Thousand Palms Oasis, 15 minutes from the ground zero of my house. Celebrating - commiserating the autumn equinox - Sept 21, 2008. I venture down Washington Road, over the I-10 freeway, past the mushroom of Sun City (50+ retirement community,) and take the wide curve west: our road becomes Ramon, and I turn right/north onto Thousand Palms Road. I'm by myself, I drank a beer at home not long ago, and now I'm slamming a not-so-cold diet coke. Dogs aren't allowed where I'm going. No reception on the cell phone; I tried to make a call on the way out here and got the red stop sign icon.
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Better, all of it. I arch past the arc in the road where, early last October, in another dimension but on the same road and at the same trailhead (where I won't stop today,) I parked my convertible 1989 nissan pulsar (252,000 miles) and departed for a long walk (3 miles or so) to Pushwalla Palms, one of my all time favorite places (think: mud flow canyon walls, dried now, and a mush and tangle of ancient palm trees, coyote scat enough for a canine party, and the rustle of wind in sharp things.) I was with Philip and George. They are both far away now. We had a fun homie triage last fall, getting out every week or more, exploring all of the desert getaways near my home - I was on fall sabbatical, and I learned that the self-working life is the way to go. Primarily meaning, being outdoors as much as possible, losing oneself into the bigger, wider earth, and staying out of small office spaces and primitive, unhealthy air-conditioned buildings - does evil things to one's creative mind. The indoors thing, that is. Outside, and then writing about it.
I knew it was a special time. Even when we had to trail guess when we didn't make it to the car by dark - and when we reached the car, the battery was gone. Had fun with the ensuing fiasco - a desert rat-guy in a small white pickup stopped to help us out - after we flagged him down, that is, risking lives by jumping in front of headlights - he even pushed my dark, headlight-less car from behind with his truck, until I panicked and yelled at him to stop - nothing like getting up towards 30 mph or so on an ink black night in the desert and not being able to see an inch in front of you! Thankfully, wisely, a call was made to Triple A. And Johnny Desert Rat kept on talking, offering to do odd jobs for us at less than $20, bless his heart, and I sent him off, with a $20 for his time.
Just one of many fun outings with my friends Phil and George, fall of 2007. We combed Indian Canyons, hung out in Palm Springs afterwards, hiked Ryan Mountain in Joshua Tree and got pretty blitzed on some good imported beer while parked in the open spaces outside of Yucca Valley, laughing and having way too much fun - Whitewater Preserve - and more. Finally it edged down to me and Phil, and next thing you know we were on a road trip to Sedona and then we were really good friends.
Today is one year from there. The exact duplication of the landscape. Seems not a palm has moved. The pullout is bypassed - not safe to park - but still there. It's hard to reconcile this "changing so slow landscape that I can't believe everything that's changed so drastically in my life this year" - of course it's changing, the palms and weird flow and trickle sound of water and ancient pupfish and cottonwood and desert willow trees near the huge 1,000 Palms Oasis proper - home of the two-room, palm-trunk-hewn former home of pioneer Paul Wilhelm and doubtless, before that, an indigenous peoples encampment - now the visitor center - we're at ground BIG Zero here, the mother of all earth-shifters, the San Andreas fault!
What else could press these dinosaur wet-earth relics to the ground surface, in odd defiance and complete contrast to the extremely harsh land that cradles them? They are so anomalous they resemble smudges of dirt, when viewed from across the valley - these clumps of ancient Washington Fan Palm Trees - so weird that the ones with missing heads look like lost telephone poles - until you realize there is no perspective for phone lines out here - they're just giant, straight-sticking-up logs. Reminders of entirely different epoch in geologic time and history, long before us people set our sorry, emotion and pathos riddled lives here.
Reflecting the ironic, human story - here we are, another election year, and there are no real solutions - seems we're pantomiming all intentions again. The stock market is a disaster, people losing their homes left and right. Gas prices have doubled since this time last year. I have ended one love relationship, entered another, and hang on a cliff-edge with the most recent one, I slammed on my car brakes before I went off the dark road and hit the bottom of a cliff on a twist of the asphalt, or maybe, I am teetering over the edge, like the old 1930's roadster that is in a heap of giant boulders at the bottom of one of the canyons in the preserve must have done on the ill-fated day when it went across the lip of edge. How long did it preside there? Was it a quick drive, or did its' front tires linger for moments, days, until a subtle shake of earth enticed it down to a loud and disintegrating demise?
I park the car in the parking lot. I forgot to mention that, of course, when thieves stole my car battery last year at the trailhead near this main parking area for the big oasis, they also took things out of the back of the nissan - well, the top was off. But a 12 pack of diet coke? Ha ha. There's a big sign here in the main area - a dirt lot - "do not leave valuables in your car." Sad, with the campground hosts' big fat RV parked right here. This is a big break-in area, apparently. Nothing like getting robbed while out trying to decompress from life's mind-frying difficulties. Good thing I'm driving the Toyota; I have a nice car alarm.
I stumble around in the oasis. Two years ago, I was doing research for a collaborative book project on nature and birds, and having so much fun. The place looks exactly the same. There's the bathroom I used. I rebel and vow to find a piece of dirt hidden from view- not that there is anyone around here on Sunday at 6 pm, and summer is still hovering. A dry and warm wind edits thoughts from the north - the first Santa Ana we're getting; fires are now inevitable. And to think that Philip and I made our first real love connection, when we opened our hearts to each other in the late night at ZZYZX Springs on a camping trip, almost a year ago to the day, and that when we stumbled outside in the star sharp night, the fiercest, coldest, driest Santa Ana I've ever felt in the Mojave Desert was shrilling at both our backs, and so, we huddled beneath a blanket to stay warm, and to embrace that sense of safe and calm and desert isolation inside the frightening wind-storm sounds. And next morning, word was out - Malibu was burning, and southern California went into torch-melt from there for the following weeks.
Santa Ana, hold me now. I am lost in a place that is so familiar. The bench to the left, where I brought a desert literature class on a field trip hike, some years ago. The trail where my embittered bird book colleague (long story, but we did produce a map,) set out with good intentions, minds set on research and a relaxing time working together. The side route where I brought my friend Mark from Tucson, against his protestations, telling him, "you have never seen, and never will again see, a place like this," a few years ago when he last came to stay.
That Philip stayed through the brute summer on lockdown in my house with me says a lot. I listen for the sound of birds whose names I should know, but don't. I collapse onto a boulder and stare across the ground: a huge lizard, colors, at first I think it's a snake. When I edge a little closer, he is gone. The big fans on the palms rustle a little more, and the view from between their fingers is a long one, and tan and frosty pink: nothing quite like seeing the little San Bernardino Mountains meet the evening sky. And I see a trail leading to a side grove, one I've never taken before. Even in this place I thought I knew so well. The palms lead me on to a new surprise, and it's one small blink of relief, that something different might be offered me at this close of day. Turn my head the other way, and it looks the same. It's me that has changed, so drastically I don't know if I can blend in with the scenery here as I once so smoothly did.
On to the car, and Ralph's Market near the Marriott in swanky Palm Desert. I'll buy a few frozen pizzas (health food ones,) pick up olives and hummus and roasted red peppers from the antipasto bar ($7.99 lb,) and pick out only a few bananas (77 cents/pound at this location!) My daughter wants fresh-made soup, and the fresh bread looks good. I've already bought my allocation of junk magazines for the week, and read them all. The bars on the cell phone are back on. It's time to make a call.
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