episode 300, in which rachiepoo tells you a story of two deserts.

this is my 300th post. for some reason, that seems like a really big deal to me, and at the same time, seems kind of ridiculous. i seem to be of two minds about a lot of things lately. duality, causality, context, and synchronicity seem to be the themes running in my life, through my brain, and in the world that i know, right now. and to tell the truth, i've never been more ready to see what comes next.

The first time I got lost in the desert, I was with two of my girlfriends from college. We went to the desert to camp, to see new things, swim in new pools, climb new mountains. We went to the desert to shed old skin, to tell each other sad things, to tell each other hopeful things, to laugh, to cry, and to stare up at the stars, with the asphalt hot against the skin of our backs, on the high-line drive, where no cars were allowed after dark, to pass cigarettes and wine glasses back and forth, to sleep harder than we had slept in months. That we got lost wasn’t so scary, because we were together, and we were experienced campers. What was scary was that we were so close to not being lost, at all, but just couldn’t seem to quite get to where we needed to be. I think the edge of missing the mark, just missing by a hair, is so much harder than being absolutely annihilated. So I felt about being lost. I knew we would eventually end up where we needed to be. I just didn’t know how long we would have to wander.

June in those desert mountains was a beauty to behold. Everything was still flush from the spring, ripening to summer, like a pretty girl after a nice kiss. All the shades of green, hit randomly with pinks, yellows, occasional brilliant orange, and the whiteblack blur of quail startled out of their hiding places said that the desert is far from a dead place. Coming through Wild Rose Pass, with San Solomon Springs behind us, I knew that we had come to a place where we could find what we needed, and leave behind what needed to be left.

Sometimes, I think what you leave in a place is as important as what you take away. I mean that literally, as well as figuratively. We tried never to leave physical evidence that we had been someplace when we were camping, aside from the park-installed fire ring. But we did leave a lot behind, in the ashes inside that fire ring. We each left something we needed to get rid of. For me, it was realizing that a guy I had only gone on a couple of dates with was really bad news, and even though he was the best kisser I’d ever met, I knew that nothing about where we were going was good. God, it was hard to say that…was harder still to hear it said back to me by my sister-friends. But I needed to say it, and I needed people who loved me enough to hold me accountable to hear it.

For fifty-odd days this summer, the temperature has been over 100 degrees. It’s starting to mess with my head. I feel like I’m dealing with the worse case of pms in my whole life, and the period to beat all periods is hours from beginning, wreaking an almighty havoc upon my life the likes of which I have never imagined, much less experienced. Aggression seems to simmer just below the surface, like I could go out and pick a fight with Gandhi or push down a blind kid. I feel aggressive, paranoid, anxious, and maybe a little bit strung out. All the brown lawns and the blinding light of the sun are buzzing in some bizarre bass line that makes my eyes tear up. I don’t even want to drive around my favorite neighborhoods and look at houses…it just makes me want to cry.

I wake up and pray for rain. I go to sleep, and I pray for rain. I wake up and go to the bathroom, and I pray for rain. I toyed with the idea of putting my underpants in a ziplock bag in the freezer, like Marilyn Monroe in The Seven Year Itch. I didn’t do it. And then the other day, I was really in a bad way, and found myself thinking about that trip to the mountains with Kristen and Laura. I thought about the clarity of thought I had on that trip, I thought of what I left behind, what I took away, how I feel right now.

And I realize that what I’m feeling now is a lot like what I felt four summers ago, when we went the long way around the mountain. The difference is that I’m not on vacation, and the bulk of this little sojourn has been on my own, in a manner of speaking. Being in the desert of this summer has been profoundly difficult. It’s also been incredibly beautiful.

Last night, for no good reason other than God's own great mercy (and isn't that the best reason of all), it rained in this desert of a city, parched and languishing in the last month of the longest summer of my life, and the only one I'll live as a 30 year old. As I drove down 281, back to my little house, and my fat cat, I was running the windshield wipers at full speed. And when I got home, and walked through my back door, I could smell my rosemary and lavendar giving up their sweet fragrance, I could smell the ozone in the air from the light show in the clouds, and I was so very happy. I pulled the clip out of my hair (which I can't wait to cut...ten inches for little bald kids is a LOT of hair, and I'm almostbutnotquite there yet), shook the day's tension out of my shoulders, and danced. Rumi, one of my favorite poets, said this: "Dance, when you're broken open. Dance, if you've torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of the fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance, when you're perfectly free."

I imagined that this year of my life would bring change, mostly internal. I planned it that way. I promised myself that by the time I turned 31, things that I struggled with in my life, for huge parts of my life, would be confronted and dealt with in healthy ways. The list isn't complete, not by a long shot, but I've made a dent. I've allowed myself to start thinking about going back to school, about believing in the strength of my own convictions, of the sanctity of real and profound surrender. I am still who I was on the last day of my 29th year, who I have always been, down to my toes. But I have shed some skin, drug the dead parts over and over the rocks in my path, and left the bits that didn't belong to me anymore for someone else to wonder about. The marvel of all of this to me is that so much of this has taken place inside myself, inside my head, and heart, and soul. Most of the conversations I've had have been just between me and God. To say that I am grateful for this experience, even the things I've said goodbye to in my heart of hearts, would be a gross understatement. There's not a word I know to make it big enough.

I remember when Laura and Kristen and I figured out that we were right where we needed to be to pick up a trail back to our tent. The relief I felt was almost overwhelming. I teared up a little bit. I am tearing up a little thinking about it right now, four years after the fact. We shambled down the switchbacks, trying not to run, trying to conserve our energy, and I was trying not to show how really scared I had been. I drank three 32 ounce bottles of water until I finally had to go to the bathroom. We had to hang our clothes out on the campsite clothesline to dry them, and I was suprised they didn't have salt flakes on them once they were finally dry. But that night, by the fire, and later that night up on the highline drive, we laughed and laughed and told story after story, just happy to be safe, and not lost, and still on our adventure.

I feel like that now. I feel like I have been in the desert. Like I took the long way around the mountain. Like I am most definately not lost, anymore. And I am still on my adventure.

mil besos,
rmg