Memory... "The Desert"

Oftentimes I'll finish a post with the idea that I'll follow it up with a sister post, because, invariably, one thought naturally leads into another. But I also, oftentimes, lose that thread. I've talked before about striking while the iron is hot. It's all about timing and mood. So when a couple of days pass, so does the thought. But I wanted to hold onto this one, I didn't want to lose it. I want to follow this thread.

This thing I do, this business of separating and distancing myself from others, isn't without its hazards. I think it was odd that I might have given the impression before that I don't experience loneliness. I didn't even hint at it. I wouldn't have gotten into it during that post because I wouldn't have wanted to extend it any further than it had gotten but that shouldn't have stopped me from at least hinting at it so that I could follow it up in the future. The fact that I didn't says something to me, it says a lot things, mostly that I'm fearful. This resistance to share fueled my willingness to do just the opposite.

I'm not that different from everyone else. No one is. We all experience the same things, the only difference is the degree to which those things are felt. I suppose I'm different from most in that I've a high threshold against loneliness in the face of an extreme amount of solitude. I'm so comfortable with it that I've had insane fantasies about solitary confinement. They're not exactly fantasies and they're only insane because I would dare compare my form of solitude with that of the criminally insane. I know they're not the same thing. But I've wondered, if everyone were locked up, how would I stack up? When would I break? How would I break? How would I change? To me, it just doesn't sound all that... punishing. But I'm sure it is. And still, I'd like a taste of it.

It comes. It's like clockwork, but not exactly because it doesn't happen at the same time... but it lingers for the same amount of time. It's exacting in that way. It happens once a year, for a day. The loneliness is so great and dark that I wonder if I could handle more than that one day a year. Maybe it's the unfamiliarity that breeds this intensity. I haven't built up a resistance to it. I'm ill-equipped to deal with it. Still, as powerful as those days are... they pale in comparison to this one day.

I was traveling to Arizona with the family to visit the family, extended. We always drive. And that trip is rife with long stretches of desert. Small cities, towns, rest stops and gas stations scattered in between. And it was at one of those gas stations in the desert country that it happened. I broke down. I don't know where it came from. I don't know why it came, but it was then that I felt the greatest, most intense loneliness I've ever felt. It was the worst of so many dark thoughts. It was like an abandonment. It was like a betrayal. It was like a confusion. It was disconnection. It wasn't being heard or felt. It wasn't being understood. It was invisibility, that was the worst of it. I remember feeling invisible. I thought this is what ghosts are like.

It happened so fast. I'd shattered before I even had the time to realize I was breaking. It was all that I could do to hold on because I felt myself slipping further and further away. Breaking and shattering is the best way to describe what happened. I was holding onto an image of myself, whole... holding to that thought, to that idea, was reining all the pieces in. Everything was falling away... I was losing it, losing everything... and the more I concentrated on what was happening the further things flew away. I felt so lost and confused. Keeping hold of my self in my mind's eye is what saved me. That helped put the pieces back together, helped me gain control. And while I was rebuilding I just remember bawling. It was uncontrollable. It was a flood made even more great by the fact that I don't cry, at least not since my brother died. That too I remember. The burning heat of my tears was the same as it was then. My eyes were on fire. And I remember that the sobbing wasn't so much like crying as it was like heaving and seizing. It felt like I was choking. And I couldn't stop. I thought, is this what dying is like? Everything felt so violent. That it came without warning felt like an intrusion. It slipped right in and I was defenseless.

I've been back to that place a couple of times, the physical place... but nothing came of it. I wanted so much to capture that moment again. It's troubled me ever since not knowing the why of it. I've thought if it happened once it could happen again. And while it might very well place among the worst moments of my life, I'd rather chase it than run away from it so that I can learn from it... I want to understand it and myself. I want so much to go back to that place so I can explore it from the inside. I think I've gone as far as I can from the outside. I need to feel it again because I don't know that I did at all... meaning I was too wrapped up on holding on to concentrate fully on what I was feeling. What I felt and what I remember was an eclipse and I feel the need to stare into the Sun. I need to go back so that I can deconstruct it. I need to guard against it in the future.

Being Navajo, having lived in the desert I know what it's really like and I know how it's misconceived. Ever since I was little my friends would ask about what it's like. They had this vision of a harsh, lifeless, empty land. But it's not all that harsh. It's not all that grim. It's quite beautiful. Quite lively. Full of life. Plentiful. They'd be amazed to learn that it rained, that there was water. They couldn't believe it snowed. It's as natural as any place on Earth, as divine as any other. The term God's country comes to mind. It's not like what a lot of people think it is. But I know, now, what those people speak of. I know that unnatural desert. I remember the desert being dark. Lifeless. Empty. Above all, I remember the desert being a lonely place.


DS333, on the hunt.