Kofa National Wildlife Refuge, AZ

This isn’t a story about finding yourself, there are enough of those already. I am the woman I always was; she is simply untethered now.

The mountain is lazy this morning. He pulls the cloud cover close and tucks his head. It’s too early for serious things like birds singing, hungry jackrabbits, twitching mice, a yammering coyote. Too early even for sparkling dew, for the slow simmering sun slinking over the ridge.

At Kofa National Wildlife Refuge, a scribbled line of seemingly random formations stands to the east; the exposed spine of this world. We are riding into Queen Canyon and the horse wants to take a left, always a mind of his own and I love him for that but we are going forward, into her towering walls – my goal to put some miles under us after a day behind the wheel.

We ride past ironwood, regal saguaros with their arms outstretched, a barrel cactus, its base gnawed and chewed, fencepost style. Entering the canyon is like entering a castle and suddenly we are inside a fortress of towering walls, curved and smooth in places, stepped and rough in others. The sun has risen now, light plays across the landscape creating a sort of dappled effect not unlike that of rippling water.

To the right, an old narrow and lightly tread trail catches my eye. I rein the horse south and we trot the incline, dodging teddy bear cholla and prickly pear until we reach the high point of this opening where I halt and sit the horse. Looking. Gazing outward toward a field of sun-stroked cholla, glowing in the easy light, Palm Canyon in the distance.

She is a treacherous thing, this desert. Raw and vulnerable. Gritty in her authenticity. Indifferent to most, to all perhaps. One of the few places we must wrap ourselves around nature instead of bending her to us. It is what keeps many out. It is what keeps me in.

For 50 years I lived the life I was expected to. A daughter, a wife, a mother, a life defined by others and adopted as my own. It was never enough.

But the desert doesn’t tolerate hypocrisy, her fierceness strips away layer upon layer until there is nothing left but truth. Plants, animals, people - learn to survive in a place many see as desolate, as hopeless, as empty as my very soul had become.

What if there’s nothing wrong with being lonely at times? With crying? What if we just need to let that emptiness flow, let it ease its way downstream across tumbled rocks, through arching branches, and see where it ends? A shallow pool, a waterfall, an underground spring bubbling forth into new life.

In this spotted land my pool is refilled. My tears dried by breathy kisses. My soul held close.

She lifts me up in her wilderness and lets the light shine through.

And that is more than enough.