Desert Love is a collection of stories, poems and excerpts from letters that I wrote in the year and a half following my lover Les' death from lymphoma. We were living in a cabin in Prescott, Arizona at the time and it was there in the seclusion of that cabin that this project unfolded.
It's been thirteen years now since these stories were written and a lot has changed in that time. As I go back and read some of the things that I wrote then, I find myself sometimes flushing with embarassment. But that's who I was then and it doesn't necessarily reflect who I've become today. If I were to write about all of it now, the story would be a very different one. So in a way, this is a much more realistic portrayal of the experiences and feelings as they unfolded for me during the better part of the 1990s.
Desert Love is part love story, part commentary and part journey of healing. I wrote it because I had a lot going on inside of me that needed to be resolved and writing has always been my way of doing that. There was a lot of grief that needed to be dealt with as well. My relationship with Les had taken me to highs and lows that I'd never experienced before and there was a feeling in me that I needed somehow to re-balance my life before I could move on with it. Writing this book provided me with the opportunity to do that by exploring my feelings in the quietness and isolation of our cabin in central Arizona.
This is a story about the love shared between two men. But as many of my friends have commented after reading rough drafts of the book, it's really just a love story. That we were two men has both everything and nothing to do with it. I guess it depends on your point of view. I never intended these writings to be read by anybody other than close friends, so at times it may seem to the reader that the level of personal exposure is beyond what would be considered comfortable.
So be it. It is personal. It's very personal because I wouldn't have known how to write about my experiences any other way. I chose to write from my heart and be honest about what happened so that I could better understand and move on.
And that's exactly what's happened. I finished Desert Love in October of 1998 and a couple of weeks later hopped on a plane to Rome where I worked on a film set for eight months. Except for some editing, the book was done and it was time to start my new life.
This extraordinary man I shared my life with for almost six years will always be alive in me somehow. But unlike during the writing of this book, he is rarely present in my thoughts today. The grief has healed, the questions have mostly been answered and I've moved on, as most of us who lose a loved one usually do.
With all of its flawed writing and emotional ups and downs, Desert Love still stands as a sincere and honest tribute to a man I loved and shared my life with on the beautiful, sometimes brutal but often magical Sonoran Desert of southern Arizona.
Most of the pictures in this book were taken by my dear friend Lynne Ericksson who continues to be a source of delightful friendship and beautiful beautiful pictures.
