Desert Truth

Desert Truth

 by Roya Sorooshian

Sitting with my knees pulled up towards my chest, I watched the activities going on below the rocks I was sitting on. I was just high enough to be seperated, low enough that if I wanted to I could rejoin the rest of the world with one smile. The sun was shining blue through the 6 o'clock morning clouds. My journal was perched on my knees, my pen gripped between my fingers like it was the only thing that could save me from drowning.

Drowning is an odd metaphor to use for this desert of sand and rocks and joshua trees and dry winds. But looking over the distance it really does look like a rolling ocean with life underneath the surface. Heat waves instead of water. But there are more ways than one to drown. It was either swim in that sandy sea or fly. The wind comes hard, trying to strip you down to the bone. The wind is harsh, taking sand and rubbing it against your mind, wearing down your defenses. It is hard not to be perfectly truthful in the desert. But even so, we found places to hide among the rocks and caves that were the most dependable things I'd ever known. I found faraway lookouts where no one could hear my gasping tears over the wind and scraping gravel. I found caves to curl up and hide in, so cold it made me shiver, but far away from the relentless sun. I stumbled, blind from tears and the dark as I was torn between following the rest or finding my own path down to the sand. The wind tore me away from myself, picking me up and laying me back down in an unfamiliar territory. I ran ahead so I could look back, to try and see where I came from, if I could still recognize it. I held on as tightly as I could, but as always, you picked me up before I had a chance to prove anything to myself.

But now I'm back in the land of humidity and salt water. Knowing that I didn't even leave lasting footprints in the desert, but that I left an even bigger part of myself behind. I was drowning there on the sand. I was being smothered there by the wind. But in the struggle not to choke I gained control. It is harder here to dig down to that layer of truth the sand scores away to so easily. And although I go through the motions of washing away the smell of the desert when I swim in the warm water, this is only pretending.

I was drowning in sand, in ink. Pinned down by the rocks, your arms, the wind. I struggled, and coughed. Weaker than I'd ever been. But I have looked back and seen the skye. I have stared at stars so hard they transferred to my eyes. The wind took away my breath and replaced it with something new. Something old. Something timeless. I was drowning, but I overcame. And in the desert, I found truth.