Where I Am

from The Hour of Land: A Personal Topography of America’s National Parks by Terri Tempest Williams: “Cynicism flourishes in air-conditioned rooms. Like any true place, the desert is a risk. This is our inheritance — the beauty before us. We cry. We cry out. There is nothing sentimental about facing the desert bare. It is a terrifying beauty…We continue to evolve and transform who we are in relationship to where we are… For precious moments we touch and taste life uninterrupted. Awe sneaks up on us like love. We surrender to the ecstatic outpouring of life before us…Each breaking wave, each rush of the sea on the slope of sand, reminds me why these places of pilgrimage matter. They matter to me because in the long view, I do not. I am driftwood. I am rockweed. I am osprey and the mackerel in the clutch of her feet. I am a woman standing on the edge of the continent looking out.”

In Bucerías Mexico this week, I, too, stand on the (west coast) edge of the continent looking out. I am grateful to Terri Tempest Williams for reminding me that I am in relation to where I am.  The steady surf in Banderas Bay washes me over and over with its energetic imprint. And yes, I am evolving and transforming, and beauty has everything to do with it.