Sharon Randall: We’re at home, home on the range — well, almost

In the cool of the evening, after the temperature plummets a whopping 10 degrees from a high of 107 (a point that might best be described as somewhat hotter than the hinges on the gates of hell) I go out to see the sunset and watch for coyotes.

We drove here four days ago, my husband and I, packed up like the Joads headed back to the Dust Bowl. We left our family and our friends and our small-town lives on the coast of California, and set out for the desert to make a new home in the sprawling suburbs of a manmade oasis that some like to call Sin City.

My mother would’ve called it “Lost Wages of All Places.”

I am trying to call it home.

And I will do that, God help me, any day now.

But tonight “home” seems far away, somewhere beyond the horizons. It’s in the east on the rising moon in the Carolinas, where I was born. And it’s in the west on the setting sun in California, with my children.

But it is not here. Not tonight.

Home isn’t the place where you lay your head. It’s the place where you feel at home.

It’s hard to feel at home in a strange, empty house. But we are working on getting settled.

We rented a place, bought a bed, unpacked our clothes and stocked up on necessities — sunscreen for him, Diet Coke for me, fudge bars for the freezer, ice for the iced tea, floats for the pool, sunshades for the car, nectar for the hummingbird feeder.

We also bought a patio table and chairs that come in handy when we need a place to eat a meal or write a column.

We have pinpointed essential businesses — restaurants, movie theaters, hospitals and grocery stores — many of which seem to be located in casinos.

And on Sunday we went to a church where the people were friendly and the service was much like any service I’d ever seen. Except, well, the preacher was wearing a red mini-skirt and high heels. But she was good. I’d like to hear her preach again. So would my husband.

In a few days, he’ll start his new job here and I’ll fly back to California to pack up the house that’s been my home for 36 years, the place we’ve shared in the year since we were married.

I’ve been trying to picture it — the furniture, the dishes, the photos of our kids — rearranged in this house. Somehow, I tell myself, it will all fit. It will help make this place a home.

The house we’re renting is separated from a golf course by a wide, rocky arroyo that both protects us from errant golf balls and provides a home for a variety of wildlife from lizards to quail to jack rabbits.

Snakes, too, probably (as my sister just loves to warn me). But I prefer not to dwell on that.

I haven’t seen a coyote yet.

Our neighbor, John, who has lived here for years, says he used to see them all the time running along the arroyo. He even recalls hearing packs of them howling late at night.

I heard coyotes in Yosemite once. I’d pay to hear them again. John says he hasn’t seen one in a while, but golfers still spot them on the golf course.

On my long, mental list of things to bring from California, I write the word “binoculars.”

The sun is melting over the mountains, tinting ribbons of clouds neon pink. Bats flit about my head. Crickets are warming up for their chorus.

In the distance, Las Vegas lies glittering on the desert, as dazzling as a chest of jewels. She looks better at night than in daylight. But then, so do I.

“Want to go for a swim?” my husband asks. I do.

I’ll let you know when I see a coyote.

Sharon Randall is the author of “Birdbaths and Paper Cranes.” She can be reached at P.O. Box 931, Pacific Grove, CA 93950, or at randallbay@earthlink.net.