Who will read this? Me? Doubtful! The urge to write is strong. The drive to tell the story as a way of appreciation, a way of savoring the bright white contrails of a plane, heading east in pure blue – stealing time from the Earth rolling slowly in the same direction – and now, far past the mountain peak, like just the disappearing tail of a cloud. 

Sure, I can sit and look, breathe it all in, the desert hills washed in shrubs, succulents and spiny life. The mountains like teeth, the lower jaw of a prehistoric giant. But pre to whose history? Not mine.

For my passage is so brief and fleeting, like the rare, delicate wind blown yellow, butterfly (moth?) tracing wavy changing trails through the bush. We say, it might as well have never happened. It was without enough consequence to mark.

Sure, I sit here in my camp chair on BLM land, “dispersed camping” it’s called. Boondocking. With my notebook and pen and a good lot of my worldly in my van. Mountain bike beside me like a loyal steed. iPhone 15 on a camp table. It’s just stuff having its own adventure as I pass through the possession phase.

Last week I sold a drum for $150 to a man from Ghana in a McDonald’s parking lot in Hutto Texas. I bought that drum at the market in Bamako in 1995. Hauled it back to Seattle on Air France, checked in its own duffel. Was it worth $150? In my history, it was a millionaire. Having resounded its deep bright voice across the country for 30 years. Drums keep time. I let it go.