When I was about three or maybe four, my Uncle Francis on some sort of leave from the state mental hospital,  visited our farm in upstate Pennsylvania and brought me a book that weighed almost as much as I did.  It was a large, coffee-table book, dusky aqua/gray with no words on the front, but gold imprints on the binding.  I think it might have originally had a paper cover, but that was long gone.  The book was a scholarly one about the American Desert, and while my sweet but definitely crazy uncle didn’t know how to pick out books for children who were just learning to read, he gave me a gift that has resonated through my life.

I had taught myself to read, unbeknownst to my parents, by having Mom read stories or the Bible to me, and then after she wandered off to take care of life, I’d recall the words and look at them until I understood them.  So by three and a half I surprised my parents with starting to read everything.  When this book on the American Desert came as a gift I devoured it.  The words I could understand were like honey to me, but the pictures…ah, the pictures. 

There were two full page pictures in the center of the book. One was of the desert by day. I think it was low desert, part of the Chihuahua or Sonora landscapes.  It was full of desert color—golds, muted reds, desert purples and green. However there wasn’t an animal in sight!  The second color plate was the same scene, by night.  I remember turning the page for the first time and catching my breath.  It was black and white and grayscale, lit by moonlight.   The night scene was FULL of liveliness…mice, moths, a roadrunner, a tortoise, a snake or two, a wild pig, a coyote and a night blooming cereus.  I was thoroughly and completely smitten. Enchanted.  It was an instant sehnsucht*.  I looked at those two pictures for hours.  I thought about how anything can be too much…too much sun kept the critters in hiding.  And then I began to think about how to see things clearly and how difficult that is when there’s too much to see.  And then over time I  began to imagine what it would be like to experience these places and space for myself.  My family had never traveled out of the eastern corridor, but my soul was already headed west to the desert.

It took me until my early 20’s to get to the west for a visit, and until my mid 30’s to locate first in Colorado and then in Oregon. In the meantime, my step-daughter grew up outside Fort Huachuca in southern Arizona and visits there set my soul aflame. The mountains, the plants, the smell of the air were like ambrosia to me. My heart has never known anything but the west as its spiritual home.  Living from age 14 to 34 in south Florida, I grew to love that watery place and find the ocean a place of solace. But it’s too green, too lush, too much.

Give me a big sky, a big view, a few plants, some ancient, gnarly trees, some squirrely animals, a few rocks and a journal to write and draw in, and I’m happy as a pig in a waller.   I continue to be amazed and delighted by the diversity, the tenacity, the adaptability of the desert—its flora, fauna and landscapes. It’s just enough, and it always keeps me coming back for more. 

By the way, if you ever get a chance, visit the Desert Museum outside Tucson.  It and the desert that surrounds it are mecca sites for me.

I’m so grateful to my Uncle Francis who lived the tortured life of a brilliant schizophrenic, for giving me the best gift of my life—the ability to dream of a place where my heart could find space and solace.  And  I’m grateful to my parents for giving me the strength and courage to follow my heart, follow it to ‘enough’.  Here on the edge of the the high desert of Oregon, my heart sings at the spaces, the plants and trees, the song of the mountainous dry places.

When I saw Dave Bonta’s post this am on one of his wonderful blogs, via negativa about Chimonophile (someone who loves cold winters) and his riff on winter-as-desert, this post wanted to come out and play.   So there you have it.  

*From Wikipedia, C.S. Lewis called sehnsucht the "inconsolable longing in the human heart for we know not what."