Desert's teaching
The desert is a quiet teacher. Sure you can learn things about the ecosystem and history of the desert from a textbook or Wikipedia page, but to really know it one must observe. Not just from the scenic overlooks supplying informational plaques and photos waiting to be taken, but from the overlooked spaces: under the mesquite where the scorpion lives, between the spines of a cholla, and in the flower of a prickly pear.
In the Mojave, everyone is patiently awaiting water. The spiked yucca are poised toward the sky, existing in a constant state of both defense and anticipation: their tough, waxy leaves weather the sun’s brutal day, consistently soaring to temperatures that are unbearable… to some. They ward off animals in search of sustenance with their violent form, sending the simple message: fuck around and find out. However, they greet water like an old friend. When pouring some on a joshua tree, it became immediately clear that even if water lands on the very end of the leaves, it reaches the plant by quickly pulling it into a hug, trickling from the leaves to the trunk and slowly down to the ground at the base. The embrace is so effective that not a single splash of water stains the dirt beneath my Nalgene.
Farther east in Joshua Tree National Park I wake up during the night and begin my hike to an oasis with a couple friends. We crunch through the desert, observing the binary between night and day as the nocturnal community creeps back into their subterranean shelters, and the diurnal creatures come out to bathe in the warmth of a new day. The sounds change as well: an uncertain desert stillness is melted away by short, powerful chirps of the earliest birds, a breeze picks up sending any available bushes into a rustling chorus, and more people come crunching and chatting down the trail. During the night the air is still and sound travels in clear scuttles, but when the day comes the sun is so bright it drowns out our awareness of sounds, and a slight breeze covers the rest.
When I step out of the van as we arrive in Tucson Mountain Park, I see another desert. This one is much more green, but still a desert. The soil is dry, the skies are clear, and I’m already sweating. The air is still and dry, reflecting the forest of saguaro and mesquite surrounding the campsite. Once I slowly walk through the campsite, taking time to sit at the benches and stare at the saguaros, they too come alive. The slowly occurring physical deformities they possess breathe life into them, their arms writhing in the air. The twists in the uniform lines that surround them bring animation to their form, and along with it a resting attitude. When night falls, just their silhouettes are visible in the moonlight. These shadows of the saguaros surround me with their indifferent stares.
Laying down at night in the desert, it is quiet enough for me to believe I can hear everything around me. I can’t. When I again walk around the campsite I am gently reminded of my ignorance to the nightly life of the desert by a kangaroo rat. 40 feet away from my sleeping bag I am suddenly able to hear its delicate rustle in the bush as it emerges from its underground burrow. This kangaroo rat lives in a world that I have a hard time conceptualizing: dormant during the day, it comes out at night to find seeds in the shrubs to stuff into its external pouches and bring home. It lives in a world where the creosote brush is a towering shelter from predators such as the owl, whose nearly silent flight can be heard by the rat.
An addition must be made to the introductory statement. The desert is not just a teacher, but also a friend. Just as with all friendships, the more I get to know it, my relationship completely evolves. Seeing it every day allows me to notice when something is amiss in a completely different way than a book ever could. I fall in love with it every day as I notice more and more peculiarities, from the noises to the inconspicuous flora resting at a bug-height, and I am excited to see how our relationship grows.