San Diego Night Scene by Randal Droher on Flickr

Per Matt’s recommendation, I read Ask the Dust by John Fante over the weekend. This passage struck me.

The blue and white of stars and sky were like desert colors, a gentleness so stirring I had to pause and wonder that it could be so lovely. Not a blade of the dirty palms stirred. Not a sound was to be heard.

All that was good in me thrilled in my heart at that moment, all that I hoped for in the profound, obscure meaning of my existence. Here was the endlessly mute placidity of nature, indifferent to the great city; here was the desert beneath these streets, around these streets, waiting for the city to die, to cover it with timeless sand once more. There came over me a terrifying sense of understanding about the meaning and the pathetic destiny of men. The desert was always there, a patient white animal, waiting for men to die, for civilizations to flicker and pass into the darkness. Then men seemed brave to me, and i was proud to be numbered among them. All the evil of the world seemed not evil at all, but inevitable and good and part of that endless struggle to keep the desert down.

I relish any (gentle) reminder that the veneer we’ve put on the landscape with our buildings and roads is just that. It inevitably opens the mind to thoughts of the sublime. The evening wind rustling in our neighbor’s washingtonian palm does it for me every time.