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The Secret Life of the Desert
by Erin McMahan
Red mud squished from the holes in my tennis shoes, and I cursed again as I plopped one foot in the puddle next to the trailer door. The "arid west" was quickly proving to be a misnomer. Four or five people burst from the trailer, choosing an exodus into the Utah desert over the damp stink of the trailer. I hesitated, then realized that my toes were doomed to soak in soggy socks either way. So I joined the group trudging up the desert slickrock. We spread across the rock face in our rainbow jackets like a tossed handful of skittles. The landscape had come to life. The monocline that had just the day before been dry and solemn, was now splashing playfully. The rain was like a long absent companion, returning to fill the barren stairways of potholes, and flow through the curves and bends that were once black shadows. The water burbled merrily down the grooves and pots, more cheerful than the happiest garden store fountain. The stone was animated with a curtain of movement. Bubbles pinwheeled into pools, and the water spiraled down into tiny cups of rock, drilling ever deeper. Suddenly, the rain was not as dreary.
The desert was in a fine mood and the moss glowed with the sudden influx of water. This transformation came as a surprise to me. I thought I had come to understand the desert, but I had never seen it in its dancing state.
What does it take to know a place; to peel back the layer of dirt and reveal its soul? How long does it take to know the moods of a landscape? How many shifting phases of the moon, how many seasons, how much sand ground into your skin? When we first came to the desert, it seemed too vast and lonely. I was used to the compressed spaces of a Midwestern city. The desert exists in the transition between blazing sun and chilly shadow. There are no trees large enough to mute the contrasts to a comfortable shade of grey. However, after weeks of living in its dry expanses, I'm at home in the desert, doing my homework with my feet in the sand, carefully skirting cryptobiotic crust on the way to the bathroom, and rolling out my sleeping bag under the stars to the conversations of coyotes.
The Utah desert at 65 miles per hour appears empty and open, with nothing to interrupt the endlessness but huge stone monoliths. A car windshield frames it like a landscape painting, one easily replicated by the postcards in the Monument Valley visitor center. It was only when we were taught to stop by a wise desert woman; guided to pitch a tent and set up a groover, find our footing on the slickrock and sit in silent observation on the Navajo sandstone that we discovered the delightful secrets of the desert. Secrets like the momentary luster of red, orange and purple that ignites the buttes in the last strands of daylight. Like the white cottony home of the cochenille bug hidden in the spines of a cactus that smears crimson across my palm. Like the black and white striped pot shard of the Ancient Puebloans that lies forgotten in a wash. To really know a place, you've got to discover its surprises.
The secret wonders of the desert are transient. Its whispered words quickly dissipate in the gritty wind. The light, the flowers, even the rivers don't last for very long. The constantly changing sun causes the buttes to cast shifting shadows across the desert, like a giant sundial of geologic time. Had I not ventured out of the dryness of the trailer, I would have missed the playful desert. Within hours, the rain had stopped and the slickrock grew still. The desert was once again solemn and monumental.