Pat, my companion on this walk across the lake bed, prefers rock climbing, in which every move is an isolated act that absorbs the whole of his attention and seldom rises to a rhythm. It’s a difference of style that cuts deep in our lives: he is something of a Buddhist and conceives of spirituality as being conscious in the moment; while I am a sucker for symbolisms, interpretations, histories, and a Western kind of spirituality that is located less in the here than in the there.
