Saturday, February 14, 2004

mountain lions??

What good is a sign that warns you of recent sightings of mountain lions? If you're in a canyon, and a mountain lion runs into you by accident, or you into him, what earthly protection is there for you?

The day proceeds without any reading of political headlines, and without a single lawyer joke. We leave that to the rest of the world. My partners in this desert madness took me instead into a canyon studded with cacti. So many new names to remember -- I wont even begin to demonstrate here how little knowledge of desert plantlife I have retained.

I have only two quick little recollections for now: the first is of the moment after that long hike EVEN DEEPER into the desert (it's not enough that I can be attacked by these plants at night if I am not careful), when finally I could stretch out on a flat rock and look up at a relentlessly blue sky: priceless. Especially the lying down part. Rocks and canyons and steep inclines go together.

My second recollection is of waiting for the little truck thing to come and take us deeper into the canyon. A couple of other folks were heading in the same direction and so we stood there together, strangers, bound by a common desire to see a million more cacti and perhaps an odd bird or two. I kid you not-- these folks were speaking Polish. I promise, I don't seek this out, it follows me all over the world. Even in the desert, I WILL find the one Pole who also decided at this moment to risk testing the will of the stray bobcat or the mountain lion. How odd to never escape your heritage in this way.

Sun's up in the canyon

..and the Internet is still working, whaddaya know..

It was to be a week-end with no politics -- what do coyotes know about democratic candidates after all -- but I can't quite leave it behind, even if I am not reading any headlines.

I am here with three lawyer types (and one more who comes in and out), or, more accurately, freinds (sorry, no spell-check to catch mistypes in the canyon) who once studied law with me. One of them actually lives in the desert. This morning, for instance, I woke up to dangerous looking cacti specimens that I could touch if I stretched long enough.

But politics joined the rising sun that came up very very slowly (bored with making an appearance every single day?) over the mountains. Our discussion was about whom we don't like more: candidate X, Y, or Z. Is it always like this? Eliminating the bad rather than pursuing the noble?

I am the only one in this group that still lives up north year round. This is the first time that I got greeted with -- so, what IS Wisconsin thinking these days? We are on the map!

a late note from a disoriented traveler

On my flight to the desert (see post below signaling the great journey) I met a prof of physics. He was extraordinarily good about explaining the laws of the universe to me. By 'universe' I mean everything you could imagine (for example he explained why it is bad for chidren to read Harry Potter, and why the kid behind me was crying so hard), rather than a universe of the black infinity that is beyond imagining. Recognizing his gift of explaining, I decided to ask a question which has always bothered me about the sciences: why is physics so difficult to comprehend?

By the time we were almost landing in Denver (a necessary stop on the way to the desert) I understood that the world is really divided into those who think like physicists, and those who do not. My seat mate teaches the 'physics for poets' class at UW and so he tells me that he works with a roomfull of students who cannot cross that great divide. They cannot make themselves think like physicists.

The reason I found this prof's explanation so interesting is that it filled the two hour flight in a congenial way, and, more importantly it sounded so very familiar. We, at the law school, offer the same incantation. The world is divided into two groups: those who think like lawyers, and those who do not. Not having the luxury of teaching "law for poets," and knowing that we have three years before we have to let loose the next batch of so-called lawyers, we take our job of teaching them to think like lawyers quite seriously.

I am not sure I could ever explain what the physics prof told me about a physics mindset. It was supremely complicated. And truthfully, I, like his class, never really managed to cross the great divide: I never fully comprehended the world of physics. But flying in the clear starry night, somewhere over Iowa or Kansas, it was fitting that we should be talking physics, possibly the only time in my entire life, in a knowledgeable sort of way.