Knowledgeable and lyrical, Meloy's meditations should resonate with those who find sustenance in the natural world.
In a restaurant her husband seats her near the door so she can "see the night sky and stars and be less likely to shriek with panic and bolt." She needs solitude so she can contemplate the things she considers essential-steep-sided canyons and their swift rivers a basket woven by a Yokuts Indian woman an ancient rock maze in the Mojave Desert a pair of placid old mules spending their retirement in a field.
Vivid memories of expansive cobalt skies juxtaposed against red sandstone cliffs. Blue was the first thing that came to mind. She finds contact with civilization jarring. Years ago when I first came across this passage from Ellen Meloy in her memoir The Anthropology of Turquoise: Reflections on Desert, Sea, Stone, and Sky, I closed my eyes and considered the lights and shapes that I love. But for Meloy, all colors are captivating, from the red-gold in the spines of a prickly pear glowing in the sun to the clay-red of "waterfalls cascading down lavender and crimson sandstone." Her reactions to the natural world are so intense they border on pain. The Yucatán's turquoise Caribbean coast enthralls her, as does the turquoise sea of the Bahamas. In another, she reflects whimsically on California's turquoise swimming pools. In one chapter she muses on the history and mystique of the blue-green gem. Color figures prominently here, especially turquoise, the hue of the signature stone of the region. Meloy ( Raven's Exile: A Season on the Green River) takes the reader through landscapes of pure sensation in these contemplative essays that are part Southwest travelogue, part memoir and part naturalism.
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