When you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you. –Friedrich Nietzsche

Pale as I am, I have a deep bond with the desert. After all, Idaho is a desert; vastly deserted. The Bruneau Dunes are only an hour away from Boise. So much wildness is at play only an hour or two away from home…and beyond.

At age 22, I dropped out of college to backpack the deserts of the northwest and the southwest with a thorny companion. For me, it was epic. A forging experience with frequent blasts of sand in the face and other extremities.

In the Mojave Desert of Southern California, we backpacked to the side of a dune and stayed for days. (Note to selves: indeed, you eat a lot of sand when you bivouac on a giant pile of sand.) These dunes sang. As you would walk along the crest, big avalanche sand plates would break off and rub down, vibrating the whole hillside in a hum like a plucked string. Like nature music. Real live magic.

I am gearing to write about that experience now, and am having the abyss vertigo. What happens when you look deep into you?

But like Socrates said, The unexamined life is not worth living. So here we are. Desert solitaire.

Embroidered flower and vine kaftan (unlabeled) Borrowed (From Nicole Orabona’s traveling closet).

Antique Afganastani glass and silver necklace $$$ (Armor Bijoux).

Face the abyss. No shoes allowed.

[Thanks for the brilliant photos, Jeanne Giltzow.]