Discovery in the Desert

by Caitlin Veale (New Zealand)

I didn't expect to find USA

I was watching the shadow of my hat darken the scrub as we kicked up dust walking through Joshua Tree National Park. My friend’s mother shook her fists at me and said something in Italian. We didn’t understand each other. “Aren’t you cold?” Elisa had translated the entire trip and I did wonder if she was actually having any fun. It was January, and I was in a t-shirt enjoying the fainter feel of the winter sun on my permanently pale skin. We had just come from Beatty in Nevada on our Californian road trip. With a total of about 10 streets and burros that passed through town like the original cowboys, I was trying really hard to imagine it as a functioning place and not a movie set. However, I had seen too many movies and not done enough travelling to think of it any other way than life imitating art when I arrived. Crossing back into California we headed south through Death Valley en route to Joshua Tree amidst the government shutdown, the worsening effects of which seemed to be following us around the state. We tried to ask for directions at Death Valley’s visitor centre and the woman who wasn’t being paid amidst Trump’s mess clearly wasn’t impressed. “No, I’m not cold,” I finally answered. “I’m fine. In fact, I’m happy. This place is just glorious.” An exchange in Italian and then Elisa’s mother raised her eyebrows. We had arrived the previous night to candy pink evening light and the strange scarecrow silhouettes of the trees. I was thoroughly interested in the vastly different landscapes of California we had seen so far but as tourists we got mixed up with some of the frustration during the shutdown. My mind wandered back to the ranger that stopped us from heading to Sequoia, and to hearing that a man had died at Yosemite. We had chains for the car as I’d read that it was enforced during winter. There wasn’t a ranger near Yosemite in sight. Planning this trip from my bedroom in suburban New Zealand I was worried about following the rules exactly in the U.S. A school friend of mine had been given a ticket by a mall cop for stepping outside a liquor store with alcohol, to get change from waiting friends for a paper bag. The growing mood of the nation in the air probably exacerbated our cultural differences and having never been to the U.S, we found we were never naturally on the same page as anyone we encountered. The woman in Mariposa who pulled her child closer when Elisa smiled and cooed “bambino,” the man who defended Trump selling me CBD in a dispensary in San Francisco for my migraines. Of all places? Not here though, not in Joshua Tree National Park. Walking along under the day’s crisp sky, tiny people in the distance all moved slowly and quietly, admiring the enormity of the boulders and the stillness of life in the desert. Volunteers had come to clean facilities, making videos about how the shutdown would not cause collapse in a place as loved as this. Arriving back at the car we saw posters warning off people with a Porsche and a fit girlfriend. During this vulnerable time people called for care and respect. No rangers at the gates created a shared sense of nervousness for tourists heading into the park, all of whom stopped to photograph the sign at its entrance. That dissipated as volunteer rangers cruised around the park, smiling and in good faith. People cleared their rubbish and refrained from venturing off into the unmonitored wilderness. There was silent acknowledgement of togetherness, all the people joined in their appreciation of the park, an invisible shield pushing out to protect it. A young ranger met us head on in her vehicle, we were trying to leave the wrong way. She laughed at us, kindly, and we laughed along too. I came to Joshua Tree in search of its renowned beauty. I didn’t expect to find community. It was a favourite haunt of Gram Parsons though, so I was in good company.