Alone in the Dark

Alone in the Dark.

The phrase has been bouncing around in my head for weeks.  I saw it on a sign and it just stuck in my head.  It seems especially appropriate right now as I stand on my porch smoking my favorite; Romeo y Julieta.  Alone.  Dark.  A bolt of lightning suddenly lights up the night and for a second it’s almost like daylight.  So it’s not completely dark.  I take another drag and pull my leather jacket close.  It’s starting to get cold but I don’t want to go inside.  Another flash of lightning lights up the world and I can see the shape of the clouds as they roll across the sky.  The storms here are different from what I’m used to, there’s no wind, no rain, just lightning and thunder.  And even though it feels chilly to me I know the temperature is pushing 70, 75 degrees Fahrenheit.  Still, I’ve managed to fall in love with this place.  It has a certain charm, the baked brown earth, the tall cacti, the lizards, spiders, scorpions and birds.  I moved here for school, to get an art degree, the ultimate “what-are-you-going-to-do-with-that?” degree.  The saguaros captured my artist’s heart, the rest of the place took the rest of me captive.  Now I’m here, alone in the dark.  No friends or lovers to speak of, at least not human ones, for the desert has become my lover, the flora and fauna, my friends.  Another serpentine stream of lightning separates the sky for a moment and the thunder growls along after it.  In that instant I can see some of the native inhabitants scurrying for cover in fear of the rain that will never come.  In many ways they are as alone as I am and as much in the dark.  One of my old friends used to joke that she always expected that some day I’d mysteriously disappear and become a wolf or a saguaro or something like that.  I’ve always thought it would be more likely for one of those things to become human because they seem so much more alive than some people I know.  And when I’m out in the middle of the desert I can feel a pulse thrumming through everything, a heartbeat of existence.   There is so much life out here.  I’m amazed by how much is out here and thriving in the seemingly dead desert.  I take another drag.  The lightning brings another flash of daylight and an empty threat of rain.

Alone.  But satisfied.  In the not-quite Dark.

Saguaros

It is summertime here in the desert.  The Saguaros are flourishing and there are various other small green things growing around on the ground.  The dust is blowing and obscuring surrounding areas.  But it is the Saguaros that capture my heart.  The Saguaros stand tall and proud and have so much character packed in their spiny arms.  The wind whips my loosened hair into my eyes and I brush it back and tuck it sloppily into my ponytail.  The sun touches the horizon and I look up from my sketchbook and wait for the sunset.  My bare feet rest underneath my knees warmed by the desert rock I sit Indian-style on.  A lizard scuttles past blithely unaware of the larger world around him.  I smile as he darts underneath the rock and then out into the desert.  A hawk cries lazily circling above me looking for something to dive onto and devour.  I smile as the sun sinks lower into the horizon.  The colors take my breath away; rich golds, bright pinks, deep purples, light yellows and the fiery dark orange of the sun, all on display for the world to see.  The Saguaros look even greener in this sunset light and I can really see the spikes jutting out from their trunks.  I sketch a few more quick studies and wait for the next phase of the sunset.  The second to last phase of the sunset the yellows and golds and pinks are pretty much gone, but the purples have deepened and are nearly black and they are joined by a dark, sapphire blue and a little jolt of gold from what’s left of the sun.  The Saguaros look nearly black at this point and I can only see the root of the spikes now so I sketch a few more studies and look up eagerly waiting for the sun to finally disappear below the horizon.  I look up to see if I can find the hawk but it appears that he found his dinner and ran.  The lizard is long gone but there is a lazy scorpion doing a scorpion dance in front of me and a sidewinder a few feet from the scorpion winding his way away to somewhere.  I hear an owl hoot in the distance and imagine that the sidewinder is putting a little bit of hast in his gitalong now even if the scorpion continues his dance.  I watch him a little longer to see how much closer he is going to get to my shoes before I have to shoo him away, but he doesn’t get any closer and I go back to watching the sun set.  It dips below the horizon shedding its last colors as I look up and watch the last jolt of gold disappear from sight and watch as the purple and blue blend into the black of night.  I make one last sketch of the Saguaros.  They look like forbidding sentinels now all dark and tall and arms outstretched towards the sky as if warning the traveler to back slowly away.  I tuck my loose hair into my ponytail yet again and slowly unfold my legs.  I set my sketchbook down next to me and bring my knees up under my chin adjusting myself for the best view of the stars coming out to play.  The air grows cold and I feel a few bats flitter by my head.  I close my eyes and breathe in that cool summer desert scent and smile.  The first stars begin to twinkle at each other and slowly they all come out for a game of “let’s see who can twinkle the most.”  I sit there for about another hour watching them in their slow dance across the sky and let my legs down onto the ground carefully.  I grab my flashlight and shine it down onto my shoes, carefully examining them for desert nightowls that may have crawled in their looking for a nice hidey-hole.  There isn’t anything there tonight so I slip them on and grab my sketchbook.  I walk slowly towards my Jeep, shining my little flashlight on the ground in front of me, carefully listening for any of the bigger night-time creatures that haunt this little piece of desert.  I climb into my Jeep and start it up carefully negotiating the terrain that leads back to the main road.  Eventually I find my way back in town and drive blissfully through its empty streets.  The streetlights and the lights shining from doorways add a mysterious air to the sleepy little desert town of Saguaros.