Okay, not from Madden Peak, but from near Madden. I mean, hell, it’s winter, alright? End of February. In the high country where I stand, weather forecasts are rumor. NOAA predictionz don’t hold above 8,000 feet. So, you wait for somebody to tell you what the weather’s gonna be. May seem like a lot of snow up here along the route to Madden, but someone told me the other day that we’re only at 44% average snowpack. Someone else said that we’re at an even lesser percentage compared to an average year. That doesn’t bode well for spring runoff, upon which we depend for water.

You’re looking down into Montezuma Valley, and the sugarloaf peak just to the right of the descending pines is Sleeping Ute. I was able to make it about a mile in from the trailhead, where this shot was taken, without snowshoes. There are a few inches of snow on the ground. Many dread the coming spring, the wildfire season. Up until a few weeks ago, we really hadn’t had much of winter, and the mountains lay mostly as bare stone. Already, the fresh coats of snow are drifting off the higher slopes of the La Platas, above where I stand. Global warming. Global waning. It’s enough to madden you.

Yet I drive a 4WD vehicle, which guzzles gas. Have to, to get up here. I use the electricity to heat my home and power the computer which allows me write this. So, who am I to bitch about global warming, which the models predict to inordinately affect the Southwest, where this picture is taken? There may be a methane hot spot over the Four Corners here, but I fart, too. So as long as I’m part of the problem, I can’t really criticize it. Someone once said that, the next time I want to bitch about traffic, to remember that I’m not in traffic, but that I am traffic. Therefore, I’m not looking at the effects of global warming from outside of it. I am global warming. When I can see it that way, I’m no longer maddened by it. I can take responsibility.

I can generalize that to the remainder of my complaints. I’m not just affected by the world. I am the world. I’m not just running from development. I am development. I’m not assailed by the human race. I am the human race. For every judgment I carry and level upon others, three fingers point back at me. For I am part of what I see. I make the world in every way. I own a tiny yet indispensable part of it.

But can’t I just be a little maddened by it all? Oooh, that would feel so good to project just a little part of the world outside myself and blame that. But then, everyone would be claiming their little exceptions to what they don’t want to accept responsibility for. And we’d have the world that we have now, filled with fingers pointing out at each other. So, I’d rather not be maddened by it. I think that rather I am saddened by it.

Anger is usually a secondary emotion. Often, it’s a cover for grief or fear. I grieve the world that could’ve been, that once was, pre-Covid. And I’m afraid of the world that’s taken its place, the hotter world with its droughts and shortages and hot wars, that’s to come. Like many, I came out here to escape the world I made, then realized that I dragged it out here along with me. I make the world. I am the world.

© 2022 by Michael C. Just

Mike’s novel, The Dirt: The Journey of a Mystic Cowboy, is available in softcover or eBook formats through Amazon.

You can purchase the book through this website. Or go straight to amazon at https://www.amazon.com/s?k=the+dirt+journey+of+a+mystic+cowboy&crid=1S40Q4BXSUWJ6&sprefix=the+dirt%3A+journey+of+a+m%2Caps%2C180&ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_23

Mike’s other titles, including The Crippy, The Mind Altar, and Canyon Calls, are available through this website or through Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B002

Four of his short stories have recently been published online:

Lies, Ltd. has been published by The Mystery Tribune @ Lies, Ltd.: Literary Short Fiction by Michael C. Just (mysterytribune.com)

The Obligate Carnivore has been published by the Scarlet Leaf Review @ Category: MICHAEL JUST – SCARLET LEAF REVIEW

I See You, Too has been published by the 96th of October @ I See You, Too – 96th of October

Offload, a short story about a man who can heal any disease, is now live and can be read at The Worlds Within at Offload – The Worlds Within