pigment

I've never been to Arizona, but I imagine it would look something like this. 

We drove on a bus for over an hour, winding up and over and around the steadily climbing hills of the Luberon valley and eating tasteless crackers to keep from getting sick. Then we step out and this golden-orange view, peppered through with greenest evergreen trees, is what awaits us. 

We rush to climb and play in the silty dust like children, and the ochre cliffs — run through with brilliant smudges of pinks and oranges and crimsons, even — rub off on our clothes. 

Soon we are covered with it, and traces of color will make their way back on the bus to Aix-en-Provence with us, only to be found hours or even days later by scolding mères d'acceuil, impatient with hanging the laundry outside to dry only to find it still dirty. 

Why they insist on cleaning our clothes is beyond us — the teachers tell us it is a difference culturelle which translates most directly as don't question it. We could wash our things ourselves, but why would we want to when such beautiful color still lingers?

But for now, the earth feels soft like charcoal on our fingers. We are grown but today we are in Roussillon, or is it Arizona, and the old quarry is ours to explore.