Shade

After hiking through the sunny desert, my skin felt taut, the heat soaking all the way through to my bones. I crossed a dry stream bed, climbed up over some boulders, and then stepped into the welcoming shade of a side canyon. The cool air of the canyon rushed over my bare skin, and I could feel the muscles in my face relaxing as my eyes took a break from the harsh sunlight. The river moved through so slowly it didn’t even make a sound, and piles of sand had washed up against the rocks, leaving soft places to sit. We saw just two other hikers, an older couple, who were climbing up out of the canyon as we were climbing down into it. The woman smiled at me as she paused to take a drink from her water bottle. The man spoke in a low tone, as if he were in church or perhaps a library, “You can gather your thoughts in a place like this.”