Blog draft may 11 26

Colors

We think in black and white and colors. Recall some dreams you’ve had. What color were they? Technicolor or drab black and white? I’ll bet they were in full, rich hues.

Think of the desert, any desert foreign or domestic. Sandy? Pink? A slight pinkish white? Then remember, if you can, what you have seen in-person of any desert. What color is present.

I lived on the Mojave Desert for 3 years when I was very young. One of the memories I came away with was how colorful the desert was. I don’t think I was fully conscious of it then, but in the decades that have passed, my memory is rich in colors. As an adult visitor to the same desert or any other, color is the outstanding impression.

Red rocks. Rocks with stripes of grey, black, pink, red, purple, and many other shades. Rich in presence, the desert landscape is radiant with color, and texture.

Textures include sand, grit, smooth, jagged, pointed, delicate and ruggedly large. Nothing delicate about the latter, just huge. The chasms, rifts, sandy plains and all juxtapositioned with everything else.

As I experience the desert as an adult, I wonder how others see it. Or think of it. Remember it. Do they find it alluring? Do they feel positive about it? Or do they dread and avoid deserts in the main? The delicacy of the desert landscape is a meaningful impression for me. It just is.

When I was just a tot, we would visit vast open spaces on the desert. One of my unforgettable memories is the huge emptiness of sound. Quiet so loud your ears roar trying to hear it. Nothing but the soft passage of a breeze, or a sudden thump of air gusts. Else it was quiet. Simply nothing.

And then there was the blue sky above, the sand and rock below. So stark. So real. Not green or seemingly life=giving. The variances in sights on the desert give me knowledge that all is present here. And in the now. It is part and parcel of our earth’s presence and continues to become whatever is within it. It is not a void.

This attracts my attention to the desert. Always has. I wonder if I am totally alone with this perception?

May 11, 2026

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