We have been patient. So patient, in fact, that we forgot - about color - about the fact that it can exist here in this dry, brutal environment.
By the time it rained in late February - the first rain in literally 3 months - I remembered how much I missed green...how much I longed for green - a sign of life, a sign of growth. But that was as far as my mind allowed me to go.
By the time it rained in late February - the first rain in literally 3 months - I remembered how much I missed green...how much I longed for green - a sign of life, a sign of growth. But that was as far as my mind allowed me to go.
And then, about 3 weeks ago, a ridiculous thing happened. Jason sent me a text message while I was at work one day, with a picture of the horse crippler cactus from our native species garden attached. This garden, made up mostly of cacti and succulents scavenged from the surrounding landscape last fall, had been a drab, if sculptural, place since December. Our majestic ocotillo had shed every one of its lovely green leaves a week after being transplanted. And then its bark went from yellow-green to grey. We were sure it was dead. But we loved its 8-foot-tall, sea-creature-like shape; it was without doubt the cornerstone of our cactus garden. And so we left it, both of us harboring a secret curiosity about its ability to resurge in the spring.
During the winter months, the vibrant green color had bled from the paddles of our pancake prickly pear cactus, as well, leaving a hypothermic-looking purple in its stead. Our lechuguilla's grass-green prongs had developed white splotches and it, too, appeared well on its way to demise. Even the unflappable rainbow cactus looked pale and a bit deflated. And then, 3 weeks ago - this text came through from Jason with a picture of our horse crippler cactus attached, bearing a lavish pink bloom 3 inches in diameter! Suddenly, this place of dormancy and death became a place of resurrection and wonder.
Since then, the surprises continue to unfold. We have received several rain showers - uncharacteristic for this time of year here. This bit of rain seems to be coaxing the cactus flowers to open their recalcitrant buds. Our prickly pear has brandished 20 or more such buds for over 3 weeks. These tight little cones have withheld their contents for so long, we were not certain if they were flowers at all, or if they might simply die before opening - or grow into paddles instead. And then just this morning, after a little fishing and bird watching excursion on the Pecos River, we returned home to find two of these buds unfurled in all their chromatic and sculptural glory. I could hardly believe it, and had to press my head deep into each bloom, inspecting them from every angle, to fully comprehend what had emerged. The most amazing part is that there are so many more buds where these came from. The spectacle has just begun!
Also this morning, as we drove along a desert bluff just above the Pecos River, I hollered at Jason to stop the truck: in the middle of a bunch of dead grass and creosote scrub, there stood a lone cactus crowned by a mammoth pink bloom. Once again, I had to inspect this apparition up close in order to believe it. We have yet to identify this cactus - it is unlike most we have seen out here. It may be a "fishhook" cactus, or some kind of "hedgehog" variety, whose proper genus name, Echinocereus, derives from the Ancient Greek for hedgehog - "echinos", and the Latin for candle - "cereus": effectively adding up to "hedgehog candle"! Something about being in a new environment and encountering so many remarkable plants and animals has filled us both with an insatiable desire to put names to faces and shapes. Learning the names of things here in the Chihuahuan Desert feels, in a way, like an act of devotion to the imagination that dreamed up and engineered such a stunning breadth of living beings.
It is not lost on us that such unadulterated beauty emerges from such foreboding plant-life. Cacti are famously hardy, perfectly designed for survival against the harsh desert climate and against predators who might seek their flesh as a water source. No specimen illustrates this paradox of treacherousness and beguiling beauty more vividly than the horse crippler (also known as the "devil's pincushion"), whose long, rigid thorns really are capable of felling horse and human, and of puncturing even the most rugged set of tires, and yet whose blooms are ornate miracles of 3-D design. Its flowers attract not only admiring human eyes, but pollinators necessary to produce the bright red fruit that yields the small black seeds that hold the key to its species' future.
In this sense, as in many others, the desert seems to be a place that rewards patience - one that reveals its surprising complexity only over time. One must endure the parched brown months in order to behold this season of fertility and pageantry. These stunning blooms, moreover, prove important work has been taking place beneath the seemingly lifeless surface all along. I find myself tripping over metaphors at every turn in this rugged, prickly, surreptitiously stunning landscape.
Oh, and guess what? That ocotillo we were convinced was dead?...
Oh, and guess what? That ocotillo we were convinced was dead?...