From nature, take nothing but memories. Or be sorry. Words by Molly Mandell. Photograph by Courtesy of Ryan Thompson.
In Arizona’s Petrified Forest National Park, the fossilized trees look like rocks filled with minerals including quartz, amethyst and cobalt. They are dazzling—so dazzling, in fact, that visitors frequently pocket pieces despite all the signs prohibiting them from doing so. I did it myself, taking two tiny pieces of rock when I stopped at the park on a road trip a few years back.
But many people who remove the rocks end up wishing desperately that they hadn’t, often returning them in the mail. “They are beautiful, but I can’t enjoy them,” scrawl capital letters on one note. “Take these miserable rocks and put them back into the rainbow forest, for they have caused pure havoc in my love life and Cheryl’s too,” pleads another letter written on torn-out notebook paper and signed “Dateless + Desperate.”
These “conscience letters” are a few of the thousands received by the park, and compiled in the book Bad Luck, Hot Rocks by artists Ryan Thompson and Phil Orr. Thompson says that many of the culprits return their pocketed treasures to the park with stories of trials and tribulations: “They span this entire range of human experience, from absolutely tragic—people dying at or near the park, people getting cancer—to things that are commonplace or even silly.”
The origins of such superstitions are hazy. Many psychologists think that finding reason for adversity gives us greater feelings of control over our lives. Thompson notes that phenomena like these often occur in places that had or have a strong Native American presence. “Perhaps people are wrestling with or trying to understand their relationship to the land,” he says.
The catch is that the wood can never actually be returned, because rangers are unable to verify its exact origins. Instead, it is placed atop the park’s “conscience pile” on a private service road.
Recently, I found myself making the same trip before moving abroad. Once again I stopped at the Petrified Forest, this time to return the stolen property. Moving halfway across the world was going to be difficult enough, and I didn’t want any bad luck coming with me. Perhaps the petrified wood had nothing to do with my bad luck, but it felt good to have it off my hands and closer to where it belonged.
摘自《KINFOLK》NO.28
