Pick a landscape and write about it for five minutes. Go.
The desert. Harsh, unforgiving sand scape forged in fire and time. Everything evolved under pressure. Everything trying to kill you. The harshest conditions imaginable. Shifting sands. Winds that whisper messages from the future. Flash floods. Biblical snakes and thirst. Heat, relentless.
And yet. Stillness. Darkness. Stars. Relief. Silence so deafening, it’s like a vacuum. Coyotes scream.
Until I went to Joshua Tree, I’d never spent any time in the desert and had no idea how much I would love it. It speaks to me; that ability to survive and evolve. Or die. The dry heat that saps the moisture out of everything, your skin, your hair, your lips.
And at night—the temperature drops and suddenly you’re freezing. It’s a landscape of extremes. Joshua Tree is like visiting another planet. The shadows that bounce off the Joshua trees, arms extended to heaven. Shape shifting rock formations, half the Earth’s age old. What wisdom is contained in their make up? What planetary shifts have they lived through? What is their story? Does it contain dinosaurs and asteroids? How puny they must think we are.
