salton

This, I think, is the closest I’ll ever get to being on another planet. The Salton Sea is an unnatural natural place, remade by man in a colossal accident over a hundred years ago. It does fill a low point that was once an inland sea or estruary long ago, but agricultural runoff added strangeness to the brew. And now it’s drying up because we stopped doing that. It intensifies.

I look again and just wonder “where the heck am I?” Standing on an alien shore made of tiny shells with a crust of salts and solidified strangeness, that’s where I am. Across this body are unknown hills and the setting sun of some other star system. It’s hard to believe that we’re still in California. Maybe being below sea level has something to do with it, being inverted, surrounded by a great horizonal dam so immense that it cannot be perceived. There is a lot that is un-normal here, a lot that is sideways compared to normal when you look. And maybe there is no explanation needed right now. I like it.

jg

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