I am in the desert again. After reupholstering the car seats in heavy leather-like vinyl to match the leather trim that could be saved, saying to myself, Well, I'll never be in the desert again. Wrong.
There is a beauty to the desert. It can show itself as barren, as wild, as lifeless, as sly and hidden, depending on the time and place. It can be flat floor or high chaparral. And there really is life, though sly and hidden at times.
But it doesn't feed my soul.
But in the desert am I, and at least I have some of the things that make it bearable: a mesa rises across the street, exposing its layers of formation, and rabbits and road runners and qual - while not plentiful - make the occasional appearance to remind me there is still native life here. There is also the occasional coyote sighting, along with the more frequent evening yips and howls in the air.
I constantly feel I am only conditionally here, conditionally welcome, conditionally safe. If I knew more about the conditions, I could meet them and be done with it, and feel this is my home rather than a temporary wayside on my way to the side of something else.
The weather is perfection right now, 60's and occasional 70's; March is a blustery month with high winds through the channel of mountains - not quite a valley - broken locally by the mesa.
When the true warm weather comes, it can be a nourishing, cleansing, healing warmth that pervades the entire body through and through. And yet - I hold myself back. Something holds me back. I am here...conditionally, and something doesn't quite let me relax in this pool of heat that has been here before and is coming again.
It's a kind of suburbia here, I think most of us live in this neighborhood because we value our peace, the quiet, the way we can weve to each other on the way in and out without the need for more extensive engagement. When the drunk hit the telephone pole that crashed into our neighbors car, we are there to find what may be needed, to provide a vehicle description, to cover the broken window in case of rain; but we won't be within shaking hands distance again until another event calls for it.
A brief walk to the corner and the sidewalk ends, and the mesa with its surrounding undeveloped land beckons one to a brief hike - down to the left and you might walk to the next collector street, where a fast food place and post office can be found; up the hill and the "valley" is spread out, with the entire Las Vegas Strip laid out (the fireworks on New Years and July 4th are spectacular); way around to the right you can follow a pocket of land that might some day be turned into residential some day, depending on the housing market.
But for now: drive ten minutes to the BLM areas and hike into the "wasteland" that is the desert; drive 45 minutes up into the lush pine forests of Mt. Charleston; or walk through the alternating developed/undeveloped sections under a bright sun in cool air, while the cool air is still there...
Provisionally. That's the word I've been looking for. Enjoy it...provisionally. It feels...unsure.
And either I will be here in the desert for a while, or I will not. If I knew what it is that makes it provisional, I would know how long I might be here. Alas, all I can say is that I am in the desert for now.
And I hope to learn to enjoy it while I am here - until I am not - and then I will see about enjoying where I next find myself.
I place near the ocean, perhaps.