Sometimes It's Perfect

The noise in this coffee shop has risen to the place where you can no longer distinguish individual sounds, but instead the clanking of cups and desperate attempts at communication around me have melded into to a confused white-noise sound.  Not white like fine china.  White like the swirling of aerated water at the base of an Atlantic breaker. 

But here, on the road, one thousand miles from home, I’m remembering a time this fall when it was perfect.

M and I are sweaty, and yet we’re layering on fleeces because the desert sun has just dipped below the horizon and the shadows it has left behind are already raising goose-bumps on our arms.  We’ve hiked all day through sandy washes and now we’ve placed our lonely tent in a canyon surrounded by imposing Navajo sandstone towers that look like immense stacks of red and cream-colored pancakes.

As we settle in for a quiet night of sweet boredom, we find the perfect rock.  It is huge and flat as a board.  Its sandstone surface faces west and leans back at a 45-degree angle reminiscent of one of those adjustable beds for retirees. 

Within minutes of the sunset, the air has dropped in temperature by at least 20 degrees.  What was stifling heat is now a crisp, dry cold that will eventually drive us into our sleeping bags. 

As we settle onto our rock, we discover that it has retained the day’s heat.  We lay on our backs and feel the sun-soaked heat radiate from the stone and warm our cooling bodies.  We say nothing.  We are so comfortable, to acknowledge it feels like it could ruin everything. 

Long, quiet minutes pass.  Still the rock continues to warm us.  The red and white sandstone towers around us have changed.  The sunless sky has turned them into a blue version of themselves.  They are every bit as beautiful as during the day, but now in a minor-key sort of way.  Sad songs always were my favorites.

Just as we think the night couldn’t get any better, the show begins.  One star appears directly overhead.  We saw it happen.  It wasn’t as if we turned our heads and noticed the first star out of the corner of our eyes.  It appeared while we stared directly at it.  It evoked a sense of strange impropriety, like when you notice someone turn on a light from outside their house.  Were we supposed to see that?

 

As if to confirm that the answer was “yes,” another star appears.  Others quickly follow.  We point them out to each other, racing, squinting, straining, to be the first to notice the next one.  Soon the sky is full.   Still, our rock is warm.

 

Sometimes its perfect. 

Today it is not.  But that night it very nearly was.  Of course, memories are impractical, like paintings hanging in a mechanic’s shop.  Today is about travel, schedules, meetings, and progress.  But today is just a slice of my life, which at its core is a pretty impractical thing.  

Fearful.  Wonderful.  Handmade.  

So I don’t mind taking a few minutes among these caffeinated strangers to remember a night when life exceeded by ability to wish for more.