Before teaching full time in schools, I had never been camping. I hate to admit it now, but I was afraid of being out in nature. Wild animals, predatory and opportunistic murderers, and biting, stinging insects were all that I could think of as we prepared for that first trip from the Marlborough School.
So, the experience back in 1990 of being in nature with mostly privileged pre-teen girls from LA and their teachers, me among them, as we tried to calm their fears. I'm not sure what the others got out of it, but my own fearlessness (as well as life with fear) surfaced during those years. The Rodney King beating, police trials, Northridge Quake, Hurricane Iniki, and several busted relationships ruptured my own faultlines. I have the scars to prove it.
Yet, the healing came in an arid place.
Ever since then, the desert has been that magical and special terrain. A balm in Gilead. Stark and lunar landscapes remind me of growing up in the projects, which represented a different kind of sur-reality.
This post is a kind of quick write, but I am reminded of those days when everything seemed magical and dangerous, nothing plotted out and planned. The devil tempting from his mountain throne. The wrong step either meant a rattle snake or a gunshot wound to the head.
Well, where's the learning in that? What happens in that blink moment when you realize that your life has prepared you for a particular time and place.
The learning in all of this is you never know what your life is preparing you for, really. You just need to open up your heart, get out your notebook or sketchpad, and start thinking about every sensory element that comes to mind.
I love the desert now. I spent two years living in "the meadows," which is what the native peoples called Las Vegas. Again, that's another story for another day.
Our two years, two months, and two days came to a fitting end, which is why we are back in California, overlooking the Farallon's.* I so love it on the edge of the world because finding home is always about leaving it.
*See Farallon Islands at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farallon_Islands.
