A Quail, A Mountain, and a Heart Seeking Answers
Note: I took this hike in early March when trailheads and parks were still open, at the beginning of social distancing in Arizona, due to Covid-19.
I went with a heart filled with questions.
The surrounding hills on South Mountain are alive with flowers. The yellow brittlebush is the most prominent, covering the slopes with long-stemmed blooms shooting out from a base of silver-green leaves. Joining the yellow abundance, is the pale violet of desert lavender, the soft orange of the globemallow, the tiny white rock daisies, and the purple stalks of lupine.
It is easy for my mutt, Mollie, and I to practice social distancing. After walking three miles, we are passed by two mountain bikers and a pair of joggers. I hear snatches of conversations as they speed by. Of school closures. Of business interruptions. Of the virus on all our minds. Their voices echo in the quiet morning until they are out of range and out of sight.
A quail standing sentry on a boulder outcropping cries out in the silence. Puk ka kwa. Puk ka kwa. Where are you? Where are you?
His mate answers from under a mesquite tree in a timeless call-and-response ritual of all quail. Kwa. Kwa. Here I am. Here I am.
My phone pings with reception when we reach the saddle, a flat section between peaks. A family member had sent out a group text, checking in on everyone, followed by a flurry of responses.
“How is everyone doing?”
“I’m working from home today.”
“The kids are driving me crazy.”
“Where can I buy flour?”
We join in the call and response that is happening all over the world as we gather our friends and family closer through phone calls, emails, and text messages, a way to check in on those who matter as we take our turns standing sentry.
I head up the ridgeline, stopping to take photographs. I usually take close-ups of the flowers, but today my heart is hungry for vistas larger than myself. I shoot frame after frame of the surrounding peaks, towering above the saguaros and ocotillo.
“I lift up my eyes to the mountains—where does my help come from?” the psalmist wrote in Psalm 121:1 (NIV). He answered in the next verse, “My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth.”
Where are you?
My soul echoes the psalmist’s question.
The sun bursts out from the clouds, shooting out light beams on the wildflowers and cactus covering the mountain slopes. The places small and frightened inside me expand and make room for hope. The truth reverberates in the stillness.
“Here I am. Here I am.”
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This post recently appeared in the SanTan Sun and other East Valley papers.
If you want to read more about discovering beauty in the difficult, check out my book, Under a Desert Sky: Redefining Hope, Beauty, and Faith in the Hardest Places.