Living on a farm led me to believe green was healthy. Even the tan and brown oats and wheat signaled the end of the blooming season. Bible passages equated dust with death, too.
Yes, dust might be dead. The silence that comes with death is what I expect in a desert. Maybe I make too much noise for anything to be heard. Perhaps my footfall frightens small living things to stop their flight or sons. Am I a bully in time? I hope not. Life needs to be heard to be shared. Stomping on others is not a goal of mine. My son Bob lives in the desert and I haven’t heard from him in six years.
Obviously the sounds I listened to in the desert recording prove life abundantly exists where I least expected it. Yesterday as I read a redundant entry in my memoir, I felt so discouraged that anyone might find my life remotely interesting, I fled the computer choosing to finish laundry—a more mundane task.
The telephone rang and a publisher with distribution to Ingram called. I was encouraged to send St. Joan’s Architect on Mont Saint Michel. There may be life in my writing career after all.
Each time I become sufficiently discouraged, hope offers something.