The Ghost of Tom Joad Knocking at the Door: A Pilgrim's Journey into the CaliforniAmerican Heartland 70: The Universe from a Small Park in Shoshone, California

Shoshone Park, Shoshone, California, Steve Brown 2025

I sit in my car with the windows open, parked in a gravel lot, all but the hood tucked under the shade of a great palm tree in Shoshone, Nevada.  Homemade picnic tables made from river rock dot the park.  A little trail meanders towards a signpost pointing to various places--the type associated with beaches.  

I look northwest to a high, rounded mountain covered in big, black basalt boulders.  I say "covered" because there seems to be loose, gray gravel below which is not anywhere as dark as the big rocks on top.  Maybe the mound once was a mesa with a layer of lava at the surface, and as it eroded away, big chunks of basalt slid and rolled their way down.  I don't know.  What I do know is that the hill has a big, white DV on it.  Maybe their school is Desert View.  

The wind comes pleasantly in the windows; I can hear birds chirping.  

Next to the road is a bright is yellow SCHOOL sign with a silhouetted circle-headed dad and circle-headed mom walking arm in arm, but no circle-head son or daughter by their side.  Perhaps, they walk to pick up their child from school.  Or perhaps their child let go of their hand and ran out into traffic.  Or maybe little Johnny or Emma Lou was abducted by aliens.  This is Nevada after all.  It's hard to say, but I find it strange that big yellow SCHOOL signs posted specifically to warn you about children crossing the road actually have no children.  However, since the two adults also don't have hands or feet, maybe there's nothing to worry about.  Perhaps, in traffic-sign universe, moms and dads without feet or hands walk to schools to pick up kids who don't exist on a regular basis, and it's all NORMAL because anything is normal if it's just the way things are.  Nothing would be edgy about a person born with a triangle-head in a universe of triangle-headed people.

Behind the SCHOOL sign with no children is desert brush and electrical poles with gray cylinder boxes. Behind those are gray desert trees, perhaps Russian olive.  The black boulder mountain is behind everything.  I have been in the desert enough that it looks reasonably normal to me.  However, to those east of the Mississippi, the scene is probably as odd as a world where circle-headed adults walk to school without any circle-headed child and the sky is always bright yellow.

Nothing is shocking that is common-place.  Anything can be shocking if it isn't commonplace.  Mundane is made through over-exposure.  Exotic arises from the unknown, as does the horrific.  Our perception is defined by what we already know.   Yet, at any given moment, we assume what we see completes reality.  Then, something comes along that shatters our view of reality, and instead of learning we live in a universe of infinite possibilities, we adapt our universe to include the new undeniable data that's arrived, but then quickly zip-tie our view of reality again.  Thus, we live our lives constantly forced to adjust our lenses to accept the reality we've just smacked our heads against rather than opening our lenses wide enough to let in all possibilities.  The surest way to be dead wrong is to know exactly what you believe.  And yet that assurance is what most of us seek.  We want to pin God down like a beetle and place our creator is a plastic box.  Or, we want to wipe out our creator out altogether.  

The universe isn't built for that constrained view simply because no one can truly comprehend an infinite universe, and simultaneously, no once can comprehend finite universe.  How can something go on forever?  But how can it just all end?  What exactly is everything?  What exactly is nothing?  It's as if the universe is built to keep us open, and yet some dark force wants us to limit ourselves from the infinity unfolding right before our eyes.  We shut down the miraculous because it feels safer to eat our bowl of Cheerios and go to work as normal as possible.  Meanwhile, galaxies of infinite possibilities swirl outside the car windows waiting to be noticed.

Slowly, I'm getting better at sitting in that uncertainty and enjoying the infinite possibilities swirling around me.  The odd thing is--and I can't explain this--when I allow myself to sit comfortably in the unknown, I actually feel more solid, more confident.  Our ego separates us out from creation and then makes us beggars for security.  It tells us we are isolated and alone and makes us then beg for acceptance.  It tells us we are unique and then makes us beg to fit in.  It tells us we are mortal and makes us beg for transcendence.  It tells us we need to understand the reality of a universe too grand to ever comprehend.  Fear makes us want to live small in an expanse so great it is impossible to comprehend.   

Bewilderment is a much better approach to life.  Learn to let go, to not know, and be amazed.  And slowly, confidence not attached to outcome opens up as you notice life is happening everywhere, all at once, and that all of it is spectacular on the grand level, and isn't it wonderful to be alive and part of everything even if at this moment that means picking up garbage off the front walk because the Gladbag just split open wide-open and mashed potatoes and green roast beef plopped down on the concrete?

I'm still not in that spot very often, but often enough that when I am there, I absolutely know it is a better way of existing.  I have a deep belief in God, deeper than at any other point in my life so far, but I'm no longer interested in defining God.  Instead, I want to experience God by opening up and letting in light.  Not-knowing seems to allow that better than knowing.  I can't seem to keep my mind from wanting to understand everything, but I can keep it from believing it's anywhere close to having things figured out.  And life is actually much better from a place of awe than expertise.  When you are in that sweet spot, small bits of knowing arise out of the void that you absolutely know are correct and can immediately be successfully applied to a situation.   However, as soon as you attach any ego-sense to that insight, you have removed yourself from that field of endless possibilities until you return that state of openness.