Balloon Fiesta 2019 Like an army waiting to attack, balloons wait, tethered. Across the desert, under an opaque and dense layer of fog, the first and only of 2019. Sometimes there’s nothing to do but wait. Chill. Sit. See what comes. The sun burns through, too late. There’s always tomorrow.

A serval crosses the road in front of us, thousands of miles away from anywhere that a serval should cross the road. We stop the car and stare. Native to sub Saharan Africa, we are in northern New Mexico, driving home from an unsuccessful wild mushroom hunt at the Santa Fe ski area. He, or…