Stephanie Evans needed to improve sales at the general store she inherited from her Uncle Leo. It used to be a successful venture but since the interstate diverted traffic, business was reduced to keeping the dilapidated 1940’s artifact from falling apart.
When she arrived her inventory consisted of the essentials, candy, beer, and cigarettes. She figured she had one more season before all her faithful customers would be dead. Stephanie didn’t know how old they were but they all looked past their expiration date. Actually, they looked dried up and awful.
She left her fast-paced life in Los Angeles when she got news of her inheritance. At thirty- four it was an easy decision to leave a boyfriend who was cheating on her, a mortgage that was strangling her, and a job with little time for normal things like free weekends, and uninterrupted evenings. Perhaps she acted like a rat escaping from a burning building but here she was… still a rat… now roasting in the Arizona sun. She decided, if life was out to get you, running away was only running toward a differnt location to suffer the same fate.
“Damn, it’s hot out here,” she said fanning herself with the, ”Open,” sign before attaching it to the front door.
Not that the sign made much difference. Most mornings she spent dusting and sweeping the store and serving the few customers who showed up. Business in the afternoons was even slower.
“Maybe I can spruce up the yard,” she said out loud. She had started talking to herself almost as soon as she arrived. She didn’t know if it was the affects of the sun and heat or the fact she was alone so much of the time. Whatever… she decided, even if her business was doomed, she could make the yard look inviting.
She found a cluster of medium size rocks she could lift by hand and brought them in to outline her property. Initially she thought she would accentuate the boundary by painting the rocks white but decided to leave them in their natural state. “Arizona au natural by Stephanie,” she laughed out loud. “I guess that’s better than Stephanie au natural in Arizona,” she laughed again.
She was careful to cover herself with a large straw hat and loose fitting white cotton top to keep the sun off her skin as much as possible but even with these precautions she noticed her skin was starting to brown... and wrinkle.
Stephanie discovered time in the desert slowed down and stretched out. So with few distractions she got lost in her pursuit of rocks. She was sure there were scientific names for them like igneous, granite, and sandstone but being less academic she made distinctions in shape, weight and texture and started looking for smooth rounded rocks and sharp angular rocks and piled them on top of each other to build random sculptures throughout the yard.
Some of her customers were inspired by her efforts and dug through their collections to offer her crystals and fool’s gold to add a little sparkle to her structures. Before long they were also clearing areas beside her store to create sculptures of their own. They even used the activity as an outing when their families and friends came to visit.
That’s how she met Cherie James. Cherie was sent to spend the summer with her grandparents as a cheap rehab stint. When she arrived she was pierced, tattooed and hostile but with nothing else to do she came to the garden and started piling rocks. She was strong for her 115 pounds and used simple tools to drag and manipulate some large boulders.
Stephanie thought Cherie's ancestors must have built the pyramids.
One of Cherie’s sculptures was a triangle rock weighing over a hundred pounds yet somehow she was able to set it up on its narrowest point. She dug a hole in the ground, to stabilize it and stand it upright. She found a large spherical rock and placed it on the triangle stone, then balanced a flat rectangular rock on the rounded surface. She finished off her masterpiece by balancing a cylinder shaped rock right on top.
Stephanie thought it would fall but it didn’t.
Cherie built several more, each more precarious than the last but all solid. None of them ever fell.
Cherie went home clean and sober. According to her grandmother Cherie was back in school, and was on track to graduate in June. She even wanted to go to college. Her grandmother swore it was the desert experience that gave her the practice she needed to find true balance in her life.
Then there was Joshua Stiles, a young widower with three sons. When Stephanie met him he was consumed with cancer. His parents didn’t expect him to make it through the winter. They worried about him being out in the sun but he insisted on making his mark, leaving something for his boys. He considered it his headstone. Josh chose flat circular rocks for his sculpture. He took his boys out to the dried rivers and streams to find the right ones. Their day trips took them up into the mountains but in the late afternoons and evenings he built his tower alone. Each layer was slightly smaller than the one before it.
Stephanie didn’t know how he did it but he was able to build a six-foot tower. Strong. Perfectly balanced. He engraved the following words in the base: Have The Courage To Aim High. Joshua Stiles 1992. He died at the end of the year. Each of his sons have since come back and built their own six foot towers next to their dad’s.
Early one morning Lenore Valdez showed up at Stephanie’s door. She looked disorientated and confused. She said she needed directions to get back on the highway but she wanted to know about the rock garden and if there were any restrictions and rules for building. When Stephanie assured her it was free to anyone who wanted to enter, Lenore asked permission to build something.
With Stephanie’s blessing Lenore went to work constructing a circular edifice. She built an arched doorway for an entry and then piled rocks in a semi circle to build the surrounding wall and a dome like roof. In retrospect Stephanie said it was something about the safety of the rocks, their coolness against the desert heat that must have comforted her because when it was done she crawled in and fell asleep.
When she didn’t emerge from the alcove by nightfall Stephanie went out to look for her and found Lenore lying in a fetal position inside the womb like space. Stephanie woke her up and they talked the rest of the night.
Lenore told about how her uncle assaulted her when she was thirteen and how she had struggled to keep it a secret all these years, but tonight in the garden, in her little fort, she felt safe for the first time. She finally revealed the secret of her rape and cried for her loss of innocence and her shame.
She came back several times throughout the years and was the one who discovered the labyrinth. She insisted that path was revealing itself in the garden and must be marked for others to walk. When it was finished she wrote the following words on a wooden sign she posted at its entry. “This path is one of intuition and faith. It inevitably takes you where a map can’t show. Each person must find his or her own way. Interested participants can begin their journey here. Take time to pray and meditate… miracles await.”
Stephanie was surprised how in five short years the property around old Uncle Leo’s general store had taken on a surrealistic appearance in the desert landscape. Word of mouth traveled far and visitors came to take a turn in this desert garden. Most didn’t say why they wanted to work but in the meditative silence they became engrossed in this strenuous physical activity and found serenity. More importantly they felt they were leaving something of themselves behind.
Some of the towers would topple and another builder would come and reassemble a structure to their own unique vision. Yet other pieces, like Cherie’s, could withstand the windstorms and rain and remain standing year after year. The space had an organic ebb and flow changing like the desert sands.
Some participants took pictures of their work and posted them on their web pages. The more ambitious hung around for a few days to capture the right light to portray the sculptures at different times of the day and year and one even compiled a calendar. A church group set up torches to have night viewings and prayer services. They left her poetry and songs and suggested Stephanie sell them in her store to help support this sacred place.
Last year a photojournalist stopped to ask Stephanie if he could take pictures for an article he wanted to write for his travel magazine. After the pictures were published more tourists came to see the sculptures. The labyrinth was completed by then and many opted to walk the path and view the artwork displayed throughout the garden. The experience seemed to have a profound effect on the travelers. Of course if anyone wanted to build there was always plenty of rocks and space somewhere in the yard.
Stephanie now gives tours and sells folk art along with a few groceries. She rarely talks to herself anymore because she has plenty of company. Most of her regular customers are still alive and stop by frequently. Their skin is still dried and wrinkled but she loves the crevices like the alluvial fans and rock surfaces of her beloved desert. She has discovered there is something in the desert air that awakens the spirit, opens the mind, preserves the heart and lets the body go on forever.
