The snow covers the land in a thick white blanket with sunshine sparkling all over the mountains and trees. The sky is hard turquoise with soft clouds traveling over the new winter-land. For three days it snowed continuously. It reminds me of the deep heart of Navajoland near the Four-Corners, Arizona. This is the Escalante Desert around Cedar City, Utah, which is usually brown and thirsty. This past summer monsoon storms were disappointingly scarce compared to what I remember as a child when rain would turn streets into rivers around town.
I miss those times traveling around the Navajo Reservation in the dead of winter back when I was a tour guide. Driving across a white snow packed Monument Valley was sheer beauty and stark winter clouds cloaking mesas and red sandstone buttes. That was quiet heaven on Mother Earth. I miss the orange crimson sunsets flooding the snow-decked plateaus chocked with Juniper and Pinion. As I was traveling, my mind would drift in and out of reality because the beauty would carry me far away. It would take me to another time in the past when things were sacred and simple. It was a place free from pop-culture nonsense and mindless vanity to a real heartfelt existence of solitude and hardship. There was a time when struggling was the main line of work and labor and you really had to tow the line to survive but you could listen to the storytellers instead of televisions and radios.
Winter is a harsh season but well worth the endurance. I love it in the Colorado Plateau and Great Basin. Tonight, I am dreaming of the supernatural. Something roams those white hills in the night. I am writing this as long after that turquoise sky turned to night. It is starting to snow this evening and people travel through it on interstates, being careful not slide or wreck. We need the moisture very bad so it is the perfect trade-off. It is the time to thoroughly enjoy Cabin Fever, be with loved ones and dwell in the past.
I wish there was someone around tonight to tell my stories to. There’s no one around to share my tales of the past, of what happened so long ago. If you are patient with me, I have many many stories. A lot of them are not written. My stories are for skeptics and nonbelievers and they are unreal to believers. When I get old, my grandchildren will have the opportunity to hear the stories and I will hope they will pass them on down. My life is short but I am determined to make the most of it. The Creator has blessed me tremendously.
Thankyou, Heavenly Father, for the beauty in this world and for allowing me to see it and realize!
I love your description of the southwest – I spent a week down there a short while ago and have decided to move to the area when circumstances allow, for all the reasons you write here. There is a magic there that I’ve never sensed anywhere else – it is a potent land.
I love your second to final paragraph about your stories. Thank you for your gifts and your willingness to share your writing.
Its important to keep posting and transcending your art. Part of your art is to keep posting. You do touch many with photos, words, and the passion which comes through. My opinion.
Face the horizon and meet its silence.