The plants told me so

A new adventure awaits

Today’s accompanying tune: “On the Road Again” by Willie Nelson

We left under the cover of night.

Oliver was snuggled in the back of the hatchback, unused to being anxious this early in the morning. We’d left early to avoid traffic, to get a head start, to close one chapter and excitedly open another. Andrew would be close behind in the U-Haul, crawling along the state’s highways as fast as the truck could go. I watched the sun rise a deep, burning red somewhere in the Central Valley, before it became obscured by dense fog. Foreboding, sure. But not nearly as foreboding as the previous year had been, locked away in a tiny apartment in a major city during the height of the COVID pandemic. The heat, the fires, the smoke. Soon, we’d hoped, it would all be behind us and we’d get a chance to regroup, to lick our wounds and rest, to figure out what our life could be again. And, as always, the desert was there to hold us, to help us, to heal us. We just didn’t know it yet, and instead clung to the hope that it could.

By nightfall, we’d all landed at our new home, our first home. With its Spanish charm and over-the-top pool and bare expanse of a yard. With its beams and tile and heavy front door. If we needed to lock ourselves away, to keep the world out, to hunker down and make do, well, we had a lot to make do with. It was a bit much for us, two people and one medium dog, but it was the best we could manage given the circumstances. We unrolled the rugs, unloaded some boxes, put the sheets on the mattress plopped on the floor. It would be weeks before we had a bed, longer still until we had a couch. The hot water heater went out within weeks, and the gas line was inoperable for months. Parts were ordered, delayed, ordered again. Finally installed. The first meal I made on the stove was a time-intensive risotto, because why not? Once we acquired a couch, we acquired a puppy. Things came together, our new life taking shape piece by piece.

A new fence went in, friends came to visit. We slowly, slowly, met other locals who we’d eventually also call friends. We finally got to throw a years-belated wedding reception on a patch of dirt under the Milky Way listening to our favorite local musician perform for the people we loved most in this life. We hiked, we climbed, I started running again. The dry air sucking every last bit of moisture from our tears, those we cried and those we never could. Before long, there weren’t any left.

Our first summer, a friend told us there were two ways to measure whether or not you’d become a local. The first was easy, quantitative. Seven summers. Seven stretches of unbearable heat, fierce sun, powerful monsoons. Breaks were allowed, but you had to reside in the desert a majority of the season. After your seventh summer, you’d earned the local badge. Most people barely made it through one.

The other measure was more subjective, more my speed. Once the plants start talking to you, then you were in. A local felt this place deeply in their bones, in their soul. A local could make out the whispers of the desert almond in the breeze, could hear the catclaw curse as you attempted to squeeze past it. A local knew buckwheat’s secrets, and refused to tell those hiding in a juvenile Joshua tree.

This was the local I aspired to be, the one that felt most right. The one urging guests to stay on the trail because parts of the soil were ancient and alive. The one explaining that the desert almond wasn’t dead, it just doesn’t waste energy on leaves at its center. They were sharp, hard, rough. Sturdy. Hardy. Resilient. Determined. Exactly how, at the time, I’d seen myself.

Our fourth summer, this past summer, was difficult. The heat refused to relent. Our obligations multiplied, sending us to far flung corners of the world for friends and family. The dogs became antsy, anxious. The smoke bore down from the West, the South, the East, the North. Everything we had outrun, finally caught up, finally making its case. That this world was changing, changing faster even than the small town we called home. Monsoons got stronger and washed away entire neighborhoods. Humidity climbed. The plants became sick. They stopped talking. For all their hardiness, all their resilience, was no match for a world they had no part in changing but nonetheless fell victim to. Life became hard, even for the healed.

That’s how we ended up on a spotty phone connection at Yosemite’s Glacier Point speaking with a realtor. We’d found a new home, a new dream. Twenty acres of woodland, ours. A small home, understated, quaint. Built the same year we were both born. No beams, no pool. Painted the blue of the bright sky above. A vibrantly landscaped yard. A fully functioning garden. A resident black bear, keen to sample the fruit trees’ offerings. Trees soaring into the sky. A dirt road. We would take it, where do we sign?

Nearly a year later, we are nearly ready to set off again. We will load two dogs into two cars and finally splurge for real movers to avoid the dreaded U-Haul. We will start the journey North under the kind morning desert sun peaking over the mountains to our east, the mountains in Joshua Tree National Park. We’ll wind our way through California, Oregon, and Washington. We will pull onto our dirt road, up to our new home. Instead of running from the heat, the fires, the smoke, this move is about what we are running toward. Toward our community, all within an easy day’s drive. Toward our dream of wide open spaces, healthy forests, active wildlife. Toward a life built on the healing foundation only found in the desert, with its dust and wind. It held us, helped us, healed us. And, as all parents know, it had to see us go once its work had been completed, our fleeing of the nest confirmed. Our new chapter begging to begin. Our lives unspooling out before us, waiting for us to make a move. And, like all good parents, it will always be here, waiting, welcoming. Happy to have us back but never pressuring us to be the people we aren’t any longer, the people we were when we arrived on her door so many years ago, begging for help. It wants us to go to make room for those still in need of its help, its power. It’s blunt like that, the desert. Tough love, baby.

I know, because the plants told me so.

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The Hi-Desert Dispatch will be on break for the month of April while I figure out what comes next. I intend to continue writing, as it seems to be a habit I simply cannot kick. I will continue the weekly essay portion of this newsletter, but the local news round-up should be left to someone residing in the community. I cannot recommend enough the journalists working on Desert Advocacy Media Network (which includes 90 Minutes from Needles, Letters from the Desert, and Desert News) as well as The Desert Trumpet and Z107.7 FM.

When I first moved to the desert, local news was in a dire place. The dailies that had formerly informed the area had been bought by national conglomerates and sold for parts. We were as much a news desert as an ecological one. I wanted The Hi-Desert Dispatch to fill as much of that hole as it could, while crediting those able and willing to do the legwork of local reporting. We lift each other up through our work, and I have no doubt that will continue with the publications I’ve linked above. I trust them to steer the ship and continue breathing life into our community. You are in excellent hands, and I will be your fiercest subscriber.

Thank you, truly, to every single person who subscribed to the Dispatch. What started as a small side project has become a guiding light, a purpose. I absolutely love what I do, but it would be for naught if no one chose to read it. So thank you for your support, your readership, your regular criticism. This place is special; its community even more so. I hope you won’t cast me off just yet, as I intend to bring a good amount of desert eccentricities to Washington. If you chose to unsubscribe in the meantime, I completely understand. The Dispatch will look a little different when I return — a bit more lush, much greener — but if you are so inclined, I’d love if you stuck around to see what we can do.

Here’s to a new adventure.

- Megan