WALK in the Desert
Two men spoke at a Chevron station in Twentynine Palms, California, just within earshot of me and a Joshua Tree.
“The desert is growing,” the first man said.
He was small, with gauges in his ears and a pale, bald head that, wisely, he kept covered by a cap. The temperature was somewhere in the neighborhood of eighty-five with a sun that made no apologies for its brightness.
“Whole world’s drying up,” the other man agreed, spitting into the sand.
I watched them watch the Mojave like they remembered loving her once. I wondered how the trust had been broken.
The desert is growing. They said it like it was gnashing its teeth and going to eat us, like the buzzards coming and going were emissaries of a dark side, like the shimmering air in the distance was dripping of black magic. I pitied the desert when they called it a menace and drove away in their squeaky, old truck. If anything, we’re the insatiable ones.
I’m not an expert on the earth, but I’ve lived here my whole life and spent the past twelve years walking. I’ve traveled the circumference of the planet on foot, and still, there are very few things I would claim to know for certain. But I do know this: the earth is not our adversary. It has changed as we have. It has suffered for us, held us. It has been my dearest friend.
You can look at the desert, which is indeed growing, and see it as the threat or the threatened. It can fill you with a sense of desolation or possibility. It can compel you to drive away or walk into the liquid horizon with the other wild things.
“To protect what is wild is to protect what is gentle. Perhaps the wilderness we fear is the pause between our own heartbeats, the silent space that says we live only by grace. Wilderness lives by this same grace. Wild mercy is in our hands.”
I looked up at the miraculous, gentle Joshua Tree and told it not to worry. The desert is growing, but I can grow, too. We have wild mercy in our hands.
How am I working with the planet?
What does it mean to be an activist?
Do I see emptiness in the desert or space?
Must-Sees in the Desert:
Libby DeLana is an award-winning executive creative director, designer/art director by trade, who has spent her career in the ad world. Click here to get your copy of Libby’s first published book, Do Walk. You can connect with Libby on Instagram @thismorningwalk and @parkhere.