I’m listening to the Autumn Equinox episode of the Desert Oracle podcast. If you’re not familiar, you may want to give it a listen. It’s from the Voice of the Desert, Ken Layne, with music from a guy who calls himself RedBlueBlackSilver. I will warn you, it’s not for everyone. But if you have a fondness for the high desert of California, it might be for you.

I think it was October 1st when we left the desert in 1983. I might be off by a day. We got a late start that day because of a series of mishaps with a dirt road and a Uhaul truck. We stayed the night in a motel that had clown artwork. Like creepy clown artwork that was not meant to be creepy but was anyway. I assume we stayed a second night in Napa with my aunt and uncle, but I don’t remember it clearly. I do remember crossing the border into Oregon. I remember passing through Salem. I remember those first few weeks when we stayed with a different aunt and uncle in a weird little house at 114th and Harold.

I’ve only been back to the desert a couple times since, but I miss it. When you have it in your soul, you never really rid yourself of it.

I said yesterday that there is no more October place than Wisconsin, but I think the Mojave is a close second. It’s thousands of square miles of blowing sand and coyotes and lost towns and desert people. It is full of ghosts. You hear them on the wind, you hear them in the howl of those coyotes: souls who lost themselves out there, forever looking for a way home.

I went back last year for the first time in probably three decades. It was as I left it, though some places that I remember as shiny are now a bit tarnished. I drove to the end of the driveway of the house we left so long ago and hopped out of my rental car long enough to steal a few rocks from the middle of the dirt road. Don’t tell anyone.

I was lucky enough to spend time with a family friend, and we went to Joshua Tree to drive through the monument, and to Pioneertown to see some sites. We drove through the parking lot of the church where I once was Mary in the Christmas pageant.

The nostalgia of October is heavy. I guess it’s part of that “the veil between worlds is thin” thing. The past reaches out to you, whispering,”Remember.”

Remember.