Susan Doran (an occasional blog): 2016

Perseids Night--A great phonecall came in at 10 o'clock, so didn't head out to Northshore Road, which loops around Lake Mead, until 11:45pm.

Drove and drove. It got darker but not hella darker. Eventually saw a klatch of cars down a dark ravine road. There met Tom, Thomas, and Amy. They had an extra reclining chair. Tom and I reclined, watchingthe stars--meanwhile Thomas (vs. Tom) slept it off in the pick-up bed, and Amy rummaged through the front seat of the truck, eventually lying down with her head out the open door, calling out star-narration "Thatone had a PINK tail!" "THAT went left to RIGHT!" Tom, a comforting Upstate NY accent, told me that since it's nearly mid-August I have made it through my first Las Vegas summer. Regretfully, I bade them adieu, saying I might find a darker vantage point but not one with better company. Tom replied "It's all about the stars, Sue."

Next shared time with a couple 15 miles down the road, also both had very nice voices (it was dark, so....). They had just pulled to the side of the road. I got on top of my car, saw few stars but almost fell asleep listening to them talk in quiet-in-nature murmurs that reminded me of childhood camping. Many cars went by, each time wrecking our dark-adjusted eyes. They would periodically repair to the comfort of their car to smoke meth. After Round 2 Becky was talking a mile a minute, tho still quietly. Seth's low calm voice was becoming a bit less soothing. I decided to leave them to their night, driving another 15 steep snake-like dark (but never dark quite enough) miles.

Pulled off at a rest stop--which would mean off the road far enough not to get blasted by klieg lights of every (albeit few and far between) passing car. True---but a veritable neighborhood of people had set up cookers and hammocks, children riding bikes in the dark, and Abe Simpson apparently was among them, bleating across the wide parking lot, like "Well....I don't know how they manage it, but with all these things falling outta the sky somehow they don't never hit no HUMANS! har har har They never DO!!"

So back on the road---I knew I would find the best place. And I did. 20 more miles down the road. Echo Bay, Nevada. Dark as sin. A long dirt road--off to the side 4 acres of broad, dried-up arroyo, Way off the main road. But by then it was so remote there were no more Perseid looky-loos anyway.

Climbed onto a nest of thick faux sheepskin blanket on the car hood, lay back, drank a liter of water, and watched the marvel of star-trails, Perfect temperature. Perfect---like heaven. The slightest soft desert breeze, no sounds except very lite wind through vegetation I couldn't see. And not one bug. The sky was dark and the stars bright and juicy. Sky all around. Felt like a tree house or an inflatable raft bobbing in a sea of stars....Funny how well you can come to see in even pitch dark.... and it's unbelievable how meteors fall in colors. So quiet. Like childhood silence....filled with maybe-noises or maybe-nots....more like frequencies.... I started laughing aloud at one point. I thought: "I am lying on top of a car in a desert." That's hilarious. I became aware of the presence of hills around me as the hours passed. I thought "I feel like an Indian out here alone in the desert. But lying on a warm car as it starts to get cold." I realized the blanket I was lying on could cover me. And it did. And feltexactly as sweet as when a lover covers you in the night just as you were feeling chilled. I felt like Keith Richards‬ at Joshua Tree, wrapped in my warm blanket. You don't always need peyote.

But it is always darkest before dawn--and it's always coldest before dawn---so that was the most intense time for the Perseids, because the multicolored trailers/tracers/whathaveyou did seem to fall like showers then. And then, alas, at the best moment, light started to overcome the dark. This dark that I was so grateful to have snuggled into all night and been held by, watching joy-making art in the sky. The light was washing over the dark like a gentle but unrelenting rising tide lapping up and over the castle you were just savoring a moment of satisfaction over....washing it all away. Orion's Belt had been with me all night, changing position, and it was the last night-light to get erased by dawn.

Now....at home, feel like I was in another country over night. I might have felt thus anyway, but especially so upon discovering I was in the mountains. Not sort of but actually flanked on all sides by big-assed red-rocked mountains of holy gorgeousness--lit with lilting gilded early morning sun turning everything dark apricot.

Spent the day in former Santa Cruz stomping ground yesterday prior to moving to the desert, which will be fun and beautiful in its own right...but very different.

Everything was so green....the grasses and redwood come alive this time of year...flowers everywhere...crashing waves...whales puttering by in the distance against the Monterrey Mountains...funny sea birds...Santa Cruz characters....two California blonde 7 years old girls---by themselves--in wet suits, crossing the street with surfboards (not boogie boards) on their heads, heading toward the cliffs where they'd climb down to catch some world class swells at day's end before dinner, with probably 200 other local people, as per ritual this time of the year---glistening moss on rocks---people doing tai chi by the water---guy sitting on a dune playing guitar--another guy asks "Hey, would you happen to be stoked to do some interesting alternative type of work from home?"--I say "No thanks - but could you take my picture?" he smiles and says "Right on."