fireside
People always say the Earth is a mother, but in the desert the mountains’ brown knuckles are a father’s hands folded quietly in his lap at the fireside, his head disappearing into the rolling clouds high above. Its a terribly free place. It’s beauty is so glistening and dusty and crisp and very much its own. Gracie kept saying how big the sky was, and the Joshua Trees took bows along the roadside.
If there were enough mushrooms in the world, we would never have left the purple Mojave Desert at all. We roamed away from the grating generator hums, flashing lights and obtrusive music to to the top of the highest mountain. We scaled the crags like children and we knew our muscles and ankles had grown weak from living in the city. It was stifling us, the wild children, and we had to get out. Overlooking an endless valley in the night, we swore to move out to the desert. We danced like eagles and tasted the earth, the twigs, the rocks. We ran and sang songs in languages we didn’t know and Grace was so free. She was a wide-eyed child full of wonder at it all. I lost a pack of cigarettes up there somewhere and she broke my bottle of whiskey on the rocks.
The night ran away somehow and I watched the slow, slow dawn, standing with a Native American blanket wrapped around me. I didn’t need to eat or sleep or drink, and I was full. Nothing was missing, except you. So I declared my love for you, a love I pray to whatever gods exist that I will never lose. I prayed to be able to show you – just you – what it is to be loved. I wished you were there. I waited for the sun. I waited for it all night. It glowed like heaven on fire in the clouds and when it finally showed itself my heart rang and sang for joy. I waited all night. It was perfect. I prayed that this love, this goodness, this fullness and completeness, need-nothingness would find you and reach you and touch you somehow. “Here Comes The Sun” and “Good Day Sunshine” came on and I knew then that you were there, laughing in the white dawn with me.
I sang you a song into the sunrise. I sang it twice. I sang “Just The Way You Are” because that’s how I love you. Except I left out the bridge because I require nothing of you. I had been there for hours, and Grace had come to visit some. She hugged me. As she walked away I ran after her and kissed her on the cheek.
I could finally tear myself away and then I climbed the highest rock I could find, right out over the middle of it all, and I stood like a stag and watched the rising sun make his climb. I faced the wind and let it make me strong. This is what I realized and all the questions disappeared: I am proud and strong, like the sun. I am free and nameless like the wind. That’s what I really am. That’s all I am and all I ever want to be. Free. I am. Strong. Proud. Nameless and Beautiful.
My life is a joke because here’s the thing: all the people worth holding can’t be held. I sand “Catch The Wind” up there on that rock, proud like a stag. It was my morning. Mine. This is also what I realized, because you are so insatiable and always will be. Someday when you’ve gone and done it all and you’re wondering what else there is to do, and you’re trying to remember a time when you were happy, you will think of me. And you’ll come back. And if you could think of me one day and remember what it is to be satiated, even for just a moment, I have done something amazing and it will all have been perfect. I’ll have given you the best gift. Ben said that one of the best gifts we can give to others is to help them see themselves. You. See you? I do.
That white dawn lives inside me now, deep, deep inside, where it is always cracking open and so bright. And so complete. Completely complete. And I said to my self “Don’t forget this.” And I won’t. Because its mine. All of it. The whole thing. I am strong and proud and free and nameless and beautiful and that’s what I really am. You should have been there, you would have been so proud. I would have made you feel the wind and let it make you strong. I will one day.
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