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Last night it rained. I mean, really rained. Went on for hours, soaking, heavy at times. The gods must have heard my craven yowls and figured this would shut me up. It does.

Today began with sun and wind and all the plants excited. The ground was actually damp. Moisture was evaporating. There were new smells everywhere. I decided to go walk immediately because of the intensity. Can you imagine? It’s been months and months since a rain like the one last night. Suddenly everything felt possible and fun. The air, the air—just enough humidity to nourish, cool enough to make you wonder if a T-shirt is enough. “Let’s go!” weather. So I went.

There were lizards everywhere. And grasshoppers. And giant horse flies that left me alone except their buzzing was like voices. I saw many wonders on this hike, and we shall start with this amazing “horny toad.” One miracle per post, approximately. There will be more.

Notice how the rain has washed the dust off all the little colored rocks. The same thing happened to the plants. Everywhere I looked today, the saturation was increased, the contrast turned up. This guy (?) looks like a lizard in a jewel box. See the colors of the stones? Pink and green and purple; orange, yellow, red, and white. Now look at all the colors on the horned toad!

“Just a desert,” “just rocks,” oh no. If you look too closely, you’ll go mad. Can’t step anywhere without crunching diamonds. Can’t go too fast for fear of what you’ll miss.

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You probably thought I was kidding. But when I walked across the road to get some pictures of the clouds, this is what I found, and there was plenty more. For some reason I didn’t put down a coin or anything else to judge the measurements here. That means you can say it isn’t elk poop if you like, but I’ve seen plenty of what had to be the stuff and this sure qualifies. Doesn’t mean I’m right, but what else have you got? Mule deer??

The reason this would be of interest is that where I took the photo can’t be more than 100 yards from the house. The animals must be sneaking down to the acequia to drink, their usual water sources dried up in the drought. There’s nothing in the way, no houses or fences, just the usual sagebrush, piñon, and juniper. Piece o’ cake, this operation. They probably show up early in the morning, which means I’ll never see them.

In the early months of this adventure, we lived in San Cristobal, a mountain village partway up the base of Lobo Peak a little north of Taos. (Our experiences there are chronicled in my first book.) We’d see elk grazing in a field just up the valley and hear the bulls bugling in the fall. One pitch-dark winter night we came home from a movie in town to find almost a foot of fresh snow on the winding gravel road with big flakes coming down. All at once, as our headlights reflected off the windows of the adobe cottage, a dozen elk ran thundering across our path! Not 10 feet away I’m telling you, while the glittering cloud of snow their hooves threw up flashed wildly in the high beams. It was one of the best things that’s ever happened to me.

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I did something radical today. Namely, visit a friend who lives nearby. Who has time for crap like this when every burning issue—name one that’s not on fire—has to be decided right now, I ask you? But anyway, I went, and I’m glad I did. On good days any visit out there is a jolt. It’s not just the beauty of the place. I fall into a different space.

I know this space. It’s where I was in Arkansas in ’71. It was “back to the land” time then for thousands of us. Without cell phones or Twitter, either, yet something shared and from the heart. Now that’s a movement. You had no idea who else was dropping out but all the time, you’d meet these others. My friend was doing it for real in northern California in a place where it’s still going on. I lasted seven months and tumbled back to Austin. He and I, we’d understand, but those of you who weren’t around then or didn’t hook into the culture might not realize it is a culture, even if one drives to Santa Fe now to buy cheap wine at Trader Joe’s.

There’s a spiritual dimension to all this that I tap into instantly. The way I felt when I first tasted water from the hand-dug well in Arkansas right outside my door, for instance. It wasn’t the water but where it came from, straight out of the Earth and into my bucket with a hand pump. Pure and free! Like the mood at the kitchen table in the old hippie house in Austin on a Sunday morning when the windows are open and it isn’t hot yet. And now, much like the way the words roll right out of my mouth when I sit down in front of the flowing pond back in the hills, surrounded by a garden in the wicker love seat in front of the handmade house, watching dragonflies flit among the reeds. In New Mexico. Close enough to walk to. Underneath my nose.

These people are no fakes. Older than I am, though not by much. My friend and his lady partner both have strong personalities and I’ve tangled with each of them in turn. All my fault, of course. But real people give you Get-Out-of-Crazy-Free cards you can use any time. So today I rollicked away and cracked menacing jokes about all the bullshit meandering nonsense I’d wrecked the last week with. The John Show went on for quite some time and covered all the issues. Familiar ground for both of us, actually—and then he let me have it.

I wish I’d had an audio recorder. I wish I hadn’t kept interrupting so I’d be able to remember more. But it was the most magnificent rant, the kind where a single inspired sentence just rolls on and on, dipping for commas then rising again, gaining in pitch and volume as it grows until the ground trembles and leaves shake and the gods await the grande finale when the jabbing finger pokes the sun out and we die!

I mean, it was good.

It started out with each of us yelling that we were the best at worrying. But he soon had the floor. Calling me a “young whippersnapper” devoid of any comprehension, with every gasp of breath and rising shout he recited evidence of all his suffering, stupidity, and worry–“and I’M JEWISH!!!”—thereby taking on the crown. But then he shifted to issues I had raised. His voice got even louder. Our beers rattled on the table. He was glowing hot. I knew what was coming and slumped lower in my chair. With a final fulmination, he rammed the logic home —ka-boom!—and declared that I was champion, after all. Oy vey.

“Just go for it!” was in there somewhere, but I still had to take my licks, which I did enjoy. On my way out soon after, he reminded me of his oxygen tank and hip replacement. That was different but I understood. (In the annals of Too Stupid to Live, my name is not engraved. After I am gone, you may say it killed me, but not before.) The lady—who is 80—took my arm and showed me her milkweed flowers. She’d had an herbalist to dinner who told her milkweeds were from another planet.

“Don’t they look like they came from outer space?” she asked.

The little dark globules, the curving spikes. My God, of course they do! (The leaves are obviously fake, a green disguise, protective coloration.)

She held the clothesline up so I could back the car out. My friend put the dog in the back of their Subaru to keep him from running away and opened the gate. I drove back down the bumpy gravel road as mountains ringed the view and I could see for 90 miles at least.

(Miles and miles and miles…)

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What the hell. Say hello to Callie the Wonder Cat again. She’ll stand up on her hind legs so you can scratch her head.

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