was on our list of things to do while we were still in Scottsdale. I gave us a chance to walk around downtown while the streets were blocked off. It struck me how much Scottsdale is still the tiny little farming community that it once was. I could see the old community beneath it all, and how much the current Scottsdale is basically a bunch of sprawl grown up around it.  It made Scottsdale more interesting to me to see that, and feel connected to the history which is not so distant. 

It was nice to have this peaceful, fun January to start the new year. Then we got hyped up for the fact that the Cincinnati Bengals were in the Super Bowl. It was fun to watch their run, even though they lost. No one really expected them to be there. J got reports from her friend back in Cincinnati about how the whole town was going nuts over it. Then there was the Winter Olympics, which we sort of watched, while Canada was absorbed in its turmoils in Ottawa, and everyone speculated about the possibility of war. Then war came and it has absorbed everyone, in the way that the pandemic did two years ago. 

Along the way I left my remote job, as it was not the right circumstance for me, and have resumed a freelance project to keep me busy.

I refuse to be drawn into emotions about the war. At least I tell myself that. Yesterday I felt the emotions of it for the first time, as I had dared to watch some Tik Tok videos people made. I cannot know what is going on, and I don't trust the news. By declaring myself unwilling to jump into the emotions of it, or to take sides publicly, of course I make myself anathema to certain people who believe that to be silent in this is to be complicit in some kind of crime. It's exactly what we have heard for the last couple years. Use the right vocabulary. Make the appropriate gestures on social media with the correct symbols. Wear a face covering to show you care. Kneel. Raise your fist. Say the slogan. etc. To me it is the evidence of a society empty of values looking for something to give it meaning, desperately clinging to the passing fads to show ourselves evidence of our meaningfulness all the while knowing its emptiness. That being said, I hope the war is over soon. Already the Bengals being in the Super Bowl seems like a quaint relic of a simpler time.