Yes, I have made my peace with the desert, watched its glowing sunrise. Walking, in the heat, heavy pack, I learned much about my own strength. When I expected to fall and fail, I discovered that I could still move, that my legs were strong beneath me. But my blood became thin, or maybe it was that my blood became thick, the ever present thirst weakening muscles that were determined to take one last step. Heat enough that you are dry, drying out, you can feel it, always sweating but the wind and sun sweep the sweat away before it has a chance to cool you. And your blood grows sluggish, limbs loose, you learn to stop only in the shade, you learn the true weight of water.
The desert taught me the sanctity of water, the precious urgency of it, where before I had only known its tremendous (though still, already holy) pulchritude, the beauty that overwhelms.
I find myself aching for the ocean again, still, always craning my head to see over the tops of the hills, always expecting to be met with the crash of water on rock, the spray and scream of seagulls. We take winding mountain roads that seem to be just like those at home, carved into the side of an impossible slope, granite rising straight up on one side, plummeting down to nothingness on the other. Except here, the nothingness is more of the same: rough boulders with fat prickly pear wedged in the cracks, a rosewood or two, the desert. But home, home: at home the road falls away to rough sea, the immensity of it filling the horizon, filling your lungs with salt and humility. Look down and see the seals basking, the kelp floating, heavy, thick, otters wrapped in it, know there are sharks and manta rays and more than you could dream there in the darkness.
A teacher told me once that the sky is blue because it reflects the ocean; scientifcally, factually I know the fallacy of that, but viscerally, it rings true. The ocean is the only thing that doesn’t get smaller as you move farther away.
The plane takes off from the San Franscisco airport, skimming out over the bay, banking off and away. The Golden Gate Bridge changes from engineering to a study in line and shadow, the city itself wavering, shrinking into the realm of playthings and dreams. But the water, the water, the ocean stays huge. We pull up and up but it never loses its grandeur, never falters. Like zooming out on a fractal, you find more detail, the deep shadow where the contintental shelf ends, the pattern of seaweed skeins, the little puttering trails of boats, like the razor lines teenagers trace themselves with sometimes. You can fly a long time without reaching land.
When I was younger, the ocean itself was my siren. I could sit for hours, watching the breakers, watching the waves. They were prayer, the chanting of a mantra, a meditation given to me by god.
One night we had a bonfire at the beach. The moon was almost full, aching with pure white light, flourescing the foam on the waves. I left the party, wandered out into the tide. The water there is always cold, the current coming straight from Alaska, but we who grew up in it, or I at least, having grown up in it, don’t mind. I pushed past the first line of breaking water, to where the swells heave through in sinuous cadence. Spreading my arms, I closed my eyes to the dark horizon, the reflection of the moon (Ani again: And the moon was so beautiful, the ocean held up a mirror), let the water push through me.
According to my friends, I stayed there a long time. I don’t remember their reaching hands or raised voices, just that I wanted to go farther, that I did not want to go back.
They pulled me to shore, kicking, fighting, weeping, and sat me by the bonfire, where I shivered and cried and tried to figure out what had happened. Where am I, why is it so cold, why am I so sad?
For a long time afterwards, I stayed away from the beach, afraid that it would call me too strongly, afraid that I would never come back.
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