I live in an area forested with pinyon-juniper trees. Groves of ponderosa and underlying oak brush take up the higher ground. In spring, draws carry the mountain runoff from the La Plata Mountains, about 13 miles away. The stems of the oak snap back across the face of the hiker like angry plastic plants. He calls the oak names as he thrashes his way through.
Normally at this time of year I’d be heading out to Utah on weekends to explore the spectacular canyon system sculpted by the Colorado and Green Rivers about 2 hours west. Those lands are internationally famous for their soaring cliffs, mazelike defiles and ocherous hues at dawn and dusk.
Due to the virus, I’ve chosen to stay closer to home. I explore in greater detail the forests and lakes, the notches and hills right in my own backyard. There’s the macro world of the Colorado Plateau, and there is its micro world. Not micro in the sense of microscopic, but in the sense that it’s close by, near at hand.
What the covid lockdown allowed me to discover is that I never had to travel farther than my feet would take me; to the swaying groves of ponderosa on the BLM lands to my east. There’s a profundity in my ordinary world. The peace I’ve encountered while squatting on a ponderosa log, sniffing the vanilla bark of the trees moaning in the blue sky as they filter the breeze like reeds on a vast, roaring woodwind. To stand on a hillside I’d passed by dozens of times, a hillock so hidden by the forest that I didn’t even know it was there. To peer down from the hilltop into an arroyo while the wind funnels through the sun-touched willow. To watch a great blue heron gather that wind into the undersides of its great wings as it lifts off from its nest. To see the white-laced La Platas brooding over stotdistant spruce and fir forests that roll up the backs of the mountains.
In the wetlands of Summit Lake just beyond the BLM, pintails quack and red wing blackbirds titter and decoy me from their nests. The mule deer stot as I rile a bevy feeding on spring forage. And I never had to leave my backyard. Sure, I crossed the BLM land to get to the lake. The lake wasn’t mine. But what is? What I searched for was here, not a hundred miles away in Utah. It was now, not months away when the lockdowns may let up.
I long for paradise. Yet longing for the Sweet Hereafter – which by definition is then and there and never here and now – pushes joy out of awareness. Longing for something presupposes it’s not here, not now. Yet if peace is anything, it’s all-encompassing. It’s always here, always now.
© 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