DOLLAR IN YOUR POCKET

I had been driving for maybe half an hour before the morning’s first light split horizon from the sky. Traffic was light so I got to watch the sun rise. So much is made of sunset, so many photographs, I have a file full of them. It begs the question; why sunset? I think sunset gives us a time to reflect a little bit, on the day or on a life. There is a sense of closure and it’s a comfortable way to let the day go. But now, in the new day with sky turning pink before your eyes it’s about possibility. No time to reflect, no way to know what lies around the next bend in the road. When you see it coming you are aware, whether you think about it or not; life has dealt you a new card. What you do with it may go according to plan or it may drag you off in a new direction but whatever; in the moment it is unspent like the dollar in your pocket. You have to spend the day, one way or another, no way to save them for later. Come sunset and time to reflect, you may still have the dollar but the day will be gone. My heart tells me 'Sunset' but my mind is leaning forward and tells me 'Sunrise'. I don't have to pick one or the other, as long as I keep getting new days. 

I’ve been a month now in Arizona from cold nights in high desert to tee shirt heat on the Mexican border. Nothing is easy here. It wasn’t created with people in mind but that doesn’t keep us from coming. Coyote and javelina make a living here but they keep to themselves. You can buy antiques in town and get a shower for $7 at the laundry while your clothes are tumbling dry. Some folks come out of curiosity and well being while others come of hardship and last resort. I guess I’m more the former. But I’m leaving it behind for now, on my way east. By the time I crossed into New Mexico this morning the sun was up, out of my face and I had the AC on. I expect my sunset will be blues and pinks in my mirror. I push on for an hour or so to a Walmart parking lot somewhere in West Texas.