Deserts

In the Sinai pilgrimage, we read The Solace of Fierce Landscapes by Belden Lane, in which Belden writes about the experience of the desert in the Negev, Sinai, and Ghost Ranch, comparing it to his mother's dying in a care facility. She is in her own desert, unable to communicate, and the family is in its own fierce landscape.

In my family, we've entered that fierce landscape with my father's slowing down in his 87th year of life. He is slowly drifting into his new landscape, while we watch, unable to arouse him from his sleepy stupor.

We are in a new and strange land.

We are waiting.

Watching.

Wondering.

Pace, B