If I close my eyes and slow my breathing down, I can hear the wind blowing through the desert, on my way past Julian. It’s a small mountain town famous for apple pie, best served warm with cinnamon icecream made the old fashioned way. The temperatures changes by vast degrees regardless if you’re measuring in fahrenheit or centigrade. The fall of the hill down to the east takes you into flat, wide open spaces where the sun beats down the day. You can pull up on the side of the hill and listen for a minute full before the rushing wind falls quiet enough to let you hear the desert breathe.
Eventually with all things good, the road runs out of turns that thrill and you cast your eyes back over the hill through Julian once more. You can stop for gas at a tiny store, buy beef jerky and bottled water for the road with crumpled dollars and counted out dimes. Climbing through 2000ft past the lakes with signs forbidding stopping before you know you’re back into the skylines filled with power lines. There are fences to the left and to the right, burnt out scars with blackened bark. The silhouette of trees that stood through fires that died before I knew this road.
I like the West Coast when facing east, it seems so warm and full of intrigue. Discovery is my good friend, the radio on silent once we hit the bends of roads that climb and curve away and through new places learned. This is all I think of when I close my eyes. I think next year, when I fly away I’m coming back to roam again through mountaintops and desert plains, to feel the heat and keep the wind.
Community Worked.
Had a very inspiring lunch with one of the girls from my old group today. Even though it’s only been a short 11 months without them every Wednesday, I sure do miss them. They have become part of the young adults ministry with new leaders being integrated – it’s hard but good – they are loathe to lose the flavour that we worked so hard to build over the last two years we spent together. It’s wonderful to see that the experiment has worked. They are thriving, they are deep, they are loving with all sorts of people. I am delighted to be their friend.