It’s my goodbye to California, my nod to nostalgia, as I circumnavigate the Salton Sea just east of Anza-Borrego. A bag of dates, a night along the barnacle beach, one last handmade donut in Calipatria. And a quick soak in the Old Fogey Holtville Hot Springs.
“I haven’t seen you here before,” a bathing-suited older man says as I descend the ladder into the cement pool.
“Just passing through along the highway,” I respond.
“So, you’re not staying in the long term RV area?’
“Nope.”
Since the air is warmer than when I was last here, the water seems even that much hotter, and I finish soaking after about fifteen minutes. My towel hangs on the fence, and I quickly wrap it around my dripping body, slip on my flip flops and glasses.
“Are you heading east?” I am asked by a young twenty-something along the fence. I look him straight on.
“Yes. Where are you going?”
“Heading from California back home to North Carolina. I got dropped off here this morning.”
His energy is calm and sweet, and nothing stirs badly in my gut.
“I can take you as far at Gila Bend in Arizona, where I will turn south towards the national monument down there.”
“Great. I’ll take it. I need a minute to stuff everything back in my packs.”
We meet at my truck after I change and move stuff off the front passenger seat. We’ll have about three hours together and I want him to be comfortable.
As he gets in, he tells me he had planned on removing the toe nail polish the daughter of a friend in California painted on his nails. The sparkles reflect sunlight coming in the open door, and he removes his felt hat and places it down on the truck floor.
We exchange stories. Fourteen months at a Buddhist community has helped him find calm amidst his angst, meditation as a tool, and silence as a practice. His words are soft in volume for me, and I imagine he feels his volume to be loud against his days of quiet. Stopping in Yuma for lunch, I share what I have, and he takes out chips another person gave him for the road. He sips from his partial gallon of water he's been carrying. And upon our arrival in Gila Bend, I drop him at the truck stop where I fill up my gas tank.
“Could we exchange numbers?” he asks shyly. “I’m in Asheville, if you come through.”
And so we do. And better yet—we hug. Just like that—we will always have this connection and memory. Two people journeying, finding our way within and without ourselves. As I drive south for seventy five miles, I try to imagine him safely moving on with a good-hearted truck driver perhaps. And again, and again, until he arrives home.
Through orange patches of Emory's globemallow, small white wooly daisies, and low purplemat blooms, organ pipe cactus, mostly found in Mexico, rare otherwise, thrives in southern Arizona. Pushing it’s northernmost boundary, it is one of the reasons that this territory has been designated an International Biosphere Reserve as well as National Monument.
The list: Territory. Barriers. Walls. Fences. Locked doors. Guns. Fear. War. Control. Greed.
As I travel around the regions of the country, through cultures, attitudes, and traditions, I wonder what the world would be like without the list. What if we roamed anywhere we wanted, free of danger, free of bias, holding out our arms to hug whomever we came in contact with? What if we shared equally what we all have—wanting to do it without obligation? What if we gave our extra food to those needing it because we knew that someone would do that for us if we had the need? What if we welcomed those without shelter into our homes?
Nothing is that simple. Between Mexico and this National Monument, there is a fence. Up ahead, a wall climbs a hill and descends down the other side. A dirt swath parallels the barrier. Border patrol vehicles drive the roads through the monument and cameras scan the desert from metal towers. So far, I’ve been through a handful of border patrol checkpoints—along highways and major roads.
I stop as requested, say hello to the officer.
“Where are you coming from?” I am asked, again and again.
“Heading from California back east. I’ve been traveling.”
Or, “I was visiting the national monument.”
“Okay. Have a nice day.”
Or, I am just waved through. My Vermont license plate doesn’t seem to concern them. They try to sneak a peak in the back of the truck while a few words are spoken, but with dark window glass and curtains, they cannot see anything. I wait for one of them to request to look inside back there. I hide nothing. I am not smuggling illegal Mexicans, or drugs, into the United States.
Often, I carry sadness about my human species—we don’t seem to learn anything. Yes, let’s just build bigger barriers. Huge walls. Buy more guns. Lock more doors. There is some reasoning for these things. There are some bad things that happen out there in the big world. But there is also a lot of kindness and good will.
Recently while watching a downloaded Netflix episode of The Kindness Diaries (a british man living in the US treks across the globe relying only on the kindness of strangers), I was frustrated again by how much our culture thinks in black and white. Our trekker converses with a Mexican man in Tijuana desperately trying to re-enter the United States to be with his American wife and children. Surely this man means no harm to us in this country. Except now, his wife has to find extra work to feed the children since he's not bringing in any income to add to hers.
Not simple, I know.
Maybe a hug? Just one? To a young man traversing the country heading back home? To me from those who take me into their homes, as a stranger, and give me a bed to sleep in, a hot shower, food. It's a beautiful act.
It might change everything……