Spring Break in the Desert

This week my kids and I are off to visit family in the southwest for spring break. Expect the third and final installment to The Witch's Apprentice to be published on the website shortly. I'm also excited because April is National Poetry Month so new poems will be published in the coming weeks! Now I just need to find out when it's National Nap Month and I'll be set.

I was born and raised in Arizona so even though I don't live there anymore when I visit it does feel like coming home. It is my "motherland" you might say. There's a piece of my heart buried in a flat, bone-bleached Arizona field. Arizona is the land of my mother. She's buried there, near an abandoned high desert town and I yearn to lay there beside her many nights.

There's something beautiful and haunting about the desert. It's a bit like a spirit world visible to mortal eyes. It's telling that ancients prophets found themselves called away to speak with God in the vast, harsh wilderness. It's a perfect place to be alone. Everything is so clear.

I think that's where my love for the sun began. I spent most of my childhood days outside, sunscreen-less, unfazed by 100+ degrees. My devotion to the sun was magnified when my husband was stationed in Washington state a few years back and I had to experience three years of sunless days for months on end. It was torture for me. I still haven't quite shaken it off since moving.

I crave sunlight. I watch each day, hungry for blue skies and rays of white light. Sitting under the sun, mid summer, shoulders bare is one of my greatest pleasures. I tolerate winter. I value light too much after having gone so long without it.

This week I'll be getting my fill of sunshine but also and most importantly I'll be getting my fill of family because there is no point in light if there is nothing to shine it on.

#desert #springbreak #sunshine #light #Arizona #southwest

---