The Fire in the Desert Sky

I had a college essay title “The Purple Mountains.” I ended up nixing it for one that highlighted the importance of being yourself, quoting the academy award winning film High School Musical. After spending a week in Tucson, I think part two of that unwritten essay would be about the morning desert sky.

Growing up, we’re all the opposite of early risers. We’re dragged out of bed by our parents, embrace our bed head hair, throw on some sweats, and head to first period. By that time, the sun is usually up, and the sky is clear and blue.

This trip, and fifteen years later, your schedule shifts. You drag yourself out of bed, take a quick shower and put on work clothes. One of my favorite things back in the day was wearing my favorite sweatshirt for important tests. Now, it’s finding a button down that says to you it’s time to have a productive working day.

And the 15 minute car ride to to the law school reminded me that sunrise in the desert is a spectacle. The sun shimmers and simmers slowly over the mountain, reflecting off clouds in all sorts of fiery orange and red hues. It’s not obstructed by anything. The horizon is strong and wide, and your eyes struggle to stay focused on the road when the sunrise gets all 10s at the judges table.

I’m not sure what the opposite of a desert is. Perhaps it’s a rainforest. Which I haven’t spent enough time in to know the comparison to the morning sunrise. It’s probably the “sounds of the forest” which wake up and engage another sense. And potentially scare the living daylight out of you depending on the decibel level and size of the animal.

The desert has some harsher qualities. It’s hot. The ground burns your feet on a warm day and roasts them on a hot day in a brick layered backyard. It’s dry. So your skin and eyes have trouble adjusting and it takes extra lotion and a few more morning blinks to see straight.

I wish I had a metaphorical point about this. Trying to make some deep connections to the modern era. But I don’t want to reach for that. I just think it’s interesting as a kid the visual that always got stuck in my head was the purple mountains and yes the occasional nice sunset.

But as the hours and schedule of your life change, so do the visuals. When the clouds decide they want to flirt with the sun in the morning, it really is a spectacle. It’s a fire in the desert sky.

Photo credit : Michael Tringali on a morning drive