Joy Harjo's Web Log

Today left Tucson about noon for Albuquerque. Hot. Clear. The vistas on this journey are amazing. All afternoon storm clouds walk across far distances. Lightning laces the sky. Brief squalls are followed by sunlight. Near Socorro, about 90 miles south of Albuquerque thunder clouds accumulate in a beautiful, angry swarm. Mountains to the east behind this stirring monument of power are backlit by a blaze of sunlight. To the west is a black sky. I admire this tremendous building up, see the craft of eddies, the perfect and dangerous fists of winds. This power is beautiful, I comment to myself. I am an observer. I watch from a distance. The danger appears far away, an idea, a dream.

Then, we're in it. Slammed by winds that literally push the car to the edge of the highway. The downpour is harsh, brutal. I follow the red taillights of the white truck in front of me weaving through the turbulence. Then there are no visible lights, or lines in the highway. They're extinguished by the pounding of sheets of rain. I can see nothing. I am flooded by fear, adrenalin, in the midst of this power. It is an alive thing, this storm. It can kill, it can give life to the plants drinking in the rain or uproot them. It will rejuvenate the air we are breathing.

Maybe there is no such thing as objectivity. Or objectivity is limited as it roams around on the mental plane, making suppositions and creating exact measures of physical force and dimension, of matter.

And there's more. I'm crashing for the evening in a warm hotel room in Albuquerque. It's raining here, and a man on the northeast side was struck by lightning.

(First draft of a note)