The desert is so quiet, I can finally hear myself. The dome has returned to a part-time get away from a more populated area. When I lived in LA and came out here I was always delighted by the utter silence and darkness. Then I spent 5-6 years out here full-time and that solitude, silence and darkness became my baseline. Re-adjusting to human noise and capacity has not been easy, but luckily their is acoustic glass.
Somewhere around St. George, probably where the Mojave Desert reaches the furthest fingers of herself into Utah, the energy changes. Somewhere on the 15 going south all my energy came back to me. Driving across Nevada to glimmering Las Vegas was like skating on ice. If ice was a concrete road and the skates were high performance tires.
Then the last hours through a dark and smoky preserve. For the first time in my life as we entered the preserve, I felt fear. It had been months since I drove these roads, and the last time, driving like my regular bat out of hell until the bumper faceplanted a roadrunner just south of Kelso Dunes. The road looked more cracked and gnarled than I remembered, and for the first time in my life I though, I need to reduce my speed. Seriously, who am I becoming? Reducing my speed, feeling fear going into the desert on a dark and smoky night with surprise thunderstorms that might wash out the roads. Maybe it's just life experience.
There's another change in my energy too. That I have it. Since April, my energy has been net increasing. I have finally hit on the upward trajectory, net positive in health recovery, with two new cyborg knees! The feeling is amazing, the pleasure to be able to walk without fear of pain. I can even out hike my dogs!
I felt the recovery was going slow, and this annoyed me. Despite getting these gains at 7300 ft - it is notoriously more challenging to recovery or train at altitude. A weekend sip of 5000 air in Santa Fe resulted in my first 20k step day in years. Back here at almost sea level in the Mojave Desert, I spend my mornings doing hours of yard work at 90 degree heat (sweating profusely) but so energized, high off the oxygen I previously took for granted.
There's a reason Olympians train in Colorado Springs. You might think you suck there (at 7k+ elevation) but come down a few and the air and energy goes on and on and on. And with the utter darkness, where I can't even see my hand in front of my face in my bedroom, and the silence, not even a coyote howl, just Joe's rhythmic snoring, and Pebbles demure "ha-rumphr" at 3am interrupt my slumber.
It's good to be back here, to be present in the heat. Connect with the lush desert I have created with money and water and my hands. To see Mr. Roadrunner this morning in person, checking me out as if to ask, who is this human on my land? He was smaller in person than on the wildlife cam.
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