TRUCKEE, Calif.—The wind blows hard in the Sierras, and when the sun is gone there is a cold that freezes me at night. When the cold releases me in the morning, I feel new.
The air here smells of vanilla. The smell comes from trees, and I wonder how it is that a tree could smell like the love of my life.
On my drive through Utah I drove by the Bonneville Salt Flats. It is not every day that you see most things, and it is not every day that you see something like the Bonneville Salt Flats. They are white and flat and they stretch away forever like an ocean of white light.
The rarity of something should not decide the degree to which you gawk at it — you do not gawk at your stick blender when you pull it out once every year or so. Still, I gawked at the salt flats, and they, like a guitarist plucking a string in my mind and heart, stirred a thought in me. The thought is about songs, and about something Alan Watts said in one of his lectures, about how life is not about some destination or goal, in the sense that a song is not about that song’s last note. Or how a dance is not about the last step. It is about the stuff between the beginning and the end — the stuff you’re doing right now. And now, and now, and now.
Watts’ idea plucked another one of my mind and heart strings, which, when sounded alongside the salt flats note, gave me an idea for a story.
11 9 2018
The Skeletons of Bonneville
‘No, what I’m trying to tell you is that life is like a song — not just a single day, or, yenno, a single note, like your birthday tomorrow. But everything. All of the days, yenno? All the notes. See what I’m saying?’
The girl twirls her hair in her finger, thinking.
‘But I’m really looking forward to my birthday,’ the girl says while looking out the window of the old pickup.
‘I know, Laura. Sweetie. And you should be excited, cuz it’s gunna be great. But when you look back to, say, your ninth birthday last year — remember that? When you and mom and me went to the beach, and you drew your dinosaurs in the sand?’
‘Yeah.’
‘And how does remembering the beach and your dinos make you feel?’
‘Really good.’
‘Okay, great. Now what about your eighth birthday. Uh, what did we do for that one?’
‘You weren’t there and mommy was sick and I took care of her.’
‘Oh, uh. Right. And, um, how did all of that make you feel?’
‘I was sad, but then I was happy because mommy felt better and we made a cake.’
‘Ah. That’s great, sweetie. Okay, um, now imagine all those memories from your birthdays — the dinosaurs, the beach, mommy and the cake — imagine them as kinda like the notes of a song you like. What’s a song that you like right now?’
‘Mmm. Uncle Elephant.’
‘Okay, and how does that song make you feel?’
‘Really happy,’ she says, giggling a bit at the thought of the song.
‘Ok, when you think about your birthdays, how do you feel?’
‘Happy.’
‘Now see, all of your memories sort of combine to form a feeling, like the notes of Uncle Elephant.’
‘Mmm. But my memories don’t make sounds like a song.’
‘No, but they still make you feel something, and it’s the feeling that I’m talking about. Yenno, the feeling in your belly,’ he says as he reaches over and tickles Laura’s stomach. Laura giggles and squirms in the big front seat of the pickup. When her dad stops tickling her she takes a breath and then asks: ‘But what if just one birthday feels like Uncle Elephant?’
‘Well, I guess, yeah — you’re lucky if one day is all it takes for you to get that feeling. But I think you see what I’m saying.’
Laura reaches over and snatches her dad’s sunglasses off of his face and puts them over her eyes.
‘That’s for tickling me,’ she says, folding her arms as the sunglasses, too big for her, fall off her face and down into her lap.
They drive east, and they pass a sign that says ‘Bonneville Salt Flats.’ Outside, the landscape is flat and white, and it stretches away forever like an ocean of white light.
‘I have to pee,’ Laura says.
Her dad turns on his blinker and takes an exit that leads to a rest stop. He parks and Laura jumps out and runs to the bathroom. Her dad steps out and walks to a picnic table at the edge of the flats. He sits and sees a cluster of large crystals growing out on the flat, and then he sees a human skeleton sitting upright and facing the crystals. The sunset light hits the crystals, causing the light to refract and to turn into rainbows that splash onto the ground. Crystals also cover the skeleton. The crystals on the skeleton are smaller, but some are big, and those bigger ones also catch and turn the sunlight into rainbow light.
Laura’s dad sees a sign near the skeleton, and he gets up and walks to the sign. ‘STATE OF UTAH DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION,’ it reads at the top. ‘Welcome to the Salt Flats of Bonneville. The state is proud of this natural wonder, unique in all the world, and home of the Skeletons of Bonneville. A small number of people, when they visit the flats, find that the crystals that grow here are the most beautiful things they have ever seen — so beautiful, in fact, that they never want to take their eyes off of them. Ever. They see the crystals and they stare at them until they pass away, and then their skeletons continue their owners’ watch. If you hike onto the flats, please respect this special place and do not touch the crystals or the Skeletons of Bonneville.’
Laura’s dad looks down and sees Laura there, reading the sign.
‘Huh,’ she says.
The sun is gone now, but in the darkness the rainbow light still pours from the crystals and splashes onto the ground. Laura and her dad look out onto the flats, and all they can now see is rainbow light in an ocean of night. There are the rainbows coming from the crystals and the skeleton near the picnic table, and there are other clusters of rainbow lights farther out on the flats.
‘I wonder why they just stopped caring about living,’ Laura’s dad says.
‘Hmmm. Maybe they found the last note they ever needed to hear,’ Laura says.
The two walk back to the pickup and drive back onto the highway. They drive into the night, and Laura looks out the window, where she sees the rainbow lights — their reds, oranges, yellows, greens and blues — streak by as they drive. She closes her eyes, and, before falling asleep, she hears the colors, or the memories of the colors, singing her a soft, sweet lullaby. 