Joe Bunting

Road Trips and Desert Light

Tonight after work I’m leaving on an eight to nine hour treck to Tucson.  I like road trips, especially through deserts.  The light is so interesting.  At dusk the mountains and hills turn purpley blue and the sky leaps with orange and yellow. 

A  few weeks ago, when I was traveling home from Las Vegas, the sun set right behind a huge peak.  You know how in children’s picture books, they show the sun with jagged light rays coming from it, as it the sun is a giant yellow urchin in the sky. 

I had been driving for a few hours by then, and was meditating on something or other.  The sun had just set, and then I saw those picture book beams of light coming from behind the purple mountain.  Unlike the stories, there were only four or five beams soft, translucent beams, just noticeable against the blue turning orange sky. 

Tonight I probably will not see any sun beams, and probably won’t make it to the desert by sunset.  I’m leaving at five and have to make it all the way through LA traffic first.  I’ll get to Tucson by two or three in the morning, to get up at 9 for tomorrow’s funeral. 

Yes, I’m going to a funeral.  My sister’s mother-in-law passed away of a heart attack at 58.  It was a huge surprise.  What do the living know of death?  We mark it with rituals to stave off fear and gather at it’s doorstep to comfort remaining husbands and children.  Tonight I travel 500 miles to witness its wake. 

But maybe death like the setting of the sun.  Even after its passing, beams of light are still visible to remember it by.  Yes, slowly the light eeks out and the living are left in darkness, but in no time at all, the sun has risen again, more beautiful than ever before.

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