Hot Springs is a Ouachita Mountains resort town in Arkansas. Al Capone used to winter there; now they race horses there in Springtime. It's got bath houses and pancake houses and some of the most glorious mountain hiking nearby.
Quartz occurs naturally in veins which run very near the surface in much of the Ouachitas. The Ouachitas are the "other" mountains in Arkansas, much smaller than the Ozarks, much less well-travelled. They are "fold" mountains, which seem to wrap themselves around one's mind as one drives through them.
Quartz is so abundant in the Hot Springs area that it has its own nickname--a "Hot Springs Diamond". One can find them at any of a tendozen tourist shops all along the way, polished or cut and multi-faceted.
Lately I think of myself as a kind of Hot Springs diamond--not precious, exactly (or precious in only the wrong way), but many-faceted, crystalline, and all that. I suppose I may be mistaken, and I may just be a calcite crystal, a bit chunky and way too translucent. But in my mind, I am a many-faced crystal, perhaps not as simple and rich as an opal, but perhaps not entirely without interest as well. But it really doesn't matter if I am anything or not anything. It matters to me only that I see the many different moods and feelings, and try to make them, and thus me, seem like just one form of stone. I don't know why that matters to me, but it does.