There are lonely hours. How can I deny it? There are times when solitaire becomes solitary, an entirely different game, a prison term, and the inside of the skull as confining and unbearable as the interior of the housetrailer on a hot day. p95 Desert Solitaire

July. Though all the windows are wide open and the blinds rattle in the breeze the heat is terrific. The inside of the trailer is like the inside of a kiln, a fierce dry heat that warps the loose linoleum on the floor, turns an exposed slice of bread into something like toast within half an hour, makes my papers crackle like parchment. p128-9 Desert Solitaire

Edward Abby describes what I am feeling right now very well- loneliness. I miss trees and mountain trails, cold weather and the ability to go outside and not want to die of heat (highest temperature so far this summer: 120 F). The desert is a remote and terrifically hot place at times.

Yes July. The mountains are almost bear of snow except for the patches within the couloirs on the northern slopes. Consoling nevertheless, those shrunken snowfields, despite the fact that they’re twenty miles away by line of sight and six to seven thousand feed higher than where I sit. They comfort me with the promise that if the heat down here becomes less endurable I can escape for at least two days each week to the refuge of the mountains- those islands in the sky surrounded by a sea of desert. The knowledge that refuge is available, when and if needed, makes the silent inferno of the desert more easily bearable. Mountains complement desert as desert complements city, as wilderness complements and completes civilization.” p129 Desert Solitaire

Though I am having a tough time being in Needles CA for my internship at this moment, I realize it is really helping me to do some self reflecting. I have time to spend with myself, and only myself, in order to reflect on what I want to do with my life and how I want to live it- though I feel this way now, I am sure it will only help me grow in the long run.

Laney