Summer sadness...

It is eight in the morning on a corner, at this cafe. The world has stopped. It is completely still. Not one thing is moving. Not one leaf sways on a branch. Nothing flutters except my heart. The rich, creamy, ebony espresso which I shouldn't have always makes me jittery. The air is heavy with moisture in a sky still carrying rain. The morning fog oppresses the mountain and the sun hides behind billowy, blue dense cloud, but I know he's there. He scorches my skin and fills my nostrils with hot, still, heavy air. My cheeks are hot. My heart beats faster. My summer sadness. I need the wind. Things must move. I pray for downpour and the gray, soft beauty in the aftermath.

And tonight, I make bomba.

Time to dish.

Marissa's Bomba recipe

Here is what you need:

• Cherry bombs, aka hot cherry peppers, chopped. Leave in the seeds baby!
• A clove of garlic, smashed.
• Coriander, just a handful.
• Sea salt and good olive oil.

Here is what to do:

1. Get your lovely pot out and get everybody in there. Cook on a low heat for about half an hour. After which, pound it all in your mortar and pestle or buzz it in the processor adding oil as needed. Until dear friends, you have a rich, red, spicy bomb!

Should be enough to get things moving...

My intersection ...

Some days, all I can do is wait to feel normal. For the sharpness to pass, for the winds of change to die down. They always do, you know. It's something I keep reminding myself. On these days I sit on corners. I watch people intersecting while I wait for my selves to merge. They cycle and walk and run and glide. Trying to avoid one another. Trying to avoid collision. Trying to get across safely.

I watch one of the travelers run by and read her t-shirt.

Stay calm, and slay the dragon.

I sit and watch, and wait. I wait for the answers to appear, for the awkwardness of life to pass and for another moment.

My stormy desert. My intersection. My calm.

Today I breathe ...

For the first time in what seems like a very long time, today I was able to breathe. To open my door and walk outside in the brisk air and take a deep, full belly breath. To expand my greedy nostrils and inhale this new life air with gratitude and gusto. It rained like mad yesterday, the kind of rain that slightly scares you but when you are tucked away somewhere to watch, makes you kinda' giggle with glee (which is precisely what I did). If truth be told, in the morning, I even stood right under it in our yard and let the drops fall all over me. With that lovely bath, all the stifling heat that has been on our chests and hearts was whisked away by the torrents and the wind. I'm not pretty in the heat dear readers. I swell right up, like right up, like nasty up, like marshmallow man up...ahem ... I get cranky, slow, sticky, icky and I don't really want to do anything. Which kind of bites because it's not really conducive to working outside, which is what I do, naturally.

But today, today I breathe. And take a walk through a stormy desert.

Stormy, beautiful desert roads ...