Letter From the Desert: This Little Desert House

In February, 2014, torrential rain hit Joshua Tree. The leak in the roof in the house I had been renting, that I had warned my then-landlord about for some months previous, blew open in a spray of wet plaster and fiberglass above my desk. It was time to move.

I hated the prospect, and not just because my relationship of record was disintegrating at the …