August 22, 2003
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Homesick
The truth is, the moment my plane took off at Albequerque and turned into the morning sun, it hurt like nothing else, like I was being torn from the landscape. When I saw the mountains pass under me and all the valley and the desert spread out as far as I could see, it broke my heart. I didn’t want to leave. I think I must have cried halfway to Texas.
I don’t really know how to write about where I was or what happened. I can’t describe my love. I’d been waiting for most of my life to go back, like some kind of pilgrimage in the desert, to see the sky and the ripples of cloud and the endless stretches of empty land. I suppose it sounds like nothing at all, it’s just another somewhere, empty and desolate and completely ordinary to most people. But for me, and all my longing, it is so much more.
I guess I should just begin with what i feel.
Bryon brought me back to Taos. We wandered around in the plaza, drove into the hills, and peered down into the gorge in the desert. It was just like i remembered. Being there was a little overwhelming, although at the time I had no idea how to say anything about it. I thought for sure I would break down the moment I set foot there, but instead i felt happy and fulfilled and loved. I don’t think this was just because of the place itself, but all the import and intuition I’d attached to it for so long. It’s been pulling at me for ten years; I always told myself that someday I would be there again, and I’d be just that more complete because of it. And when i reached that destination someone would be there with me who I could love just as much as I love the mountains and the sagebrush, and I’d know where i was meant to be. I guess most people fall in love with other people to find that missing part of themselves, while my first love has always been tucked away at the foot of a desert mountain. It just so happens that I found both kinds, just as I’d hoped, in the very same place.
Thank you, Bryon. I love you.
