Desolation

Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac is one of those books that I pick up time and again, and each time, there is a new kernel of truth in it for me to enjoy. I have worn my copy completely out, and it no longer has a front or back cover. This week I picked up this book while I was preparing to leave my New Mexico mountain for the Midwest. I am taking the two littlest kids with me, and I will be flying out and visiting family and friends from Chicago to Appalachia.  When I picked up my sad little naked book, the first thing I saw were the closing paragraphs. And once again, this little book made me realize something that I’d been ignoring in my frenzied and anxious preparations.

"I don't know when we'll meet again or what'll happen in the future, but Desolation, Desolation, I owe so much to Desolation, thank you forever for guiding me to the place where I learned all. Now comes the sadness of coming back to cities and I've grown two months older and there's all that humanity of bars and burlesque shows and gritty love, all upsidedown in the void God bless them, but Japhy you and me forever we know, O ever youthful, O ever weeping." Down on the lake rosy reflections of celestial vapor appeared and I said, "God, I love you" and looked up to the sky and really meant it. "I have fallen in love with you, God. Take care of us all, one way or the other."

To the children and the innocent it's all the same.” – Jack Kerouac (Dharma Bums)

I am leaving my mountaintop. Albeit for just over two weeks, but I’m leaving my chickens and my dogs, The Hubby and Mr. Drama, the sunshine, the firewood, the clothesline, the deck, the stars, the moon, and the howling coyotes. 

The last time I did this, I felt like a fish out of water. I had planned a trip to Chicago, and I flew out of Albuquerque, into O’Hare, took the train out of O’Hare, and an hour later, I was standing on Michigan Avenue. Men with briefcases and women with stiletto heels were darting around me as I meandered meekly down the street, soaking in the humidity like a dry sponge. I looked into the windows of Fur Dealers and Jewelry Stores looming several stories above the street in glittering buildings, and my head swirled.

I found my way to my hotel room, hopped in the shower, and then spent the next hour digging the high desert sand out of my toenails and applying a lovely coat of polish. In retrospect, I think I was trying to give myself a bit of camouflage.  I was convincing the world (and myself), “See, I’m not a sun-drenched, earth-baked, mountain mama. I am metropolitan.” And I have the toenails to back that claim up.

At the same time, there was a heaviness and a sadness, as I looked out my hotel window at the lake front apartments with tiny balconies from which to view the water.  It was almost surreal as I realized that everyone can’t have a wild world to explore everyday. They can’t walk out their front door and find themselves surrounded on every side by raw unbridled nature. Even in the cornfields and lawns of the suburban Midwest, everything you see has been touched and sculpted by man. Men have even decided which spaces to designate “Green” and have planted trees to signify such.

Here, I can walk out my backdoor and pick up a big hunk of petrified wood, a geode, obsidian from ancient lava flows, or a dinosaur fossil, none of which have probably been touched by another set of human hands. The only signs of humanity are the numerous arrowheads and pottery pieces left by ancient native people.

Most people would look around my home, discover that there isn’t a franchised business for 20 miles, the only signs of life are cacti and rattlesnakes, I don’t have a maintained road or trash collection, and call this desolation. And I owe so much to that desolation. I owe that feeling of freedom, of quiet, and of connection with nature. I don’t think I could quantify what I have learned any more than Kerouac did sixty years ago, but I can express my gratitude as I head back into civilization with my hands tucked in my pockets to hide the dirt under my fingernails.