Watching the late afternoon light bounce off stone and create unimaginable color. The Salton Sea, off in the distance to the east, is robins egg blue. The mountains beyond glow with all the shades of pink.
I've come to watch the sunset and am hoping for wild color in the evening sky. It's a different landscape from the other day with its dust storms. There's a light breeze and the light is making everything glow. Of all the places here that are easy to get to, these badlands might be my favorite.
The stone tells its stories, revealing layers and layers of history, all the way back to the dinosaurs.
As I sit here watching the sun go down, I wonder whether I'll be back this way again.
The mountains behind me are now blue shadow. Soon, the sun will drop behind the mountains, but sunset is still about a half hour away. My life feels wholly my own when I am here. I am wild and free. A woman hunting stories to bring home and tell.
The late afternoon sun teases shadow from the badlands. Reveals texture and glow. The changing light bares features of the landscape that would otherwise remain hidden.
It's hard to know which way to look. I want to miss nothing.
The sun is now a mere echo of radiance behind the mountains. The eastern sky is pink and lavender. Light and color paint the mountains. The panorama blushes and the air feels colder. If it was a week later, I'd be watching the full moon rise.
The moon appears suddenly. A first quarter moon high in the sky.
There's no light shining on the badlands now. The features I saw before have receded once again into obscurity. The sedimentary rock closest to me looks as if the earth is folded here. It's getting cold and I need to get my coat from the car. Everything has softened to an impressionistic painting. If I was not in the desert I would think I see mist rising in the distance. I don't have words to do it justice, to paint the landscape.
The pink and the lavender skies over the Salton Sea have risen higher and a bright blue is beneath it. The sea now is pink and lavender, and the mountains a dull periwinkle. The glow over the southwestern mountains is a fuzzy apricot. I imagine that my red jeep seems out of place here but, as I turn to look, it melts beautifully into the dusty lavender brown stone behind it.
The sun has now set. I think of it melting into the Pacific Ocean as the lights come up in the beach towns. There are no lights here in the badlands. I want to wait for stars but it feels like it's time to go.
I leave the badlands to the moon and the crying coyote.
Into the Beams is an approximately 40 day wilderness writing journey during the 2018 Venus Retrograde period. There is no agenda other than to show up and see what treasures are buried there.
Photo (c) 2015 Katherine Cartwright. View over the Borrego Badlands in Anza-Borrego Desert Park in the late afternoon just before sunset.
No comments:
Post a Comment