In the late afternoon light, the city of Twentynine Palms looks like a pioneer settlement on Mars. The mountains reflect the light of the setting sun, making all glow in the red light of our sun reflected in the clouds. The dust from recent storms soften the light, even while the crisp outline of the mountains glow - giving it that dusty look on so many scifi paperback covers of the 60s and 70s. The Marine base is flattened grid, tucked at an angle to hug the small range of neighboring hills.
I am reminded the first time I set eyes on this place. Riding my motorcycle after a sleepless night. I knew then that someday I would live here. Today, I have just come out of the mountains and am physically exhausted, emotionally confused and probably hungry. I'm triangulating data to understand possibilities. Data points I know have disinformation braided through them. Truth and not-truth side by side, bleeding one into another. I am trained to hold many conflicting viewpoints and data at a time - believing and not believing, teasing out order and patterns from the chaos. I am thoroughly confused. I can see no way through this maze, and that is intriguing in itself.
But the view it spectacular. It reminds me why I came here. I'm curious, present here, taking in the experience through my body, to see what emerges from this very fecund alien landscape. Fecund is not a word I think many would use to describe the desert. I think about the fools who dream of dying on Mars. Do they not realize they live on their own alien planet if they only open their eyes and get outside of their comfort zone. At least here, in the Mojave, they can more easily go back to their lives in the city, with their friends and normal problems.
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I like complexity. Binary world views are too simplistic and polarized for one side or another. I want to know what's really there - the complex, messy, worldview twisted back on itself. My worldview recoiling in the reflection. But it's hard to see, understand, respect and even enjoy, because so often we are triggered by fear and programmed with all kinds of things to control because of the fear. It makes my heart break for all of humanity - but mainly Americans right now. And so I go deep into these complex black waters, eat the dead flesh at the gash between us, weave some web of compassion between the the edges of our American trauma. I sit here and pet trauma's head, tell it is is ok, because there is nothing else that I can think to do.
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