Actual memories are mostly traces not of past sensation but of past conceptualization.

We cannot rest with a running conceptualization of the unsullied stream of experience; what we need is a sullying of the stream.

Wilard Quine, Word And Object

Stories specialize in forging links between the exceptional and the ordinary. Stories achieve their meanings by explaining deviations from the ordinary in a comprehensible form.

Begin with the “ordinary,” what people take for granted about the behavior that is going on around them. In every culture, we take for granted that people behave in a manner appropriate to the setting in which they find themselves.

When people behave in ordinary ways, we do not ask why: the behavior is simply taken for granted as in need of no further explanation. Because it is ordinary, it is experienced as self-explanatory.

In contrast, when you encounter an exception to the ordinary, and ask somebody what is happening, the person you ask will virtually always tell a story that contains reasons.

The story, moreover, will almost invariably be an account of a possible world in which the encountered exception is somehow made to make sense or to have “meaning.”

Jerome Bruner, Acts Of Meaning

Water bubbles up from underground into clear spring pools as silvery blue and grayish green pupfish dart between swaying strands of algae.

Like charms on a bracelet, lush oases appear wherever the Amargosa surfaces. Surrounded by the rugged and searing Mojave Desert, these oases sustain a rich array of plants and animals found nowhere else on Earth.

Nature Conservancy

They are called pupfish because of their playful antics. These resilient fish have adapted to life in desert springs. Often called living fossils, pupfish have been around since mammoths roamed the area.

When the climate became warmer and drier, lakes and wetlands disappeared, leaving their ancestors isolated in separate bodies of water. Over time, these ancient fish evolved into different species.

Ash Meadows Interpretive Sign

Look up at tall saguaros. Holes in trunks were probably created by woodpeckers, though many kinds of birds, including tiny owl species, could be using them now.

Look for holes near the base of bushes and cacti. Many small creatures like rodents, spiders, ground-dwelling bees, and lizards live in holes like these. Underground homes are well-insulated, warm in winter and cool in summer.

Look at the base of the creosote bush. A packrat may be hiding in that untidy cluster of dead cactus joints called a midden.

Saguaro Interpretive Sign