Desert Life

After a week in one of California’s more famous desert locations, insights regarding desert life began to coalesce around the image of a magical layer cake. The desert is composed of layers -of types of people- that find the desert home. There is also the icing and the fancy decor common to a well structured cake. I also thought of western writer Louis Lamour who counseled, ” you can’t fight the desert. You have to ride with it.” So I took the ride and started to unpack the idea of the desert cake.

The base layer of the confection seems to be the level of the “desert rat,” the person who was born and bred to desert life. These people are at home in the environment. They carry knives at their belt (“for critters”) and they never make reference to the heat or the loneliness…they simply ride with it through a landscape that is their natural home.

Layer two is the land of the eremite- the hermit- the folks who are seekers that have come from elsewhere and are seeking everything from peace to a new start. These people are perfectly described by writer Edward Abbey: ” what draws them into the desert is the search for something intimate in the remote.” They have left their old life with intention; they are the desert’s Essenes, living in metaphorical caves seeking enlightenment. They often have a desert stare that looks to the horizon.

Layer three is made of artists and artistes that come for creative inspiration and a quiet place to pursue their art. Musicians, painters, sculptors, photographers, actors and writers are all about and contacts with them are always interesting. They name their children Magpie, Mars, Cave or Harley as they spurn the conventional and look for something powerful and creative. The intimacy they seek is largely an internal one …a relationship with their creative energy that flourishes in the desert.

The next layer is composed of visitors and tourists who come for simple reasons like a break from the city, moments of silence, or the basic simplicity that can only be found outside their everyday contexts.

These are the basic ingredients of the cake assembled in the desert. It is now time to add the icing and decoration.

The icing is clearly the stunning natural beauty that is all around. We are reminded by every travelogue, book or film that the, “desert is full of life” and that is certainly true. The desert is rich with snakes, bobcats, road runners, a million insects, scorpions , birds and fabulous people. The place is teeming with animal energy. It is the cake served on a special occasion…an experience to remember. Beautiful vistas are everywhere.

So, the cake is assembled and iced.

The final decorations -the sprinkles and flowers-come from the fact that we went to the desert to be present for the birth of our fifth grandchild, a little girl that is our newest angel. We enjoyed the cake but we really loved the rose that decorated it.

You can’t beat the desert if you want a treat.