Water in the Desert

“Is it really a problem that we have so little control? Is it a problem that plans altogether are written in water?” Pema Chodron

I have taken leave to the desert, a good place to probe opposition. As good as any, I realize, to think about water when I’m walking in an ecosystem thriving without much of it. Part of what pulls me in is that it constantly surprises me. I expect scarcity, but am rewarded with three, four, five different birdsongs, a coyote, a handful of jackrabbits, deer,  horned toad, two hawks in flight above. Every living thing I see reminds me I fit into something I can only take in in fragments. Crystalline blue sky, lemon yellow poppies, saguaro cactus open-armed but armed with a clear message: don’t get too close.

We belong, but to what? We’re here, but why? Is the point really to find answers?

I have a wise friend who said the damndest thing recently. “You ought to try to just trust life,” she said. “What if you just assume that everything is working out ok?”

First, I secretly checked her pupils to see if they were dilated. Her eyes were clear as the desert sky, and I realized she was serious. “Trust life?” I thought, congratulating myself for not rolling my eyes even a little. I concentrated on keeping my voice steady as I listed all the things that could go wrong if you just trusted life instead of, you know, planning things. You could run out of water. The house could get foreclosed. Your kids could get sick or have bad grammar. You would definitely get cavities, get soft, get taken. Lots of really undesirable things would happen, I concluded to myself.

But my friend’s words are still in my head as I rack up miles with nothing to do but take things in. I remember another desert experience, years and years ago, mountain biking in inhospitable temperatures with a strong late spring wind spraying grit in my eyes, hair, and teeth. My plans and preferences kept me from enjoying the desert again for several seasons after that, so enslaved was I to making the right kinds of plans that would insure against bad weather or bad luck.

So this, I thought. This is what she meant by trusting life, accepting such a gift, the assumption that it’s all working out as well as possible, that it’s not a constant game of avoiding things that could go wrong or did in the past. This is not to say we shouldn’t make plans. We can go to work and the dentist and the desert, but when things become unpredictable or surprising, we can put some trust in the fact that there will be something inherently valuable or even decent if we are simply objective about it.

In tugging at the thread of all that we can’t control, I realize that the thread is what connects us, what we all belong to. The beauty,  impossibility, the uncertainty, the grace…right here in the improbable fuchsia cactus blossom.