i have been in the desert now for a month and a half. ish. its beginning to get hot. the heated serpent, dressed in tans and greens, likes to flick its forked tounge at me...so close to touching me i can feel its hot breath down my neck like the shift of an air current, burning a little hotter than the second before. the desert is a different kind of place for me. it has stripped me of all of my belongings and habits and false bottomed securities. naked i am. alone. with forest, yes. but far away from anything familiar. i have no crutches anymore. nothing to lean on when i feel weak. and this may be a good thing. forces me to stand up a little straighter and summon the strength that i have known was there all along. the courage to face my fears..that seem to lie...in wait...for a weakness in the armor that i wear. these fears have snuck in, manifested, and made a home inside of me. they lie dormant for most of the time. but, here, in the desert, my fears and i...well we have more confrontations. one just as horrible as the next. and i know why. its because i used to have mechanisms to push them at bay. to temporarily relieve myself of the angst of fear. to shut it out and push it down. i have no mechanisms here. when the shutters open, and i feel weak, the darkness inside of me rushes through me like a Montana thunderstorm on a summer day.
and the maddening part...of it all, is that these debilatating fears are not even real. they are but a figment of my tainted imagination.
