The last few weeks have got me discombobulated and now back in hectic New York, where workmen are hanging on a scaffold outside my office window and apparently in the process of drilling the building into kingdom come. So I’m calming myself–and you too, maybe–with a walk through the Sonoran desert in Arizona. Can it only have been last week?
The desert in spring is magnificent, and the morning we left I took a spin around the property’s 2-mile loop, which has a beautiful labyrinth. Good for contemplation.
The Saguaro cactus is found exclusively in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona and western Sonora, Mexico. They can live up to 200 years. Some have lots of arms, and some have none. I don't know why. Brilliant yellow foliage in the background is a palo verde tree.
Saguaro cactus with arms
You may recall I had taken His Grace to a spa called Canyon Ranch for his birthday. Now a health spa, I don’t care how posh, was probably not on his list of top 10 anything’s. Or even top 20. It was his punishment for not letting me give him a party.
Wish I could identify all these plants. Please chime in if you know ...
His favorite exercise at the spa was Sit on the Sofa and Read, which he would occasionally change up with Lie Down and Take a Nap. These are what they call low-impact work-outs, designed to minimize stress on the joints and maximize stress on the sweetheart (aka me Miss BossypantsKnowItAll) whose expectations of His Grace’s activity may have differed slightly from His Grace’s own. And guess whose problem that is. Hint: Not His.
Along the path...
Of course I’m exaggerating. HG was a good sport, he did exercise, and he was totally appreciative of what the Ranch has to offer. I was perhaps overeager to share my enthusiasm for a place I’ve been coming to for 25 years and that has had such a positive impact on so many friends and family. Selfishly, I want HG to be healthy and to feel good forever.
...
Well he is healthy, and he does feel good. How he chooses to stay that way is his responsibility, despite the fact that everyone is entitled to my opinion.
A prickly pear, irony intended...
Shame on me for sulking when he didn’t want to follow my infallible and virtuous advice; and good for him for calling me on it, which he did.
A violet prickly pear
Good for both of us for hashing the whole thing out and being grown-ups–eventually. That’s the most important exercise there is when you love somebody, maybe in order to love somebody.
Labyrinth at Canyon Ranch
And in case you did not know…
Sign at Labyrinth entrance
Relationships are a labyrinth. They offer the opportunity to walk in a mess to that place where the rational merges with the inner-brat and the solution is reborn. Then you walk the heck out of the mess and carry on.
Does this shadow make me look fat?
Cholla cactus
Barrel cactus
Desert Willow?
Palo verde tree and barrel cactus
Aww.
Happy trails.
All photos by Frances Schultz for www.FrancesSchultz.com
