Dispatches from the High Desert: #3

Blue Skies: How I Accidentally Became Crystal

For those who stuck with Sunny and Ahmed, you are probably like one of my readers, wondering if they went all the way. I’m compelled to give the definitive answer—yes, and it was life changing, like moving to Santa Fe has been for ken anderson. Now that I finished the telling of that tale I’m not sure what else I will find on the shelf, or what I will write next, so it seems like a good time to share ken anderson’s next dispatch. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. He’s a funny guy. Sending you all light, love, and blessings—we need all of that we can get in these dark times.

Yesterday, I caught myself standing in the compound driveway, coffee in hand, staring up at the sky like I was waiting for it to text me back.

This is not who I am.

Or wasn’t, anyway. Four months ago, if you’d told me I’d become the kind of person who stops mid-conversation to point at clouds, I’d have suggested therapy. Good therapy. The expensive kind.

But judgment is a slippery slope. You mock the light-lovers until suddenly you’re squinting at the clouds like they’re trying to tell you something important.

Back when we lived in Boulder, my daughter’s part-time preschool teacher was Crystal. Of course she was. She once paused circle time to discuss “the quality of morning light.” She wore long skirts and soft layers in earth tones - maybe linen, maybe hemp, definitely organic and natural - like she’d just drifted in from a meditation retreat. There was always a scarf involved. Sometimes a stone pendant, the kind that promised clarity or calm, depending on the day. She said things like “the universe is speaking through the storm clouds today,” as if snack time were just a portal to higher consciousness.

I perfected the art of drop-off and pick-up in thirty-second intervals to avoid her cosmic weather reports.

Crystal was Patient Zero for everything I swore I’d never become: someone who reads meaning into meteorology, who has opinions about “energy,” who uses blessed as an adjective for ordinary Tuesday mornings.

So naturally, here I am in Santa Fe, four months in and I find myself on the phone with my brother saying, without a bit of irony, “You don’t understand, the light is different here.”

Full stop. Rewind.

The light here is different?

When did I start having light opinions? Develop light standards?

The next thing you know, I’ll be burning sage and explaining chakras to tourists.

But the thing is... it is different. Annoyingly, undeniably different.

In Portland, light was optional. A suggestion. Like flossing or returning phone calls that you knew you should pay attention to. But mostly you just hoped the sky would show up eventually. The sky once flirted with blue, then backed off like it got spooked. Portland’s version of optimism

Here, the sky doesn’t ask permission. It just is. Aggressively blue. Assertively present. Like it found itself at Burning Man and thinks we all should too.

I tried to resist. I really did. For the first few weeks, I kept my head down, focused on practical things: finding decent coffee, figuring out which roads actually lead somewhere, learning to say “chile” instead of “chili” without sounding like a tourist ordering at Tomasita’s.

But the sky kept... performing. Every morning. Like it was on a personal development tour. One-man show. Sold out.

Next thing I know, I’m in the new age shop on Canyon Road, pretending to “just browse.” I almost bought a candle labeled "Clarity.” I don't know what clarity smells like. Apparently now I want to. Apparently, this is the energy field I’m moving through now. Someone at La Choza can casually mention getting ‘my colon cleansed and my third eye opened on the same day… Transformative,’ over enchiladas, and I don’t even blink. Where Cedar sells tinctures brewed during full moons from a vintage suitcase at the farmer's market - digestive clarity, better sleep, less ghost energy, whatever you need. Crystal would be so proud. I didn’t even roll my eyes. I swear I felt her presence when the wind chimes went off next to the Himalayan salt lamp.

I kept telling myself it was just elevation. Clean air. Better visibility. Nothing mystical, certainly not emotional. Definitely not a metaphysical shift. Not me. I said this out loud. To myself. Twice.

Still, I found myself looking up more. Just to check. Just to confirm it wasn’t doing anything weird.

And then I started noticing things. The way clouds here seem to have destinations. Intent. Like they’ve got somewhere to be by dinner. Not just loitering like unemployed cotton balls. The way late afternoon light makes even an Allsup’s gas/convenience store look like a Wes Anderson set. The fact that everything under this sky looks... lit from within. Cinematic.

Worse: I started saying things out loud, to myself.
“Okay, sky. I get it. You’re enormous.”
“Stop being so majestic, I’m trying to run errands.”
“Hard to be cynical when everything’s lit like a memory.”

Every line I say now feels like a defection. Weather used to be background. Now I’m in a committed relationship with the sky.

It’s like someone up there just discovered shapes and can’t stop showing off.

You can’t not look. And you wouldn’t want to.

But it didn’t stop there.

Sunsets here don’t just happen. They compete. I catch myself rating them, giving bonus points for drama or originality. I’ve started describing clouds like they’re character actors, never the leads, but always stealing the scene. Some nights, I linger in the AirBnB parking lot just to watch the light change on adobe..

I’ve even begun sketching out a personal logo for this [non-working] phase of life. Something minimal. Maybe Kokopelli with a spiral halo, set in Exocet or Adobe Caslon with the words: “ken anderson, Desert Pause. Available by Sky Signal.” Something I can print on a business card. Not for networking, of course, just to hand to myself, to say: you’re here now. Good luck with that. I can practically hear Crystal whispering “yes” from 500 miles away.

I recently texted a friend in Portland the word “luminous.” Not ironically.

Yesterday, we were hiking with some friends on a trail and I almost asked if they’d “felt a shift in the energy.” I caught myself in time, but the fact that I even thought it?! That’s the real shift.

This is how it starts, isn’t it?

One day you’re a rational adult who treats the sky as background noise. The next, you’re adjusting your route home to catch better golden hour and describing the sky with adjectives usually reserved for spiritual revelations, or maybe a Gwyneth Paltrow face cream.

I’m one turquoise bracelet away from becoming Crystal.

And the worst part?

I’m starting to think she maybe was onto something.