The Desert Speaks

Out in the desert, the spiny ocotillos shed their tiny leaves again and again as if choosing outfits for their first date. Mesquite trees stretch deep into the cool, dark earth for a drink, distractedly dropping screw bean pods across the desert sand.

A roadrunner flits across the road onto the impossibly green, manicured lawns of Palm Desert’s subdivisions. It is Thanksgiving Day. We simmer in the jacuzzi and marvel at the color of the sharp blue morning sky, at how our thin blood has thickened from four years on the high frosty Colorado plains. We met at a yard sale in the Sonoran desert. We were once year-round, flip-flop wearing desert rats clutching water bottles at our sides.

The coyotes move down into the valley for winter, and we eagerly await this evening’s swim for a chance to hear the yip-yip-yip of these desert rock stars. Adapt or die, suggests Darwin; and so the coyotes listened closely and took detailed notes. Poison me. Trap me. Shoot me. Build a condo through my dusty den. Toss in searing summer temperatures, a meager water supply, and vilify us for the death of your livestock. We will flourish on the earth in spite of it.

Across the hot tub sits the Engineer, a band of steam rising from his shoulders. I think of our unthinkable misfortune of the past few days and long to drown Fate in a blistering watery grave. But today’s serendipitous date – our 7-year New Zealand wedding anniversary - looks me squarely in the eye, a palpable and poetic reminder of my unearned good fortune.

That night, the self-possessed coyotes bark in the nearby culvert doling out free advice. The illuminated cross stands stubbornly on the mountain frowning down at me. The desert speaks through silence. Stars appear on the night's dark canvas and dutifully, I count my blessings one by one.