fly away

"I feel untethered," I said to MBD (motorcycle blind date). He had just bought a new Harley and so we took a ride down to the border town for Mexican food.

"I'm not sure what you mean. Explain."

"Well, I don't know if this town is my town. I look around and feel as though I'm not actually living my life. Things are good here. I've met great people - like you - and have a good social life. I'm working and that's going okay. But I feel like this is temporary. That I need to be somewhere "new" and by that I mean, a life I've never lived. I mean, I've already done hippie small town thing. And I think that the other thing is that I feel smothered here, by the surrounding hills and mountains. I crave the wide open spaces of the other side of the Santa Rita's."

"I can't relate to that untethered feeling but I certainly know what you mean about this town. Plus, I'm basically a nomad and I'm feeling the need to move on. To pack up and go on to something new."

He's an easy man to talk to and I like that about him.

We stopped by the place where he works and as he was giving me a tour of the complex, dark clouds decided to drop big rain drops and even bigger hail on us, so we parked the bike on an incline so it wouldn't get washed away and we stood under the eaves of the building until the storm passed. We got rained on a few more times as we headed back to town but that was okay because it really cooled us down.

That night I went to my landlord's for dinner. We talked about the effects the new mining operations will have on our town. Then afterwards we sat outside watching the lightning. I don't think we're in full-blown monsoon season yet, but I tell you, this preamble is nice. It is the absolute best time of year to be in southern Arizona. And yesterday on that motorcycle ride I was finally able to describe the aroma that rises from the desert when it rains: It's the smell one notices outside a brew pub, malts and hops. God, no wonder I love the desert in monsoon season.

photo from google image search