Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Desert Bloom

It was a week ago today that we left the Pacific coast and headed east into the desert.

It is a dramatic drive through some of the most scorched and arid wastes on the planet. But we were fortunate. It is spring, and the desert was in bloom - albeit temporarily. Carpets of yellow, and green and pink covered this normally barren landscape. Until, as we wound our way towards the valley that cuts a swathe through the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto mountain ranges, we found ourselves driving through a forest of windmills.

Not the Don Quixote sort. Those tall, elegant, white wind turbines, whose blades turn with deceptive languor in the winds that scour their way between the mountains. Thousands of them. Filling the eyes, like a mirage, vanishing into the fibrillating distance.

We stopped overnight at the home of friends Mike and Barbara Monachino, at Rancho Mirage, a settlement of gated communities somewhere between Palm Springs and Indian Wells. This was an area of extraordinary beauty. A veritable oasis. Rich in blooming flowers and fragrant blossoms, fed from the waters of an underground lake. In the distance, the San Jacinto mountains burn red in the sunset, and in the morning glow gold, cut with deep-veined blue shadows.

And then on again in the morning, leaving California behind, and entering the parched plains of Arizona, the horizon broken only by those bizarrely shaped mountains that used to pepper every cowboy movie. Laid down in strata at the very creation of the earth itself , then fashioned by time and wind. There is something quite primal about this landscape.

At last, almost incongruously, we reach the vast, sprawling conurbation of Phoenix laid out in the desert valley, and our home for the next month in the adjoining city of Scottsdale. This is the home of my American publishers, who have taken a route much further east, across the Atlantic to France, to live in our house during our absence.

Their house comes with a pool, unlimited sunshine, and a dog called Odin. Odin, a lively, intelligent, wire-haired fox terrier, greeted us with initial suspicion. But, as you will see from the photos, he and I quickly bonded, and he takes me out walking for at least an hour every day - which I am sure is good exercise for him, too.

And, so, settled now in this desert oasis, we said our goodbyes to Susie, who headed back to Northern California, and we set up computers to get down to work. For although there may be a pause in the tour, there is no pause in the work schedule. A book to revise, another to research, and a screenplay to write.

Oh, well...

11 comments:

mm said...

It is a good thing that you did not ask us to get your iPad for you in Denver. Our city is full of people crazed with Apple lust. See the story of a man who lost his finger when someone stole an iPad from him right in our nearby Cherry Creek mall.
http://cbs4denver.com/local/ipad.theft.finger.2.1643474.html

Leigh said...

lol Bro, I just had a closer look at the pics of you and Odin, he has more color in his whiskers :P
have a great break, your loving sis xoxox

DJ Kirkby said...

Odin looks like great fun. I can't decide if I find those windmills disturbing or interesting to look at. A bit of both really. How do you tour, write, revise and research all at the same time? That's not a rhetorical question Peter, I seriously want to know how you do it all.

peter_may said...

It's simple, DJ. Writing is my job, so I have to organise my brain and my life to meet the deadlines it requires of me - and there are always deadlines (even if I set them myself). Working both as a journalist and a TV writer taught me that. And it doesn't matter what I am doing, my mind is always working on one or other of the projects. I can switch from one to the other quite easily. Each has its own imagery and landscape in my imagination, so there is never any confusion. The only problem, sometimes, is finding the energy to keep going.

Carol said...

Leigh's right Dad...there is more colour in the dog's whiskers than yours :-) *waves hi to Leigh*

C x

peter_may said...

Hmmm

DJ Kirkby said...

I understand about the lack of energy for sure :). Do you make a list every day of what you are going to work on and for how long or do you just keep a running flexible mental check list?

peter_may said...

It's all about mind juggling, DJ.

DJ Kirkby said...

"Mind juggling" - like the concept but know I'm not able to do it. I think I'd better stick to detailed lists.

Elizabeth jensen carr said...

Those windmills are pretty unpopular: take up too much land and visual space, noisy, kill birds, and more. They are striking when you first see them, but do bring out the NIMBY syndrome in the neighbors.

Leigh said...

LOL, Hi carol hun xoxox, waves, smiles :)

Sorry bro but it's true, Odein does have more color, but I guess not now unless he has been in the sun too :P