NOTES
Losing Myself in Joshua Tree
Salvation in the desert while the U.S. is in conflict.
In the darkness of night, we had lain on the blanket, covering the desert sand that had begun to cool. The coyotes had been barking and howling at the crescent moon but then it stopped, the wind followed soon after, no longer brushing the dry leaves of desert plant life. Aryn fell asleep and then I was alone, staring at the scattered patches of tall grass and cactus. It was silent. My heart began to race and soon I could hear it, blood coursing in my ears set to the rhythm of my ever-increasing heart rate. My body and mind had never before experienced true silence. I was caught between panic and relaxation of a world without sound; the rhythm of the desert at night.
Before this day, I hadn't experienced the desert. I wasn't even sure that I'd like it, knowing that the wilderness of trees, brooks, hills and mountains was my preferred natural environment but I wanted to see it. I wanted to experience the dry heat and the hundreds of miles of sparsely inhabited land, a temporary isolation knowing that my stay wouldn't be long. It was like holding a firecracker and letting it go before it could explode in your hand.
Joshua Tree, California was an unexpected stay during the last week of our trip through the West Coast. We had wanted to see the desert but had figured we'd pass right through on our way to Las Vegas. I felt that I wanted to see more of it so we booked a room at a desert bungalow on the outer border of the Joshua Tree National Park.
That first day, we sat on the porch with the owner of the bungalow as well as another guest. We stared out into the desert. After some talk, we dipped into silence. A large-eared rabbit hopped throughout the front of the property. Mourning doves sitting on a power line cooed overhead and the wind blew intermittently as I inhaled and exhaled my breath. It was a peace I hardly knew. Meanwhile the outside world seemed to be falling apart with bombings, absurd statements from presidential candidates, shootings of American civilians and more. I felt then that I had no desire to return to the world from which I had come.
We stayed for two nights and although it was so very hot, I hardly remember what it felt like. Years ago, when I had gotten my first tattoo, I had wanted to get a piece that meant something to me. It was of a gecko. I later learned that it was a symbol of the desert, synonymous in some Native cultures with freedom. That's exactly how the environment of Joshua Tree and its surrounding region felt -- free.
Inquiries and info: info@carlosdetres.com
Considering the Dallas Shootings in a Bar with Strange Faces
In an ordinary bar in downtown Los Angeles with strangers. Photos from Santa Monica, Hollywood, Santa Clarita and the Los Angeles transit system.
Hollywood
It was the day after the Dallas shootings when eleven police officers were shot, five killed. I walked into a downtown dive bar in Los Angeles, sat on one of the barstools next to the gaming machine. I ordered a Blue Moon topped with a slice of orange and watched Maury Povich on the TV mouth revelations to astonished guests.
The room grew from a couple folks to a dozen or so, all apparently from different backgrounds. A Latin American woman juggled drink orders and come-ons from mens who were old enough to be her father. In the smattering of dialog that I picked up in that room, there was concern of the crisis in Dallas (the latest spear into the heart of America) as an old bearded man in a Hawaiian shirt ratted off his sexual conquests between here and Pasadena.
It was a hot day and I was drenched in sweat, trying to discern the streets of L.A., separating the cavernous, film reel decorated train stations between West Hollywood and the busy intersections of downtown. I was lost in a heap of thought, staring into the memory of gargantuan trees and the windless maze of train tunnels and streets that were not familiar to me.
We were all below, beneath the Mount Olympus of celebrities, recalling our misinformation of facts that too place during that dreadful week in America. Alton Sterling, Philandro Castile and those officers are closer to us in our struggle to adjust to the real facts of a crumbling society, and perched above it all, the faces of two presidential candidates with the audacity to lead a seemingly torn nation. But around me were flapping lips from different colored faces existing in harmony, drinking booze during a hot lunch hour. I knew that we were on the precipice of drastic action, a revolution on its way but when my chicken fingers and french fries arrived on a plate, nothing else mattered aside from the present moment.
Train Stations
Hollywood
Santa Clarita
Santa Monica and Venice
San Francisco and Sonoma Too
Onwards through San Francisco and Sonoma.
San Francisco, CA
A friend of mine had told me a long time ago, "You've got to get out to San Francisco. You'd love it." After hearing some of the recent reports of ultra-gentrification and busloads moving young techies from the city into Silicon Valley, I became concerned that I wouldn't have the right historical context to enjoy the city as I had hoped.
I had begun to realize that I had lost the stomach for the metropolis life and despite San Francisco being the most beautiful American city I'd ever seen, I was still craving the arid, vined hills of Sonoma from where I had just come as well as the gargantuan trees from that prehistoric forest where I enjoyed feeling small and inconsequential.
Sonoma, California
It was here where I learned that there is no longer a place for me in the big cities. I was preferring the vast vineyards with rows of vine that go up and down the arid hill; the West Coast domain of Bacchus, that craven of wine who sang the strong, loud song of debauchery bellowed from deep red-tinted lips from the old world where the marriage of agriculture and pleasure was consecrated. I was starting to appreciate, more than ever, the life of the villager or the small townie or the forest-bound hermit.
Sonoma, California
The beaches in San Francisco wasn't expected nor the beautiful vistas from hills where I could, on one side, see fog slowly reveal the towers of the Golden Gate Bridge and, on the other, houses edging nearly off the bluffs from which the ocean seemed to run to the end of the world. Out there, Japan, a long current separating continents but yet, despite the drama, there are parts of San Francisco that are quaint and private such as the pet cemetery beneath the 101 or the woods near Baker Beach.
After my first day there, I stayed in Berkley and desired nothing else but to leave cities once again to head south toward Santa Monica, and beyond that, one of the great deserts of North America.
