This morning, while the Phoenix-bound plane roared above the sizzling heatwaves and the kids next to my seat bickered, I started idly out the window to the desert landscape below. One color dominated the ground--brown. Brown craggy hills arched against brown valleys. Even the sky seemed tinged with a gray-brown. After the green of Virginia (did you know that chlorophyll has a smell?? I didn't!--or rather, I took the smell of fertility for granted), the shades of brown welcomed me home.
As we approached Phoenix, everything suddenly got green. And water ponds, lakes, rivers and pools suddenly dotted the brown. It was so weird. These bright blue-green channels of water snaking their way through the desolate wasteland of Arizona. Makes me wonder how many gallons of water are being wasted in the name of lawn grass, while out of guilt, I'm not flushing my toilet until absolutely necessary (When it's yellow, let it mellow; when it's brown, flush it down!)
So yes, the weekend was good. The salty air and spicy pines of the East Coast revived my senses and put me back into a sort of perspective. I have made a real life for myself here in the desert. I have friends who call to see if I want to watch TV tonight. I have cats that wait by the door for me to come home and feed them. I have a mail box that is full and a refrigerator that is empty. Slowly but surely, I am existing farther and farther away from the ocean and the green. The brown is beginning to seem more and more like home, even from a distance.
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