6.2.97

Somewhere between Moab and Salt Lake

It's raining in the desert.

Not just normal rainfall, because it rains so rarely in the desert that when those drops begin to fall they come thundering down in golfball sized pellets that group into blackened, blinding sheets. You can watch the storm approaching from the distance over the red rocked expanse like wicked clouds dumping thick oil. It's frightening and exhilarating at the same time. The storms approach with blazing speed, and what you are watching from a distance one minute has imploded around you the very next. The drops hurt my face. Rollins seems pleasantly surprised though he shakes his nose in irritation at the pelting. I have never felt so far from home.

Yesterday we hiked up a little known stream outside of Moab Utah through a series of boxed canyons and burning sand. It was Dante and his girlfriend and other co-workers, all couples except me. It was a fevered day, and we doused the sharp sun in the cool stream. We ate garlic raw, drank whiskey and soaked in a small waterhole while watching Dante dance naked, scars and all, along the various jagged and rounded rock faces above us. Rollins slipped off the small cliff around the pool and discovered he could swim, though his furry mug still contorted in terror as I guided him to the shallows. It was a moment of peace in the midst of this crazy month.

Now, driving home, the storms come. It is so pathetically symbolic of the life I'm returning to you almost have to chuckle.

I've spent a lot of time in the deserts of Utah these past few weeks. It began unexpectedly with a call from Margaret at 3:30 am one night. She had convinced me to let her take care of Rollins rather than leaving him in the kennel while I continue the housing search. Reluctantly, with vivid visions of the huge Rottwieler snapping fingers off her 3 year old, I agreed and all was well but for one problem - he would not sleep at night without me. After three nights of incessant yapping at her front door she finally called me, exhausted, desperate for sleep, and I came and apologetically got him. But I had nowhere to go. Nowhere I could stay with him. I considered sneaking him into a hotel room and realized I had more time than money and headed west with nothing but a bottle of whiskey and a huge tin of dog food. Two hours later he and I were standing a couple of miles out in the middle of the Salt Flats, watching the sun creep over a jagged horizon 60 miles away. It was breathtaking. There was none of the usual high desert wind blowing. The perfectly flat sheet of salt extended before us for dozens of miles in every direction, broken only by the thin thread of highway we left two miles behind and the fragile creeping rays of dawn. Rollins sat next to me and leaned into my legs with all of his weight until I had to sit down and let him plop his tired head in my lap. I thought, We need to do more of this.

And, so we did. And now I'm driving back home to the new tiny apartment and the next chapter in my life. Everything will be different, and none of it is as it should be. And the rain is so thick I cannot see 15 feet in front of my windshield. Deep crevices in the ancient highway have instantly filled with water and my little car is violently yanked in unpredictable directions whenever my tires pass over them. I should slow down. I don't.

Rollins will be kenneled for the next few days, again, while Martina and I wrestle through the logistical nightmare of getting all of our belongings into the basement apartment we've rented and making it a home. All the while dealing with the rest. You understand. Details. The little things. Like rebuilding this shattered life. Like finding a place where the walls don't crush my lungs. Like picking through the scar tissue in my guts with a small fork until I destroy the past and make a tiny pocket that will hold enough to allow me to love again. You understand. The little things.

Yes, there is much that needs to be done in this blinding rain.

wwood