Learning How To

Rain might be moving in tonight. A welcome surprise.



The stately cactus bracing himself for the coming storm is a Saguaro cactus, a Sonoran Desert gem because this is the only desert in the entire world where he survives. The name Saguaro, I learned today, comes from the Spanish term for Sentinel of the Desert. That's cool, huh.

What is it, Joy, dear child, you ask? Why are you listening to sleepy old Baby James and reflecting on rain and dying plants?

Well, what is it ever? It's just that feeling that comes with life. It's stinking hard to persevere. It's easy to read Paul's words about fighting the good fight and forgetting what's behind. It's a whole nother thing to push through these days with gusto, with true zeal, with profound intention to live well.

I'll say it again: I love my job. I love these mountains. I love having my family near. I love snakes, even, and the country radio stations and bicycles and whatever activity is happening at West World (I know - West World?...



Oh yes. It's so much more than a horse arena. This place has rodeos and Harley rally's and classic car shows and rich cowboys and dirty diesel trucks and loud music and I get to bike by here every morning. My favorite snapshot of Scottsdale is held in this one sweeping view overlooking this magnificent pocket, a corner of the globe not very many sociologists have discovered yet: coming around the hill, the early sun behind me and the McDowell Mountains, long shadows following horses loping around the freshly smoothed pens, the trainers patiently flicking a long officially-named rope thing that Johnny Jack Junior probably told me about some time ago...).

It's beautiful.

Maybe that's the feeling today. OVERWHELMED by beauty. Heavily aware that I miss the point of an ordinary day sometimes entirely. And now it's gone. And I have all night to think about how I can redeem Tomorrow.

But The Point: The Bottom Line: I'm tired. So in need of refreshment, even though I know whatever weariness I feel is totally my fault. I'm a sinner, dammit. A modern-day cowgirl wannabe living my own Lonesome Dove sage out in this one-horse town of a million people.




PS. just looked up the name for that fancy horse trainer tool: it's called a Stick. You can buy it with String. Then it's called a Trainer's Stick and String. That's funny, huh.