quesarah | Fish Gotta Swim

I spent the night Friday in Borrego Springs, at a trail head in Yaqui Pass. I shut off my car, pulled my sleeping bag around me and watched the stars slowly wheel across the sky -- two falling, one shooting. I made the same wish three times, the same careful cautious wish. I haven’t seen that many stars in a long time, I haven’t heard that fierce a wind. I locked my doors, stared wide-eyed out the windshield.

I dozed off until the moon rose and woke me, its brilliant light casting long shadows on the desert floor. I could see the brush swaying and rippling in the wind, the face of the mountain softly sketched in the half-light. Orion had given way to Casseiopeia, her throne twinkling regally on the horizon. I slept again, this time with dreams set to the soundtrack of the wind’s coarse song.

I started the drive back just as a corner of the eastern sky lightened, intending to let the sunrise chase me west, back over the mountains. I drove back along those winding turns, the kind of turns with the most geometrically interesting road signs, the kind where you see oncoming traffic alongside you before you see it approach you. Zen turns, the kind of turns that leave no room for any thought except the present, except downshift, hard turn left, tap the brakes, hard turn right, tap the gas.

It’s been too long since I’ve seen the mist rising off a valley floor at dawn, too long since I’ve seen horses grazing their breakfast, necks bowed, manes illuminated by the sleepy first light of morning.

The odometer read just about 60 miles when I set out Saturday morning. Sixty miles from the gas station at the foot of my road, 60 miles to find a few moments to feed my soul. I think I need to go back during the day, I think I need to bring lunch and let the mountains know it wasn’t just a midnight tryst. It was the start of something beautiful.