Desert Love

She had been driving for a couple of days, first through West Texas, now through the deserts of Arizona. She was surprised at her feelings for this dry arid country. She had experienced the beautiful snow-covered peaks of Colorado, the heavily pine-covered mountains of the Northwest, with its twists and turns, the quiet woodsy smells of the redwood forests, and the icy chill and crashing sounds of the Pacific Ocean, but this--this solitude and barren country was leaving its mark on her, in the deep places of her being. She hadn’t quite found the words yet to explain what she felt…it was a kind of groan, a pleasant ache that hurt so good.  It was like that unsatisfied moment, just before the release of orgasm.

Days later as she pondered feelings the desert made inside her, she was still left with mystery. What was it about this land that was so different? It was so barren, so stark, so harsh—yet it still caused her to feel deeper than anyplace else she had experienced.  The difference for her was like that of her love for the Virgin Mary and the Black Madonna, the bright sun and the mysterious light of the moon, the song of the mocking bird and the raucous call of the crow. It was as if the giant redwoods and the snow-covered peaks lifted her heart high to the sky, and the barren silence of the red rocks, the ocher and purple hills, and the scrubby gray-green of the bush pulled her down into the belly of Mother Earth.  One caused her to soar, the other planted her deep.

Both were beautiful, and both moved her, but the desert—this desert claimed her in a way nothing else had.  She was a daughter of this land, and she never knew it until now.