Desert Days Deja Vu

    

        I grew up with the ultimate expression of love being pain and sacrifice- as Christ on the cross, suffering to prove love for an undeserving populace— and romantic love was something that might hit out of nowhere, sudden but sure. As I get older, I feel more and more that I know nothing of love. How it is supposed to feel. What it looks like. How to show it. How to receive it. How to trust myself to recognize it. I cannot, exactly, pin it down. 

     I think maybe it feels like freedom and safety all at once. Maybe it looks like the sun rising and setting. Maybe it is like tending a garden and enjoying its gifts: a bright tulip, a succulent berry, a healing herb, a shading branch. I think less and less that it feels like an itch that can’t be scratched, a deep longing that won’t ease up, or a burnt offering in exchange for paradise.

    

     In Adventures, as in life, it is important who one travels alongside: how they approach the journey, how they impact yours, and whether or not you find yourselves arguing which road to take. 

   

     I first knew Garrett when we were just kids. We both were homeschooled, went to the same church for a few years, and even caravanned with our large families down to Tennessee one summer. His big energy and big laugh takes up space. His body and mind in near-constant motion. He takes life by the horns and hangs on tight. I journaled as a horse-crazy preteen that he was “too wild for my taste”, yet somehow he brought out a daredevil side of me that I liked: made me feel like I was capable of doing more than I believed I could. 

      

     As teens our lives took different turns and I only saw him once during a home visit after he became a Marine. He invited me to watch a movie and played footsie while I debated what I would do if he made a move. He didn’t.  And then, more years went by. I moved to California. I moved back. I got married, had two daughters, got divorced. Had some boyfriends, and was well into a year of just giving up completely on relationships when there he was, and despite my attempts to pace myself, I jumped in headlong, determined this was IT.

    

      Three years and a son later, Garrett and I had relatively separate lives, despite living under the same roof. Spending multiple consecutive days together was something we’d never done, although plenty of times we had spent that much time apart. 

   

      Being different in many ways, our previous attempts to travel together had spawned painful collisions, so we went into this one agreeing that it would be a family trip with our son:  to share his first plane ride, and a first time to Nevada for all of us.

    

      We stayed at an Airbnb set equal distance between the Vegas Strip and Valley of Fire State Park. I used Turo for the first time to rent a car to get around— it was straightforward and affordable in a city where a vehicle is a necessity.

 

    Sunday evening after my Spartan and a post-race nap, we walked along the LED-canopied Fremont street taking in the sights, lights, and sounds—performers, bands and street-side bars on every block. We ate some great slices at Evel Pie: a Evel Kneivel themed pizza spot that felt like a punk-rock dive, where the slogan is “Live hard. Ride fast. Eat pizza.” and urinating IN the toilet appeared to be optional. 

    The next day we took advantage of perfect weather and drove out to explore Valley of Fire’s red-hued rock formations, hiking the White Dome and Firewave trails; spying lizards and keeping an eye out for snakes. To ebb and flow between city and scenery, bustle and quietude felt so natural and easy, as if the escape from the dismal Minnesota winter had bestowed us with more grace.. 

     Our final day we set out to the Hoover Dam after a morning conversation pushed some heavy things to the surface, and created a bittersweet closing to what had been possibly the best week in our entire relationship. The wind had picked up, blowing cold as we made a detour to Hemingway Valley park, hoping to get lucky and catch sight of bighorn sheep that often come down to graze the park lawn. Bram played happily on the playground and I picked at a salad, my stomach knotted. Going home had a different feel. 

     The sun beamed down out of a popping blue Nevada sky, and I wasn’t ready to leave. It had taken me two days just to slow down. To let space and time accordion out as my lungs filled with air again.

I always find myself when I travel: my eyes and heart more open, my spirit free.  My daughters witness me cry at the sight of rock formations; whoop and howl in sheer delight of a wide-open sky. Gesturing emphatically at critter sightings and cityscapes, trees in bloom: any fragment of delight. By leaving, I return: To my heart. My aliveness. My pulse. 

    I went into this project knowing the most challenging connections would be with the ones I am most familiar with. The ones that have seen my phases and rebirths; whose ideas of who I am, may be expired or imaginary, and the ideas I have of them. But one must believe in love, and dare to live, and accept all the scrapes and bruises that go with that. 

     To run a Spartan and go to Valley of Fire were items on my life bucket list, to feel my heart breaking again, was not. To hold oneself open in the sun is one thing. To stay open in strong winds demands a more capable hand on the rudder. Sometimes things catch fire. Sometimes we start from scratch. Hopefully, we stay open, and hopefully keep coming back stronger.