Month: August 2024

Never Tired of Miracles

Yes, I’m writing about rain again. Rain in the desert. I never tire of miracles.

I ran, despite the thunder, despite the lightning, daring the storm to get closer to me. The air was so soft, so cool, barely drizzling, not really a storm yet. Above, there was a blue hole in the clouds. The birds seemed excited, a pair of desert cardinals chattering and flying from bush to bush. Something in another bush made a loud ticking sound like someone running a stick across the slats of a wooden fence. I stopped in surprise, trying to see the source, but all I got was another noisy round of clicks. The temperature dropped down from the 80s to the 70s. I ran until the thunder moved in, and the sheer wall of gray across the lake became dark and solid, rain driving straight down from the sky as the gloriously cold wind grew stronger.

I finished my run a little sooner than I would have liked. I wanted to stay out on the trail, but the last time I’d lingered thinking, “Oh, that cloud sliding across the lake is just mist,” it turned into a storm that suddenly whipped through and drenched me. So this time, I left a little early, and the storm got stuck just behind the turtle on Turtleback Mountain. Still beautiful. Still a miracle.

 

Recharging while Charging

A few years back, I posted about buying gas for the last time.  It turns out the EV charging station I use most often is at a gas station.

That’s where I do some of my most relaxed reading. There’s something special about reading at a charging station. I have few choices how to spend that time. I could take walks, but charging stations most often are located at car dealerships and in parking lots. The one at a gas station in Elephant Butte is definitely not a scenic place for a walk. So, I put the sun shades in my windshield, and I pull a book from the stash on the floor of my passenger seat. There is nothing else demanding of my time, nothing else to do. It’s a little retreat, a little vacation.

People sometimes come up to me and ask, “How long does it take to charge that thing?” I answer that I only have to charge a couple of times a month, but it does take longer than buying gas. They say, “Oh, I wouldn’t be able to stand that.” They don’t grasp how much I enjoy having twenty or thirty minutes committed to nothing but reading.

I have a whole collection of charging station reads. Obscure New Mexico history books happen to be my favorite. I’m currently reading the memoir of a woman who married a cowboy when she had never ridden a horse or lived on a ranch before. She tells how she learned to be a cowgirl. Every chapter is another anecdote of ranch life back in the 40s and 50s on a place that didn’t even have electricity. What would the author think, to know I’m reading her life story while I plug in my car?

The only distraction is people-watching, a writer’s favorite hobby aside from reading. A gas station is still good place for that, even if I’m not buying gas,