The Education of Jao

I think I shall call it a creekbed. That is a bit like calling The Santa Cruz River through town a river, but now and then water runs in both of them, usually at about the same time.

When we have our monsoon seasons--that is a bit like calling Noah's flood earth-large, and his ark an actual boat--water does course down through our back yard. And it does so at a pretty good rate, too! Our creekbed is the deepest part of the sheet of water that comes down off the hill and through our fence, headed down to the Santa Cruz. In fact, every once in a dubiously wonderful while, it pours down, flooding great parts of the desert floor, and the arroyos become rather fearsome beasts.

But mostly, our creekbed is a dry and needle-gagged reminder that there is water on the earth, here and there, now and then, and that hope endures.

I have a garden-wagon load of needles and mesquite pods, and someday soon, when Jao is here and the javelinas are not here--they are not to be mingled with--Jao and I will pull the wagon through the back gate and dump the refuse into another, untended erosion behind the house, letting it do there what I did not want it to do in the yard itself: clog things up, catch tumbling pebbles and cactus paddles, and slow the march of the mountains to the sea.

I appreciate the necessity to educate Jao: it means that I do not, ought not, to finish the work today.

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