The park across the street in which I have been spending so much time lately, memorizing the headings in the table of contents of my quantum field theory book, is the development that replaced a portion of what I called the "undeveloped desert" next to our complex. This is where I spent so much time walking by myself in mediation, or sitting on my tripod camping stool in various favorite spots obscured from the street and any nearby houses.
I've written about some of my favorite particular spots in the past, including locales I called "the Sandy Bottom", which was a portion of a small wash where it widens out just upstream from an ancient ironwood tree, and flanked by a palo verde and towering majestic saguaro. The cluster of these three great trees around this spot in the wash became a regular, almost daily, retreat for me from the world. This was especially true during the days of the 2020 lockdown. Thankfully our lockdown in Arizona was mild, and things returned to normal fairly quickly here, as opposed to other states where the politics drove mandates to keep everyone indoors as much as possible, in part a rebuke to those of us who wouldn't accept their authority to tell us what to do.
This patch of the "undeveloped desert" is actually a remnant of the sprawling ranch that once existed here, which stretched along the base of the McDowell Mountains, and which gave way in the 1980s to the many modern housing developments, including the apartment complex in which we found our current home (it was the most expensive complex we could find in north Scottsdale at the time! The undeveloped desert was one of the perks for me. I almost never saw anyone out there in the day, but I would find remnants of the presence of young people who knew some of the secret spots for night activity. I began to feel as I were the "ranger" of the land there, and found myself at times cleaning up trash, or pushing stolen shopping carts over the rocky ground and then wheeling them back to the nearby grocery store.
At the time we moved in, there were already signs posted along the road indicating that the land would be developed into a park, deeded over to the City of Scottsdale for just such a purpose. The signs had information about websites to visit to see the plans, and dates for hearings regarding the development. The dates were in the past, and the signs were somewhat faded in the sun, which happens rapidly here, as one might imagine. I had been hoping that our tenure here would pass entirely without the development of the park coming to pass, as I knew it would make over, perhaps destroy, not only my little "spots", but the general isolation and peace I found there.
If nothing else, the shutdown put any plans on hold because no one was doing any work on such projects for a year. Then in late 2020 new signs went up indicating that "phase whatever" of the plans were proceeding, with new hearings coming and going. A small protest movement among homeowners nearby sprung up against the plans, not against the development in general, but. because the small lake that was to built there was not aligned in a way that people walking their dogs would get the best view of the nearby mountains. I kid you not--that was what people cared about.
This was playing out right after the 2020 elections, which was a time in which I felt that America might have been lost entirely, given over to the tyranny of stolen elections. During those desperate weeks, I was convinced, as many were, that Trump would certainly not let such a result stand. When January 20, came and went, and Biden was inaugurated in a sealed-off nonpublic ceremony in Washington, D.C., it was as if the entire nation had become a prison. We were numb, those of us who saw what had happened.
It was exactly then that the construction equipment arrived on the undeveloped land, and the big chain link fences went up sealing off a big chunk of it. My only consolation then was that the fences did not surround my favorite spots, including the Sandy Bottom and its majestic trees I love. But they were right up against the fence. The new park would come within a few feet of my favorite spots. I could not bear to visit them for many months, stretching to over a year. The development was slow. How long does it take to develop a park? Apparently a long time, in part because the park was meant as a flood control and water storage facility for a huge complex of soccer fields being constructed on more undeveloped land to the south (the loss of which I also mourned, but knew was inevitable).
Those were the months during which my spirits were low, and I felt nothing but loss of things I had loved---not only my little comforts and joys, but all of America, in some form or another.
The months came and went, and I ignored the development, only sometimes peering over the fence at the scraped surface of the desert, and the large basin being dug in the ground for the new lake. I avoided allowing myself to feel anything at all over it, because it would be only painful. I periodically checked to make sure that the saguaro and the ironwood were still standing just outside the chain link fence, defiant next to the cloth curtain on the fence that became ripped from the wind over until it finally gave way. Things were touch and go for a while, as the contractors had created a make shift road for their heaviest of equipment to access a gate in the fence right next to the palo verde. In doing so, they destroyed the upstream part of the wash entirely (goodbye my rabbit friends, may you find new homes!), filling it with large chunks of gravel. The drainage of the wash would no longer be needed, as the water would shunted upstream into underground pipes that would feed the lake as flood control, apparently.
I barely noticed when the park officially opened, with a little parking lot for people to enter, and a walking path and access road around the sunken lake, which was surrounded. by verdant green grass, a spectacular with the brown desert around it, now cleaned up and landscaped. The access road passed within a few yards of the wash and thus the Sandy Bottom, and other little spots of which I have not written.
Finally last month I grudgingly began accepting the park and going into it. It is still relatively little used, and I often have the park to myself, with perhaps a few other souls. Yesterday was an exception. On Thanksgiving morning, it was crammed with perhaps a dozen people, most of them couples walking their dogs on leash and off leash. When I see this, I typically try to avoid getting anywhere near them, as people who let their dogs run off leash, from my experience, believe that their dog is a perfect friendly animal and universally accept the rule of "the dog gets one free (friendly) jump on anyone who comes near it." They will call their animals off of you only after this initial assault, when its paws on your chest, whether you wanted that or not. The idea as that I shouldn't even be there without a dog myself for the other dog to jump on. Without my own dog, I become the target, and that is just how it has to be.
Fortunately the park is ample enough that I can gently avoid getting near anyone I suspect of that. I can negotiate interactions, depending on my mood, and often pretend to wander off the road if I see someone coming like that. There is plenty of room for all of us.
The ramada where I bring my books to study is on the far corner of the park and lake from where I enter, and thus I can spot from a distance whether it is occupied. Usually it is not. I can see the empty metal round picnic tables and make my way to them. As people come along the path, I am thus placed in the ramada away from the way at enough distance that I am not being overtly rude if I stay absorbed in my reading as people pass. Or I can look up and nod and say hello, which I enjoy doing most of time, truth be told. I like people, and all animals including dogs. It is just a matter of choosing when I want to interact with them.
I still go out to the remaining undeveloped part of the land, and even have new spots I have found. I still still next to the ironwood, even though I am only about twenty feet from the paved path where people now walk. I sit unseen and undetected by the shrubbery and the large limb of the ironwood that hangs over the wash.
But I have come to love the ramada as well. There is something beautiful about civilization, and being able to sit in comfort at the metal table, with a view under the roof of the ramada across the peaceful little pond and its surrounding verdant landscape, with the brown McDowell Mountains in the backdrop, the flanks of which are only minimally developed as the site of the most expensive homes in the state (typically twenty million dollars and up). I would not trade my view for the ones from the home in any circumstance. I like that this spot is public. I like that I am not the "owner" but a "sharer."
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