Lady Chattertree's Plover

There is something oddly fascinating or magnetic even, in being immersed in intensities. So what is it about hard rain, loud lightning, swollen rivers, forceful winds, Amundsen cold, or Exupery heat? I can imagine what Freud might say, but I tend to think it's a little more complicated than all of that.

* * *

Like sea-divers, we sank peacefully into the depths of our element.

Here I possessed nothing in the world. I was no more than a mortal strayed between sand and stars, conscious of the single blessing of breathing. And yet I discovered myself filled with dreams.

We too have loved the desert to the point of feeling that it was there we had lived the best years of our lives.

I succumbed to the desert as soon as I saw it.

There were certain miracles about which it was better to be silent.

Life here evaporates like a vapor.

~ Antoine de St. Exupery, from Wind, Sand, and Stars