The Desertgoer

"One of the most wonderful things about nature is a glance of the eye; it transcends speech; it is the bodily symbol of identity."-Ralph Waldo Emerson

It’s 11 pm and I'm looking down at my city from “Viewpoint”, the mountain top that gives a panoramic view of the city I grew up in. Staring to distant mountain tops, Temecula can be seen spread out across the valley exposed to the Southern California night sky. Every valley city in California has a “Viewpoint” and every high schooler in California thinks their viewpoint is the only viewpoint.

  It's 11 pm and it's the first time I looked at my life from the outside. The first time I watched my life in Temecula like a movie on a thick wheel of film. The first time I stopped to reflect on a past life.  

It only took a few years of attending college across the country in Virginia to feel like I didn’t belong between the mountains I carved myself from. But I know I am still here even if it is a past version of myself. I know my heart still holds this land dearly.  

It's 11 pm and it's time for me to descend down the mountain top and back into the city I called home for eight years of my life. It’s time to move on. I have myself. It may be a small portion of this land but it belongs to me.

No sleep

No sleep

No sleep…

And then you are relinquished to a dream where you are laying in a blue-lit, grey walled room staring

at the ceiling. A plastic bracelet scratches and sticks to your skin. It contains the information that identifies you from the others. Familiar voices lay muffled behind the walls. You try to answer but you are too weak to call out, “I'm still here!”. Too weak to stand up and run out. The fear of realizing you are paralyzed again creeps up but… 

just like that, it fades away as it has never done before. A Malfunction in the Claustrum. Voices fall away. The plastic no longer feels like it is gripping at your wrists. And for the first time, you think… 

Who are you?

You stare up at the ceiling like you did all those nights before in your bed at home. Unable to sleep because without meaningless work to keep you busy there's no ignoring that other version of yourself who recites the same old manhandled monologue every day, every hour, every minute:

“Everything you do right is meaningless, everything you do wrong is the end of the world, Everything means nothing and nothing means everything, There is no right, there is no wrong but you must find both the right and the wrong if you want to survive, don’t speak because then they will see right through you and they will know just how wrong you are, don’t run because you can’t outrun yourself but instead just let your mind drag you behind…”

Everything turns grey.  You can no longer feel your back pressed against the bed or the skin that contains your very being. A vessel lost to the sea.  Your soul feels full but cold to its new found freedom.   

Who are you?

You realized you spent your whole life tearing yourself apart skin thread by skin thread until there was nothing left.  You did this to yourself.   

The realization feels like…

pulling your head out of the water and finding the hand that held you down

was your very own. 

Who are you?

Reborn into a new headspace I gasped for my first real breath of life to which the Santa Ana winds rushed into my beckoning call.      

The Desert Sun seeped through the crevices of my skin and filled me with its warm honey-tinted reality. 

The Forest Fire Flames licked the parts of me I no longer wanted like wounded puppies. 

The Mist that blanketed the valley in the early mornings wrapped around my body like a mother's hug trying to hold me together on the days when I had felt myself falling apart limb by limb.  

The Plants that grew on her land fed the person that I was creating for myself. 

The Animals who walked in stride with me effortlessly whispered life's secrets with swift-moving legs, slender wings, and the curl of a tongue. 

Dust stirred up from the desert sandstorms rested into the crevices between each fragment and made one whole. 

Being reborn into a new mindset to which I now understand

I am more than I think I am. This world is more than I think it is.  

These things make up me. I am them. They are me. 

I never took the time to acknowledge the fact that I am alive. This is my body. This is my soul. This is my existence. This is my perception.

My identity is my reality and I create it myself.

5...4...3...2...1

5 things you see.

4 things you touch. 

3 things you hear. 

2 things you smell. 

1 thing you taste.

I see

1. I see a Beavertail cactus hugging the gritty beige desert floor. Proudly it holds its delicate pink tissue paper child to the rolling gray skies. Who knew something with thick leather skin and spines that glistened from a distance could make something so delicate… So beautiful? 
2. I see the skin of an ocotillo cracked and split open exposing its crunchy yellow flesh for all the desert to admire. The sunrays were still licking the wound that was already too deep. 
3. I see the lines dissecting a carpet of dried mud that prove to be the only evidence left from last month's ephemeral pond. Not a coherent shape to be found or a hidden picture within. Yet the lines still make sense the way they break away from each other and reconnect along the Earth's surface.
4. I see a Cholla cactus that gave way to the heat of last summer still standing as if it were trying to pretend that life didn’t get the best of it. Its veins flow from its base to the tip of its slender extremities. A mechanism of life is still visible in the complexion of the dead. 
5. I see green fronds under the canopy of a palm oasis waving in the wind to welcome me home. Strings from its leaves are turned to a gold halo by the rays of the late afternoon sunlight that flowed through with ease.  

I feel

1. I feel the deep desert sand from the dunes slide and giveaway under my footfall. 
2. I feel the dull spring sun try to reach towards my face and the little skin that is exposed on my hands.
3. I feel a strong wind build through the mountains which release it like a loving sigh. It flows past me dancing through my tangled hair and pushes my windbreaker against me with a snap.    
4. I feel the smooth black plastic buttons that dot the camera balancing tightly between my hands and face. 

I hear

1. I hear the creaking of old wood and the rustle of palm fronds against the trunks that hold them. A soothing melody. A mantra for the lost. 
2. I hear the trickling of water in the small creek that runs through the palm oasis. So quiet and sweet it sounds like a faint breeze. One of the most lovely sounds when it is the only water to be found for miles upon miles. 
3. I hear a jackrabbit trying to disguise itself as falling leaves. Fronds and twigs snap and rustle in a hurried rhythm under his large brown padded feet.

I smell

1. I smell dew damp desert sand. Its heaviness feels as if it could weigh me down to the Earth forever.   
2. I smell a current of orange blossoms from a citrus farm that calls the desert its home. Dusty desert air has a way of amplifying the sweet smells that linger in pockets within it.   

I taste

1. I taste the warm coffee I stopped to grab from Calico's just off of Christmas Tree Circle. It is the only coffee shop in Borrego Springs. The perfect partner for a morning to walk to meet the sun as it rises.  

Slow down

Slow down 

Slow down 

And notice…

A new perspective from the same point of view. 

In Joshua Tree National Park stands a Joshua Tree next to a mound of boulders. It is said that Joshua trees got their name from a group of Mormon settlers who followed these specific trees to their settlement in Southern California. They took them as a sign from the heavens as they resemble Joshua in the biblical story where he stretched his arms to the sky in prayer. Not all of these trees take the shape of humans but there are quite a few that stand as though they are dancing, skipping, leaning, and praying all throughout the desert. It isn’t just the movement of their limbs but the way they come alive that tells a deeper story.   

In Southern California, it's quite common to hear people say “I’m spiritual” in response to the question, “Are you religious”? 

In California religion seems to be as fluid as gender and sexuality. As someone who was raised Catholic, I was taught the correct ways to think, behave, and most importantly worship. There were classes to be finished, excerpts to be learned, commandments to be followed and traditions to uphold. There were confessions that had to be made and self-hatred to be obtained before forgiveness could be dished out. I finished the classes, recited the excerpts, tried my best to follow the commandments, upheld the traditions, and yet every time I would fall short in the eyes of my fellow worshippers. Mostly due to those I choose to love. What was supposed to be my sanctuary was a man-made hell and the judgment of those who sat next to me became demons in the pews alongside us. 

It took me walking endless miles from one side of the desert to the other every Sunday for those wounds to finally close and for me to finally know my God. 

I found that my church is the land I walk on, not the plastered buildings they make me kneel in. His words are not those that were contorted to fit a political agenda but the silent words that are found in His creations. My worships are made with my hands stretched open, not clasped around a string of beads.

If only people opened the doors to the church and looked around for once would they realize… All we need is right here. 

Everything we need to survive and all that we need to heal from life's tragedies have already been given to us. There is no need to complicate, no need to destroy the beauty of the truth around us. 

But they have no power over me if I cuss my confessions into the roaring wind that sweeps off the mountain. They have no power over me if I find the divine healing power within the natural world He created.

I'm afraid we have strayed too far from the holy land that is found right under our feet.      

On the outskirts of Anza-Borrego Desert State Park stands a statue of Padre Pedro Font. He is depicted with a cross resting on his shoulders and the beads of a rosary tightly grasped in his hands. He passed through this very desert on his way to settle a mission in Southern California. He would have been depicted more accurately with the bodies of the Natives he killed resting on his shoulders and dagger in his hand. I'm not sure that's how God would have wanted him to do it but that was how it.

I believe the trees know my God better.

I remember my first time doing dissections at Julian Charter school in Temecula, California. I carefully followed my teacher as she cut open the lifeless orange starfish on her desk. With unskilled hands, I did the same and apologized profusely to my lifeless starfish for every wrong incision I made. Once done I leaned in and for the first time thought to myself how something that appears so simple is made complex by all that makes it alive. Furthermore, this simple creature laying on the table in front of me was made up of the same things I am. Even if someone believes that a greater being created us or if they believed the universe exploded and we were made from stardust there is still an interconnectedness amongst living beings. 

To think that I exist on this planet and while standing on the beach I can come across another living thing like a pelican or a seal is something of the amazing. I could be walking along in the desert and come across a butterfly or an Ocotillo tree. I could come up with a list of ways that I am different from them. If I'm not careful I can also come up with a list of reasons as to why I think I am superior to them. But looking from a different point of view we are just as alike as we are different. I am made up of the same nucleic acids, the same basic building blocks of life, but they are just reorganized to create a different being. This seal or pelican is both as alive as I am and living on the same planet like I am.  

I catch glimpses of myself in the pelican who sits on the pier next to the Ruby’s in Oceanside or the seal who basks in the sunlight on jagged rocks in La Jolla. I see myself in the butterfly that got too tired of beating its wings against the desert storm so it rested on the pebbles by my feet. I even see myself in the flowers of the Ocotillos who reflect the sun's warm hues or the Cholla cacti clustered together on the sandy desert floor. I see myself in the strangers who I find sauntering through deserts just like I do.

To think that all humans stem from the first human is just as wild as knowing that we have parts of the same DNA that came from that same human. All those alive, dead, and yet to still be born are just extended families that have lost touch with each other. 

The atoms in my body and also in yours took the shape of many different beings before it was claimed by our souls. A carbon atom could have been a star, a tree, a rock, a cactus, seal, butterfly, or pelican before it was ever part of us.

Knowing that my very being is made up of the universe interacting with itself has taught me that I belong here and my life is far more precious than I will ever be able to comprehend. I'm never alone because I carry all those before me and ahead of me within myself.

All these little pieces of the universe transform and connect us all. We are forever changing and moving forward together. 

It is magic we choose to ignore every day. 

People told me I would feel better once I started allowing myself to live but now that I have made time to feel the emotions that moments hand to me I feel like my mind has been rubbed raw. It's too much to feel. Too much to take in all at once. Being aware of the current moment has left me mourning their fleetingness before they even go. I have yet to master accepting that a moment can still be happy once it is gone. It is another thing to work on.

It was seventh grade where I first met you, my best friend, on the sun-baked lawn of our school. During lunch one day I had accidentally sent our school kickball over the old chain-linked fence, down the mountain, and into an empty field below. You laughed when you told me to keep a watch for Mrs. Bowden as you scaled the side of the fence, slid down the hillside, and sprinted across the crunchy dead field. You danced around for a few minutes just to push your luck. If you had been caught in the “forbidden field” we would have been sent to the office to inform our parents of our dangerous behavior.  

The parking lot we are sitting in today used to be that empty field.  Now it was paved, a starbucks on one end, a pizza parlor next to it and a fitness center across the way.  It's hard to think that once before, right where we were sitting listening to your engine struggle, there was nothing but an empty field. 

We all fade into a daze. Your two friends from high school sit behind us in the back seats. I'm happy you have them for when I am not around. The car grows quiet and the sky fades from its orange intensity to a deep indigo. Like a velvet blanket lovingly wrapped around a toddler who has tired itself out from a tantrum. From where I am sitting slumped next to you on the leather passenger seat you look like a silhouette. Your black-figure puts the car into gear and pulls away from the forbidden field to get onto the highway.  

At seventy miles an hour, the deepening purple sky strolls carelessly past your car door window. A little orange flame dances methodologically in your left hand from your face and back down to your lap. A black figure against fading indigo skies. The sky will soon turn black and your silhouette will meld into it. Time slows down. I wonder if you are thinking the same thing or, if not right now, do you ever think about it. How our memories might be claimed by the darkness that lays within our skull. Within my clouded perception, this thought doesn’t hurt as much as it normally does but I'm troubled thinking about how I can’t stop thinking. You know I get stuck in the past because you do the same.  

Both of us are victims suffocating under the blankets of time that wrap around us.  We claw our hand from under its cover to rip at the time swirling around us.  We gather the shreds of the past, hold them to our heaving chests and wipe away our tears until the purple fades from its cloth.  How cruel it is, how stark and cold it is, to be given these moments just to have them ripped from our bleeding grasps.  Our bodies are kicked along to the next moment while our minds still wander. 

But I am okay. You reminded me to grab my mind from the highway of time and put it back in my skull. This moment will one day just be a tattered scrap pulled in my fists. One day I will be able to control how long I gaze at these memories strewn about me but for now, I am like an addict. Endlessly staring at these tatters as though I can think them into the moment. One day I might be able to gaze at the pieces and laugh to myself while gingerly throwing them over my shoulder.    

 You smile when I tell you I am okay as the flicker nears your face setting your complexion ablaze. I'm not sure how long I have been processing this thought next to you. It felt like hours of turmoil but the sky is still indigo and I still have much to work on.

During the springtime in the backyard of my house off Corte Sagunto, we would have rows of gold-fringed green monarch chrysalis hanging from our fence line. I would stand with my face an inch away from them for hours just watching and documenting. 

Chunky yellow and black monarch caterpillars would leave the milkweed that grew in the garden and make their way to the burgundy fence that enclosed our small cemented backyard.  Once on the fence, they would start crawling slower and slower until they eventually stopped and sat quietly under the ledge of the fence. Their front prolegs would release the wood and a silk bundle they made themselves would dangle their still bodies under the ledge. Over time the caterpillar ever so slightly would curl upwards into a J shape. Their skin would pull away thread by thread and chrysalis would form from the head up to the silk webbing that held them there. It was at this stage that I would marvel at them. 

Their sleek mint green case dotted with gold contained nothing but caterpillar soup. Somehow they were still alive even after the caspase enzymes tore their former selves apart in preparation to rebuild. 

If the chrysalis survived its transformation the lovely green cases would gradually become transparent and a perfectly reassembled monarch would emerge. It was always hard to believe it was the same being. Once fully out she would take a moment to stretch and dry her wings. Then just like that she would take to the desert wind with a completely different view of the world.