Instead

Bob cancelled his gig at The Mcdowell Mountain Music Festival. N pops her head in to tell me while I’m in the shower. I was happy, but now I’m sad, my Clarisonic works hard to delight me with it’s undeniable super powers, I’m smooth and clean, but I’m not happy. I took the day off to see my rock god, and N was so excited to finally behold the Notorious B. But, on this Sunday, it was not 2 B. Just like that—- happy-to- sad.

But not too sad.

Cause we drove with the top down to Gallo Blanco instead, we ate runny eggs with cheese and salsa, and watched local hipsters swill bloody marys and margaritas while we compared unrealized crushes and the inevitability of creative frustration, and the fear that threatens to strangle off your life force if you move towards your dreams…and the rotting passion and potential that does just the same if you try to ignore them.

We drove out to The Superstition Mountains while listening to David R. Hawkins read from his book, Power Vs Force. Our heads grew past the clouds.

Listen. I’m only writing this because I have to write, and I’m not working on my manuscript cause I’m just not, and this bluster of words is just an effort to stave off the stagnation and agitation that riots in my body when I don’t write… and I don’t know why I don’t work on the MEMOIR.

Anyhow, back to my Sunday….

We drove into the Superstition Wilderness, and parked my little car at The First Water Trailhead. We parked a couple cars down from a thirtyish man in a black kilt who was the master of a dog and a goat. It’s a shame he wasn’t taller, I’m sure he would have made an interesting lover. The park ranger tried to help us with the map, I asked about flowers and water, he said the flowers were gone already, cept the cactus blooms, but there would be water on The Lost Dutchman if we looked up. I thought he must have been an imposter, because he read the map to us upside down, and what did he mean, “look up?” Still, I was glad he was there to protect my car from the goat man who was also drinking beer and smelled of rowdiness.

Who cares, right? …”Close this Kate, and open the manuscript.”

“But, I’m scared!!! it’s in 37 pieces!!!”

And besides….

We sang with the birds. We tried to imitate their glorious calls, “whittle tweet tweet, peep!” , and they called back, we were major players in a bird chorus! It was magical, it was almost as fulfilling as writing my memoir…it made me almost as happy as stringing together words that need to be written. I was making music with nature. I was one with flipping nature!!! How wiggy is that???

And then we found a cluster of boulders and took off our shoes, sat down, and pulled light in through the top of our heads and shot it down through our bums, right into the center of the earth. Deeper. We expanded ourselves out past the city, the state, the country, the planet. And then we were abducted by aliens, I think. it’s possible. We were in The Superstitions. I don’t recall our abduction, but that’s standard for an abductee. I fell asleep on a rock. We shared a pink grapefruit. we hiked out. No water. well, standing water, but no water from above…..

we saw lupine and owl clover, poppies, and african daisies…and lots of cactus blooms too.

Goat man and the imposter were gone. We put the top down and listened to Bob’s Lonelyland. We stopped at The Goldfield Ghost Town and bought ice cream cones. N bought a sarsaparilla. My waffle cone was warm, right of f the griddle and stuffed with rocky road ice cream. N had a little cup of cookies and cream and mixed it with her soda. My ice cream was on my nose and purse by the time I finished making out with my disappearing lover. We watched gunfighters and gold miners sip cokes. I made eyes with a very sexy man who was probably from out-of-town. I put 10 dollars in a safe for a green ceramic cross, the artisan sold his goods on the honor system.

We drove back to Phoenix and stopped at Zpizza for a pizza. California with sundried tomatoes instead of the plain kind. While we were waiting, we went next door to a coffee joint and bought a piece of chocolate covered bacon. We ate it while watching a man walk by with the largest nose I’ve ever seen. It was that large. Cyrano large. Maybe a gin blossom. God bless him.