Howling and the Moon (15)

The Coachella Valley Preserve usually closes at 5pm, but today we have special dispensation, can ignore the warnings posted in the parking lot. Already on my drive in I am lit up by the desert, driving the curving road to the preserve, watching the desert spread out in all directions, mountains near, the last light of the sun sending golds and oranges and long shadows stretching across its expanse. We gather near the visitor center, an eclectic group, some longtime locals and some visitors, mostly older but sporting a thirty-something or two and a not-yet-adolescent boy with a walking stick who knows much more than I do about the desert and its critters. Mark is here--he is co-leading the walk--and he introduces me to his companion, James. Ginny, the woman who runs the preserve, embarrasses him in a happy way with her glowing introduction. ("He knows a lot.") She gathers us under the fan palms and begins talking about where we are. I am struck by her vigor and her firmness of spirit. (Later I tell Mark she strikes me as someone who is really clear about what she likes and doesn't like. I envy that in people. So little strikes me as clear cut.) She is wearing a short-sleeved blouse and these very cool removable sleeves on her arms. She explains the oasis is caused by the water in the ground butting up against the San Andreas fault which runs directly through the grove we are standing in. She points out the call of a cactus wren coming from one of the palms. I am happy, thinking of the one we saw last time I was here, my first sighting. Then we spy two nearby, bathing in the dust in the middle of the trail. The sun has set but there is still enough light for me to watch them with my binoculars. It is serious business, ridding themselves of mites and the like, but it looks like play to me. I am watching, charmed, while Ginny goes back to talking, and I spot a quail crossing the trail. Then it is the whole covey, and I burst into her talk to tell everyone, but I am embarrassed. The covey crosses the trail two or three times, a treat to see them all together and on the move. Perhaps they spark our own departure.

We head north through the shrouded weaving bridges and I cringe at the thought of having to return this way in the dark. I am afraid of what lies unseen. I send up my prayers for the 19 of us and all the desert creatures. May we all be safe one from another. After the bridges, the trail is sandy and my new fun Mary Jane trekkers do not keep it out. Still, I am glad my toes are covered. We walk north, and I check the eastern horizon again and again as the dusk deepens. I am looking for the moon. Later someone spots the glow where it is about to rise, and we all stop to watch. It is otherworldly. We see it all from the first bright glimmering sickle to the big round orange globe balanced just above the edge of our world. It happens in moments and yet the intensity of it is like a film in slow motion, or a news feed coming from another planet, with pauses in between, room for awe. It is extraordinary. I forget to breathe.

We go on, past Barney and Angelica's place, and I am pleased to hear Ginny say they are good neighbors, as though this rubs off on me in some way because I know them. Venus is brilliant in the west, hanging just above the western ridge. We get to the pond, and I am relieved when we head to the west of it instead of looping around to the right. I am afraid to be among all the growth and hanging things in the dark. Ginny has an odd little light and shines it along the trail edges, hunting for something. She finds it and gathers us around. It is a black light she holds, and her find is phosphorescent beneath it, like the little creepy crawly glow-in-the-dark creatures I made when I was six with my Thing Maker. It is a scorpion. People take pictures of it. I refrain. We move on and Ginny continues to hunt, finds two or maybe three more for our perusal. I lose track of how many scorpions she shows us because it is wigging me out. They are everywhere. She leads us off the trail into the sand dunes, something we can only do because she is with us. I never veer off the trail in the daylight, am battling my fear hard now, shrubbery everywhere, people tripping over bushes or clumps of dried twigs. "This isn't my cup of tea," I say, make jokes about turning around now. I am fighting fear but there is truth in my teasing. Now Ginny shows us tracks in the even softer sand of the dunes. There are big, pronged raven tracks. I like seeing those. There are some for a snake that mostly swims under the sand. I find a space for myself between bushes and look at the desert spread out below us, lit by the moon. I am glad I came. Later, there are the tracks of a sidewinder. Ah. I am relieved to return to the trail.

The moon is high in the sky now, almost white again, and the trail is wide and open and lighted. My breath is easier. The mountains are grooved and the moon casts deep shadows along their flanks. It is truly like another world, this desert moonscape. I feel the soft sand give beneath each step. My legs are getting tired, and my trekkers are swimming in sand, but I am not uncomfortable. I drink water, try to take a picture of the moon. I am in no hurry for our time out here to be over, but we are heading back now. We hear coyotes calling from the other side of the wash, a long stone's throw from us. I am glad I am not alone. I know every sound, every shadow would become a coyote. But I am not afraid, not with everyone chatting around me in the moonlit dark. I love coyotes. I stand still and relish their calls. They are the finishing touch to our visit to this other land, their voices familiar and eerie, a discovered species--we are the aliens here. They fall silent, and our long line wends its way toward our beginning. The moon and the stars and the coyotes study us as we make our way back along the trail. Soon the shining desert night will be wholly theirs.

Celebrating the Sun God (14)

I have said for years I wanted to begin observing the eight main pagan holidays. And for years I have mostly given them a nod, maybe lit a candle, said a few words. I liked the idea of them, what little I knew, of the marking of the year, in their ties to the earth, to the seasons, to the turning of our world. But I didn’t do them justice. A year or two ago I realized if I wanted to make them "real" holidays, I needed to take off work. I wrestled with that before I managed to scoff my way past my initial dismay. "You've got to be kidding me," I said to myself. "You can't take off eight days in the whole damn year?" My laugh was harsh, unkind. Maybe that's why it took me so long to get here, to be ready to truly observe them. Maybe I had to move past that meanness.

Yesterday was the summer solstice. Last week I googled "summer solstice" and “ritual,” picked and chose a few tidbits, ideas for my altar, smatterings of lore. One site suggested tying fresh herbs in a bit of cloth, putting in your challenges, burying it in the earth to release them. They called for yellow candles. I found one on an early morning run to Ralph's for goat milk. Honeysuckle. Yellow, for the sun god. How perfect, I thought. It is my goal to embrace the heat this summer, so it seemed right to be honoring the god of the sun. I picked three stems of pennyroyal from my vegetable garden, pinched three sprigs of lavender from my desert plot, and three fresh green tips of the basil my Tante Helga brought me from its spot outside the gate, protecting our home. I layered them in a neat pile in sets of threes, basil-pennyroyal-lavender, wrapped them in a scrap of maroon cloth I had tucked in my arts box and tied the little bundle with a matching ribbon leftover from my birthday. Then I wrinkled it up and inhaled. It smelled sharp, pungent, like the damp earth I would bury it in. I imagined all my old anger, fear, shame, regret, self-loathing, tied up in the scented cloth. The cotton was soft against my nose.

It was an echo of the early morning hours. I had looked it up last week, knew the sun's transit into Cancer happened here at 4:29am. I had no plans to be awake for it, would do what I would do later in the day. The stray tomcat woke me, though, his croaky chorus only feet away from me outside the screen door. I greeted him, shushed him, rolled over on my stomach. My thoughts drifted in that hazy, dreamy place between sleep and wakefulness. I remembered something I was ashamed of doing years ago. I remembered it was the solstice, a time for the shedding of things, thought of letting it go. I already can't reach back to describe what happened even though it was only yesterday morning. It had the soft edges and floating nature of a dream, but I was awake and engaged. I felt things leaving my body, clearing out old pockets, old energy I insist on holding. I imagined it returning to the earth, turning into good things like tulips and sunflowers and fuyu persimmon trees. I lay still for a long time, drifting in and out, but I have no doubt it was real.

In the late morning I gathered the rest of the things to make my altar in our courtyard. I let the wire birds from Mami and the reindeer candle holder from Colleen remain in their places on the table, let them begin the collection. I picked a vivid red hibiscus, a stem of the magenta bougainvillea, some tecoma and a sunflower.

I had the raven join us and the restored red wooden angel with her metal horse. I added a cucumber and tomatoes from our garden and a peach from Trader Joe's. They said to eat fruit after the ritual for the sweetness of summer. I crinkled the cloth bag now and then, breathed it in, remembered the magic of those dawn hours. In the afternoon I lit the yellow candle. I shook my rattles. I dug a small hole with my spade and buried the bag of fresh herbs in the moist earth among the new little blue flowers and the marigolds. I patted the dirt down over it. I said goodbye, gave thanks. I moved a smooth brown river rock above its spot. I had dirt on my fingers, under my nails. I let the yellow candle burn. I could see it flickering through the screen door when I turned over in the night. I ate the peach this morning standing over the kitchen sink. It was sweet, juicy, perfect. I ate the tomatoes in my salad late this afternoon. I am alive with the fruit of the sun.

Whitewater Revisited (13)

It was my second visit to Whitewater, but my first guided bird walk there. Mark, the man who led the walk at the Coachella Valley Preserve, was standing alone in the parking lot. I was not late this time. I laughed. "What,” I said, “are you the only man in the entire valley who leads bird walks?" I think I embarrassed him. Thinking back, there was something presumptuous about my approach. It was without softness. Plus, I was wrong. He was attending the walk, not leading it. I was cold, borrowed a bright pink shawl from lost and found. Our guide was Nick, a young man who had been working at the preserve since soon after it opened a little over two years ago. He was soft spoken and gentle and knew of what he spoke. He led us into a part of the preserve the public wasn't allowed to wander in by themselves, a special treat, I thought. He was grounded in his knowledge, not boastful. He didn't tell us book learning. He told us where he tended to see the birds, what they were doing, named the trees they'd often sit in. It was his own knowing gathered there over time. I think the five of us on the walk all felt lucky in him.

I knew the least, felt silly a time of two, asking the obvious. But everyone was kind, patient. I saw four birds for the first time: the summer tanager, the ash-coated fly catcher, the California thrasher and the song sparrow. Even better, I believe I learned the song sparrow's call, thanks to Nick, but time will tell. We mostly heard house finches, but I can never get tired of their songs. We heard ravens calling from a distance. We saw finches and starlings, mallards and hummingbirds and towhees. After, Mark and I walked up a ways on the lands open to the public and stumbled upon a family of American kestrels. Ah, what a treat. I saw the mother flying with one of the young ones, only for a moment. I've seen this before, had my suspicions it was a parent and child, never been sure. Then we got to watch the small ones for quite some time. It was pure sweetness, their little painted bodies perched in the bare branches of big trees across a meadow. And watching those feathery adolescents together was a good start to our own fledgling friendship, I think. I am grateful for both.

[Editor's note: Here is an image of an American kestrel for your pleasure. Now I want to get a camera with a telescopic lens. This has always been a dream of mine, getting to zoom in sharp and crisp on a little life in the distance, see the wind ruffling fur or feathers. A woman on this walk had a 500-times magnification, if I understood her right. I almost can't imagine it. But even as I write this I think this may not be right. I'll have to investigate.]

Big Morongo Canyon Preserve (12)

Like another world, even in summer. Stopping to study the kiosk, outlines of birds of prey on floor and walls, coded to match up flight outlines, names--ingenious, quaint, giving knowledge. A family ahead of me, disappearing down the raised walkway. Then there is no one but me. Lush, green, quiet. Stark brown hills nearby sharp against the blue, so different from the greens surrounding me. A butterfly garden with all the plants labeled. More sweetness, another offering. So silent. Little benches tucked away, generous, beckoning. I am afraid to sit, afraid of what might come to me from below the jungle walkway. Smiling at myself, but staying upright. Meandering more than walking, like swimming a soft breast stroke in a quiet stream. No destination. Birds calling, unseen. Big white flowers everywhere, reminding me of calla lilies. Later, a bench I deem safe, a rest. Water beneath you in other seasons. I am eager for it.

Yerba mansa

The House on the Hill (11)

I drove to 29 Palms to get the lay of the land, to see what lies between us. There are odd little homestead places for sale there and throughout the valleys between mine and theirs. I am intrigued, off into dreaming a bit. I wanted to know what the land looked like, what the towns felt like, get an overview, a map in my body. I didn't see much of a town in 29 Palms, but I have to say I like the name of it. (My number is 29.) I drove up into their southern hills (my northern range, I am guessing), criss-crossed through neighborhoods. The view is striking because it goes on forever, hills and desert as far as you can see to the north and east.

I was struck by a house on a corner, wanted it immediately. It wasn't for sale but didn't need to be for dreaming. (I am a romantic.) I could see myself living there, planting palos verdes and bougainvillea, building a little patio for my misters, soaking up the view. I stopped to photograph her. The air was hot and dry; no breeze stirred the few bushes planted on that street. The silence was extraordinary. I caught the street signs; the house was on the corner of Twilight and North Star. Talk about romantic. My eyes were pulled back to the north and the east again and again. I can't remember being able to see so far. The view entices travel, begs you to explore the unimaginable distance, to find the edge of the earth. And the quiet feeds a craving deep within.

I could imagine living there with that view and that silence. I would have to plant trees, though, make my garden lush. I needed more than the oleander someone had planted by the porch. Still, I was reluctant to leave "my" corner, but I could imagine someone inside the house wondering what this odd woman thought she was doing in their (almost) front yard. So I headed downhill, saw a cluster of trees in the distance, crossed the highway to find out what they signaled. It was a big green park, so surprising. But the best part were the grackles hopping about, making their marvelous grackle noises. If I lived on the corner of North Star and Twilight, it would be a straight shot, a few blocks downhill to the park. I would come to luxuriate in green and shade. I would visit the grackles.

[Editor's note: I got a small sense of the other towns along the way, too--Joshua Tree, Yucca Valley, Morongo Valley--but I didn't stop to explore them. I'll leave my initial findings about them for another day when I return to get a real feeling for these places. I plan to let them still count as "new" things.]

No Poet (10)

I am not a poet, but when I saw there was going to be a poetry workshop at the city library I decided I would try to get myself there, take advantage of another new thing, maybe get to meet other writers, stretch myself in the poetry department. I've always thought poetry was something I should love to read and write, the essence of playing with words, of being present, making something beautiful or powerful or both. But I tend to be a prose gal, even if my desire is often to write sentence fragments. When the workshop instructor asked us what came to mind when we thought of poetry, the first thing I thought of was not having to write in complete sentences. Poetic, hmm? Second was the immediacy of a poem. When I opened my notebook I found two 3 by 5 notecards with the answers she was looking for written on them. They must be from Richard, the only poet friend I have seen since I started this task at my birthday, when I began this notebook for my 52 things. He must have given these cards to me when we went to the cooking demonstration, but I'd completely forgotten tucking them away in the book. I was flabbergasted to have them appear like magic when the instructor asked us what poetry was, these beautiful quotes about what poetry can be. Looking back on it now I think Richard must have been involved, or angels, or both. But what a sweet thing.

Only two of us arrived for the workshop, and I admit I was disappointed. I had hoped for the charge of a room full of writers, and for that thing that happens when you write in a room together, hearing other pens moving across the page, like the difference between meditating alone or in a group. But two of us meant we wrote more, read more, and that can only be good. I have judgments about the instructor, but I'm not sorry I went. Not at all. I thought she didn't seem relaxed, thought she didn't seem connected to the "lecture" parts she presented, and they lacked meaning for me because of that. After I read what I'd written she said, "That's really good," in a high-pitched voice, and it rubbed me the wrong way. She sounded surprised, too, and I didn't like that either. I understood in my gut why praising people is not the best approach, why I learned to reach for specific, positive truths instead of the more traditional, "Good job." (Although I admit to using both "Good job" and "Good work" in my own comments to students in addition to pointing out specific things I think they are doing well in their writing.) There was something about her (that high note in her voice?) that didn't feel genuine to me, but I can argue she may have only been nervous and not able to be completely comfortable, completely herself. She teaches English full time at the community college, said she is doing these kinds of events two and three times a week. I can't imagine how she does that. She must not sleep.

I liked that she brought photos and I liked that she began with an exercise where the beginnings of each line of the poem were crafted for us (i.e. "I am sad when . . ."). I like that I wrote so much I felt tired by the end. Ah, but I just realized that was kind of odd. Why was I not stimulated and spurred on by the writing? Is it because there were only two of us participating? I felt used up at the end. But I felt like I'd gotten a good work out, so I appreciate that. And though I would have liked to have been asked to write more poetry instead of prose (since it was supposed to be a poetry workshop and I wanted to stretch, expand my perimeters), I was happy to find myself able to enter into my writing and be part of the magic, to have things come to me there, fall on the page. The young woman who was writing with me had a line I thought was exquisite. In that first activity (where the beginning of each line of the poem was provided) we were told to write in the first person as the desert and she wrote, "I pretend to be the sea." I love that. I savor it. My own favorite line from that exercise was, "I cry when the coyote dies of thirst." I guess it makes sense that later, when we were given a map from our local wilderness and told to choose one of the names and write a short narrative, I chose a place called "Coyote Dry Lake," though I didn't track the connection at the time. This is what came.

I've never understood why they named this place Coyote Dry Lake. It seems to me if it was already dry when they named it, then it wasn't a lake. I think it must have had water in it once. I feel the memory of water here, especially at dusk. They say the ghosts of animals who lived by the lake come to its edges at twilight, but I don't see them. I believe they come, though. It makes sense to me. They say an angel named the place because from the heavens you can see the shape of a coyote in the sand. They say the coyote god came here at the end of a long, dry journey and drank the lake one evening, then curled up in the dry lake bed at dusk. I guess this last would explain its name after all. It was a lake and then it wasn't. Then it was the belly and the bed of the coyote, sleeping in the dry darkness.

Whitewater Preserve (9)

My new things got me here on a Saturday morning, that goal and the offer of an "interpretive nature hike." I am liking this, enjoying how my "need" to do new things is paying off so soon. 

I am hopeful in the fall it will call me away from my work, help me be healthier in that way. I am late for the walk by a minute or two. There is a big group and we each sign in. The guide is warm, his voice resonant, and I like the way he makes a point of stopping along the way to tell the whole group in a booming voice what he has to say. It is the story of the aquifer and the happy news the water level is rising; restoration is working. This preserve is a wildlife corridor. Things are coming back into balance. It is good to know, levels out some of the horror. I walk at the back, thirty or more people before me, a long snake through the winding path through the canyon.

The creek is alive and crisp, clear. There are two charming little footbridges, and flowers growing in the water, their tiny blossoms covering the surface where they fall. I peek at them through the wooden slats, a floating bed of lavender. After less than half a mile the guide tells us this is the turnaround spot, so most of us continue on without him. We spread out little by little, and then I am walking alone. I stay on the original trail and head north through the canyon floor. The air is clear, the rocky walls sharp, the snow on Mt. San Jacinto and San Gorgonio framing my view.

I don't have enough water for a long hike, so I take small sips, make it last. I hear soft noises and look around for the raven. One is flying near me, taking slow glides. He is making that sound I think of as their affectionate voice, all round edges, so different from their loud caws. He flies with me for a long time, and I think he is watching over me, keeping me company. My sandals crunch in the white rocky sand and the wind rustles the bushes. I can hear the stream from somewhere on the other side of the canyon floor. The sun is hot. It would be stupid to keep walking without water, so I turn back, take more small sips. 

I chat with a man and woman along the path. I enjoy the warmth of the encounter, ponder the dynamics of their relationship. I dangle my feet in the rocky pool near the parking lot where kids are wading in the cold mountain water. I drink water in the office, talk to a second couple there. The man has a sly smile that confuses me. He has traveled in Mexico. His smile says he has a secret, but I think I am misreading him. They have walked in from where the creek meets the road. They are going to the casino in Palm Springs for a special price on the buffet. People come to the counter asking for free fish food to feed the trout. The man working there shows us a photo on a cell phone of a baby screech owl they rescued today. This evening they’ll return him to the nest in one of the rock faces. I ask if they are keeping him in a dark corner somewhere until then. By the trout pond I see a man with a big blue and yellow bird on his shoulder, and I go to meet him. The man tells me he is a blue and gold macaw. He sits on my hand and drinks water from the plastic cup I got at the office. His feet are strong but he is soft and gentle with my skin. I am startled for a moment when he goes toward my hand. He dries his beak on my finger, and I am charmed. It's a happy morning.

[Editor's note: Here is a link to see a photo of the kind of macaw I met at the trout pond. He was a beauty, very like this guy.]

The Salton Sea (8)

The day is tied to my longing for Mexico. I hope to be immersed in all things mexicano, though I can't say why. I meander along Highway 111 making note of what I travel through for the first time after Palm Desert, of the way these southern mountains I love so much change shape, come forward and retreat as the road winds along. I pass Indio, leave “city” behind, begin to relax. I pass open fields, fallow and planted. I see rural businesses, rusty signs in Spanish. I wonder what makes the air still say United States. Is it the paved road itself, the shape of the electric poles and lines? Or is it some internal knowing that changes the landscape when we cross a border? I pass rows and rows of palms, baffled. Why would so many palms be planted so close together? Ah, date farms. I lick my lips, thinking of their future fruit, enjoy their solid, happy presence. I drive south and the mountains to the right come with me.

I get off the highway at Desert Shores, drive through empty roads. The air is hot, still, and then I hear grackles calling through my open windows. I am taken back to my first morning on the Mexican mainland after crossing from La Paz on the ferry. I was driving south, too, and the first time I stopped after a toll and emerged from the car, the trees were filled with grackles. I didn't know who they were then, only heard their loud exotic voices in the trees. They marked my transition from the Baja peninsula, told my body I was in a foreign land. And I fell in love with them. When I hear them in this different world, I am washed in memory, in an ache that sits just off my center. I drive to the end of the road and see a lot for sale that sits on the edge of the Salton Sea. If you built there you'd have the sea on one side and the mountains on the other. I can picture living there, but now there are flies coming into my car. They make me wonder. (Do they go away when the real heat comes? I'd have to have a big screened-in porch, I think, and then there is the worry about the saving of the Salton Sea itself.) Someone has built a blue house next door that looks like it belongs on the east coast, Newport, maybe, two stories with flower pots crowded on both decks, homey.

I go back to the highway, escape the flies, keep heading south. I wasn't sure if I would circle the lake or not but it now seems as though I will. I see signs for Mexico. I will be 40 miles from the border, realize I'd be tempted to keep going if I had my passport with me. I notice the hills leave at some point and the desert is too bright for my unsunglassed eyes. It tires me. But when I turn east to reach the Sonny Bono Wildlife Refuge, there are planted fields, the green a relief. And there are red-winged blackbirds flitting here and there in among the growing things. I remember falling in love with their odd sounds and their bright reddish orange flashing shoulders when I lived in Cotati and walked out past the old Hewlitt Packard place where the city left off and the open spaces began. They would congregate in the evenings, calling to each other among the swaying grasses.

I pull in to the refuge and I am the only one here. There are no cars, no people, only the sign and the wind in the trees. It is almost eery, like an old Twilight Zone episode I will always remember, where one man survived and was so glad he had the library, endless books and endless time to enjoy them. And then he breaks his glasses. I have always hated cruel tragedy. But I shrug away the wrenching ending of the TV episode and the odd surprise of being the only human there and take the Rock Hill Trail out to the edge of the Salton Sea. There are cottontails everywhere, and wind and sun and palo verdes still in bloom, and then closer to the water there are huge numbers of birds, even this late in May. I watch a pelican glide, think of Todos Santos and the huge flocks of them along my stretch of ocean there, and there is a gull who scares me. He takes me by surprise more than once, screeching in a loud voice from very near me, diving and scolding me, it seems. There are tiny nursery islands they have made to help the migrating birds raise their young away from predators. Maybe he is telling me to go away, to leave them in peace. Maybe he believes I am a threat to his babies. Maybe he is a she.

The wind tries to steal my hat. The waves are strong, their loud rhythm welcome and unexpected. It is a real sea, and I am standing beside it in the middle of the desert. I marvel, wander, watch, listen, breath it in. My walk back is quiet. I take a peace back with me from the edge of the sea. I have been here for almost two hours and have not seen or heard another human, no car, nothing. My own little red car is waiting for me, alone in the parking area. It still feels odd but not eery. I drive away, head north now up the east side of the lake. I stop at the waterfowl viewing area, and it is deserted, too. But I see a canal and a dirt path that follows it to the sea. I will come back here. I stop again at the "town" of North Shore. Riverside County has built a beautiful "yacht club" and community center at the side of the sea. It is contemporary and landscaped and another surprise in a spot where Gertrude Stein would say there is no "there" there.

I am tired now but I enjoy the rest of the drive along the eastern edge of the lake. I can see the mountains, hazy on the western side. The view with the water between us reminds me of my balcony view in Ajijic, looking across Lake Chapala to my favorite extinct volcano. I keep heading north, and a Southern Pacific train is heading south. I am sandwiched between the lake and the slow moving train, and while the long train stays with us it seems as though there is no one else in the world, only me and the conductor. When I drive through Indio there is a small demonstration there against the Arizona anti-immigration law. I am stopped at a red light. I wave my fist, smiling through the open window. Yes! Yes! You go! People are honking, supporting their efforts. A woman sees me and smiles back. I am glad, connected. I have good chills when the light turns green and we all drive on. I have been gone for almost eight hours, driving for about six of them. I am tired but satisfied. I have the lake and its surroundings imprinted on me. I will not lose this sense of it, of how it sits in the world, or where it falls in relationship to where I live, what lives between me and the Salton Sea. I arrive home just after the sun has gone behind our mountain, and it feels good to be back near it again, to return to our protected niche where the mountains curve and cradle us. I am glad I went. I am glad I'm home.