Postcards for my children

We set off in New Mexico at the great gorge that split the earth in two, then north to Colorado, through plains of blazing orange rock. Jagged monoliths, like antediluvian sentinels, watched with timeless gaze as we trespassed their desert territories.

Then came the Green Rock – Mesa Verde – dominating the valley with its magnificent presence. I watched in awe as it loomed ahead, ominous and full of ancient secrets. In Ontario, we have petroglyphs and bits of broken pottery as mementos of the past. Here, whole dwellings remain hewn into the cliffs, eerily preserved as though waiting for their ancient masters to return.

Chasms, desert, sagebrush and scrub. It’s the most alien of landscapes to my lake-filled Canadian upbringing. It also an inextricable piece of my husband’s being, etched into the lines of his face, the heatwave-like gait of his walk, the sensitivity of his eyes to sunlight.

I think of this, when my son touches his father's face, fingers against crow's feet. His myriad of landscapes.

I hope, one day, to acquaint him with each one.