I thought I was going to read so fast that I'd
read two children's books.
[SIDE CONVERSATION]
[APPLAUSE]
We'll let whoever wants to go, and I
read one little short one.
OK.
All right.
I will read "I'm in Charge of Celebrations."
[APPLAUSE]
This is clearly autobiographical.
"Sometimes people ask me, 'Aren't you lonely out there
with just desert around you?'
I guess they mean the bare grass and the yuccas
and the cactus and the rocks.
I guess they mean the deep ravines and the hawk
nests in the cliffs and the coyote trails that
wind across the hills.
I can't help laughing when they ask me that.
I always look at them, surprised,
and I say, 'How could I be lonely?
I'm the one in charge of celebrations.'
Sometimes, they don't believe me, but it's true.
I am.
I put myself in charge.
I choose my own.
Last year, I gave myself 108 celebrations, besides the ones
that they closed school for.
I cannot get by with only a few.
Friend, I'll tell you how it works.
I keep a notebook, and I write the date.
Then I write about the celebration.
I'm very choosy over what goes in that book.
It has to be something I plan to remember the rest of my life.
You can tell what's worth a celebration because your heart
will pound, and you'll feel like you're
standing on top of a mountain.
And you'll catch your breath like you were
breathing some new kind of air.
Otherwise, I count it just an average day.
I told you I was choosy.
Friend, I wish you'd been here for dust devil day.
But since you weren't, I'll tell you
how it got to be my first real celebration.
You can call them whirlwinds if you want to.
Me, I think dust devils has a better sound.
Well, anyway, I always stop and watch them.
Here everyone does.
You know how they come from far away, moving up from the flats,
swirling and swaying and falling and turning,
picking up sticks and sand and feathers and dry tumbleweeds?
Well, last March 11th, we were all going somewhere.
I was in the back of a pickup truck
when the dust devil started to gather.
You could see they were giants.
You'd swear they were calling their friends to come too.
And they came dancing in time to their own windy music.
We all started counting.
We all started looking for more.
They stopped that truck, and we turned round and round,
watching them all.
There were seven.
At a time like that, something goes kind of crazy in you.
You have to run to meet them, yelling all the way.
You have to whirl around like you were one of them.
And you can't stop until you're falling down.
And then all day, you think how lucky you were to be there.
Some of my best celebrations are sudden surprises like that.
If you weren't outside at that exact moment, you'd miss them.
I spend a lot of time outside myself, looking around.
Once I saw a triple rainbow that ended in a canyon
where I'd been the day before.
I was halfway up a hill, standing in a drizzle of rain.
It was almost dark, but I wouldn't go in because
of the rainbows, of course.
And there, at the top of the hill,
a jackrabbit was standing up on his hind legs perfectly
still, looking straight at that same triple rainbow.
I may be the only person in the world who
has seen a rabbit standing in the mist,
quietly watching three rainbows.
That's worth a celebration anytime.
I wrote it down and drew the hill and the rabbit
and the rainbow and me.
Now, August 9 is rainbow celebration day.
I have green cloud day too.
Ask anybody and they'll tell you clouds aren't green.
But late one winter afternoon, I saw this huge green cloud.
It was not bluish green or grayish green
or something else.
This cloud was green, green as a jungle parrot.
And the strange thing was that it
began to take a parrot shape.
First, the wings and then the head and beak.
High in the winter sky that green bird flew.
It didn't last more than a minute.
You know how fast the cloud can change.
But I still remember how it looked.
So I celebrate green clouds on February 6.
At times like that, I always think, what if I'd missed it?
What if I've been in the house?
What if I hadn't looked up when I did?
You can see I'm very lucky about things like that.
And I was very lucky on coyote day because out of all time,
it had to be one moment only that a certain coyote and I
could meet, and we did.
Friend, you should have been here too.
I was following deer tracks, taking my time,
bending down as I walked, kind of humming.
I hum a lot when I'm alone.
I looked up in time to see a young coyote
trotting through the brush.
She crossed in front of me.
It was a windy day, and she was going east.
In that easy, silent way coyotes move, she pushed into the wind.
I stood there, hardly breathing, wishing I could move that way.
I was surprised to see her stop and turn and look at me.
She seemed to think that I was just another creature following
another rocky trail.
That's true, of course.
I am.
She didn't hurry.
She wasn't afraid.
I saw her eyes, and she saw mine.
That look held us together.
Because of that, I never will feel quite the same again.
So on September 28, I celebrate coyote day.
Here's what I do.
I walk the trail I walked that day, and I hum softly as I go.
Finally, I unwrapped the feast I brought for her.
Last time, it was three apples and some pumpkin seeds
and an ear of corn and some big, soft homemade ginger cookies.
The next day, I happened to pass that way again.
Coyote tracks went all around the rock
where the food had been.
The food was gone.
Next year, I'll make it even better.
I'll bring an extra feast and eat there too.
Another one of my greatest of all celebrations
is called The Time of Falling Stars.
It lasts almost a week in the middle of August.
And I wait all year for those hot summer nights
when the sky goes wild.
You can call them meteor showers if you want to.
Me, I like to say they're falling stars.
All that week, I sleep outside.
I give my full attention to the sky.
And every time a streak of light goes
shooting through the darkness, I feel my heart shoot out of me.
One night, I saw a fireball that left a long, red blazing trail
across the sky.
After it was gone, I stood there looking up, not quite
believing what I'd seen.
The strange thing was I met a man who told me
he had seen it too while he was lying by a campfire 500 miles
away.
He said he did not sleep again that night.
Suddenly, it seemed that we too spoke a language no one else
could understand.
Every August of my life, I'll think of that.
Friend, I've saved my new year celebration until last.
Mine is a little different from the one most people have.
It comes in spring.
To tell the truth, I never did feel like my new year started
January 1.
To me, that's just another winter day.
I let my year begin when winter ends,
and morning light comes earlier the way it should.
That's when I feel like starting new.
I wait until the white-winged doves are back from Mexico,
and wildflowers cover the hills.
And my favorite cactus blooms.
It always makes me think I ought to bloom myself.
And that's when I start to plan my new year celebration.
I finally choose a day that is exactly right.
Even the air has to be perfect.
The dirt has to feel good and warm on bare feet.
Usually, it's a Saturday around the end of April.
I have a drum that I beat to signal the day.
Then I go wandering off, following
all of my favorite trails to all of the places I like.
I check how everything is doing.
I spend the day admiring things.
If the old desert tortoise I know from last year
is out strolling around, I'll go his direction a while.
I celebrate with horned toads and ravens and lizards
and quail.
And friend, it's not a bad party,
walking back home kind of humming.
Sometimes, I think about those people who
asked me if I'm lonely here.
I have to laugh out loud."
OK.
[APPLAUSE]
Thank you.
[INAUDIBLE]
Thank you so much.