Tunnels

Do you believe in previous lives? I believe in previous lives. I am sitting on the subway, the G train to be exact, which, commonly referred to as the short bus of subway lines, is moving slow enough through the bedrock of Brooklyn that I may watch the walls slide by. 

I am wondering if this rock is igneous or sedimentary or metamorphic. I am wondering if rivers and wind could have formed similar tunnels here over time or if they had to be made by man and his dynamite or Avatar the last Airbender. I am, once again, enthralled by rocks and don't know why.

I am regularly captivated by the idea of rocks and dirt and the earth. How old are they? How did they get here? What do they taste like? How fast are they disintegrating? Can I even chew it? What did they look like 1,000 years ago? Will my dentist understand? What will they look like 1,000 years from now? Etc. etc. My only explanation is that I used to be a geologist in a previous life, or I will become one in my next life. Geology Kiersten. It has a nice ring to it. Could be true. I hear she rocks. ha.

I discovered my sudden, unexplained, previously un-pursued, interest in geology this past summer while traveling to our National Parks. In Bryce Canyon, I asked why the lake that used to ripple over Utah caused the soil to turn orange. I also asked if orange soil could be the product of the fish eating a lot of orange plants...I know very little about geology. In Black Canyon of the Gunnison, I asked how the geologists began to discover that gorges are formed in violent episodes rather than gradually over time. I also asked the geologist why he became a geologist in the hopes of finding kinship. But he wasn't a geologist...this was his part time gig. Zero bond formed. At every park, I asked park employees two or more geology questions. I came away with some very nice rock trivia.

Now, in my plastic seat on my rattling train in my crowded city, I look at the ugliness of these rock tunnels and am again enthralled. I miss rocks. Perhaps I will get a pet rock.