Lovely and salvific mountain sunset of New Mexico, but from the parking lot of a Walmart.

I remember a very similar situation from exactly half a lifetime ago, looking up at the Flatirons from the Target in Boulder. There’s something vague and numinous to be learned about the juxtaposition of God and Moloch. It’s as true now as it was then.

Speaking of Truth. I am making the fateful decision to amend ‘janitor’ into ‘Custodian’, because that word can mean so many more things, and is thus decidedly more poetic. The Custodian at the Southwest Temple, and in particular custody of Gifts.

Which is not to say that there are no toilets to be cleaned or dishes to be washed, too, in spite of the promotion elevation.

So next we must consider what makes Barbara Kingsolver a Real Writer and what makes me just a custodian.

(I never said she was better. I just said she was Real.)

The main thing is that Barbara gets paid well, and consistently, to write.

I make a little bit here and there, but I would argue that if only blood relatives buy your books, then any claim one might make about the Reality of one’s vocation is a little suspect.

Did I say the main thing? I did, but I was wrong. That’s the whole thing.

The day I actually make my living three months in a row by selling my scribbles is the day I will be plausibly allowed to call myself a Real Writer too.

Not that I will so call myself, of course, even then.

I’m officially neutral on the word ‘Writer’.

I stand in firm opposition to Literature and the stylings of the literati.

What I stand for is the schism shard called anarcho-belletrism. I am particularly but not exclusively fond of it because I made it up. One’s own children are always the prettiest and smartest.

Now this Temple where I custode, it’s a shrine of a Goddess.

The Goddess has many attributes, and is said to be “associated with love, beauty, fertility, sex, war, gold, and seiðr (a form of magic which is related to both the telling and the shaping of the future).

Seiðr practitioners are of both sexes, with sorceresses being variously known as vǫlur, seiðkonur and vísendakona. There were also accounts of male practitioners, who were known as seiðrmaðr. In many cases these magical practitioners would have had assistants to aid them in their rituals”.

I assist ritually by keeping the stove fed and the laundry freshly dried upon the rack. Sometimes I will perform a curry, or a batch of hummus. Quite often I will create a gift, and place it reverently into the custody of a safe niche in the chill montane wind.

Is it any wonder that I love my job?