There’s that moment when the clouds part after a storm and what you see is that the mountains which, yesterday, were bone-dry-brown, have turned blue-white; thick with fresh snow.

Today, when that happened, I felt every part of my body unclench just a tad. I had no idea how tense I was until I wasn’t as much.

It’s been a stress reaction to the seriousness of the drought.

We had an orange fire moon in April.

But this tension isn’t on a mental or emotional plane; it’s visceral. My body feels parched along with the landscape.

Just a little bit of moisture has brought relief – at least for today. There is snow on the mountains. The river literally doubled it’s flow today. The pastures turned green while I was at work.

You can feel a collective sigh amongst the community. I doubt there’s anyone in this town who hasn’t said a prayer of thanks today.

I feel so connected to this place. I think most of us do. It gets in your cells.

It feels as if the lines between me and the dirt and the rocks and the grasses are quite blurred.

There’s a sense of solidity to this landscape that keeps one grounded.

It’s breathtakingly beautiful.

A woman asked me today, “Does it ever get old?”

No. No.

It’s so overwhelmingly stunning in every direction, and it’s so big, so, so big, and every moment of every day the light changes, drifts in and out, casts shadows across the mountains and the canyons, and, there is wind in the ponderosas, owls hoot-hooting in the night, and meadowlarks singing up the sun.

Our storms are events; people drive up to the mountains to them. Wildfires are yearly happenings. The sun will melt chocolate buried in your pack, in February.

It’s ever-changing and never-boring here.

When you love a place so much that it becomes a part of you, and you it; when your soul connects with the soul of the landscape; when it’s relief is your relief; that’s true love.

And true love never grows old.