I am where the mountains erupt from the flat high desert floor, surging, reaching for the clouds but never quite reaching, the clouds casting dark shadows across them, as if to mock, or maybe to comfort them in their failure. Because you do not have to be something bigger than what you are. And so the mountains—or are they hills—dapple themselves in trees and snow and shrubs and brush, and let the sun hit their rocks and dry grasses.
But I am only here for fleeting hours. The high desert is like nothing else. I pass through it often, but it feels like a place one must stay a while to understand. The sky is closer here.
— 20:43