What was Sedona?

What was Sedona? A blip on the terrestrial radar? A thumping cosmic pulse that I couldn’t help but fondle? The color I see is purple and the smell is sweet, like bank roses and red dirt and desert sunsets. Yes, the sunsets have a scent. I could say that Sedona is magical, but I could not say that I saw, heard, tasted, smelled, or felt the magic. I just knew it was there. You may think, “couldn’t you say that about anywhere?” And you certainly could. I didn’t get sucked into a vortex, I didn’t have any overtly miraculous experiences… But I did have my usual epiphanies about life, perhaps accentuated by the soft and supportive energies along Oak Creek. I slung my hammock, washed my dog, and had a dear friend shave half my head there. 

And then Marfa. Marfa was another one of these places that was just like, where the heck did you come from? A little bohemian glamping oasis in the-middle-of-fucking-nowhere, TX that completely won my heart. I’ve never taken a sweeter shower or a more perfect picture of my dog. I met a couple who were doing the same thing that I (thought I) was, living the van life, looking for a new home. But they had started in Virginia, driven south, and were working their way west. 

Oddly enough, I was somewhere in Virginia when I realized that the west coast will always have my heart. As sweet and quaint as east coast beach towns may be, they will never hold my attention like the Pacific shores. And then today I saw a post from a friend in California. Smoke in the sky. It became real again, not just a memory. Fire season, the fear, the anxiety, the very fucking real consequences of climate change and poor forest management plans came rushing back in. There’s no going back to the way things were before. There’s no going back for me.