Desert Dilettante

I've been back for a while now. It's still been good. I've had the opportunity to pretty much pick life up where it left off so drastically in May. Spending time lounging at the pool, deciding, when, to walk up to the beach volleyball court and relaxing in the hot tub in the evenings. Floating from social engagement to social engagement and generally just living the life I did at Pomona. And, it's been pretty great. Amongst my alumni friends there's a fairly distinct split between those who have an aversion to our, oh so recent, collegiate lifestyle and those who still hold some melancholy at the irksome nature of change.

I think the groups annoy each other.

I miss college, I miss that lifestyle, I miss what I had. And that's completely fair, because wandering around Pomona, I'm forced to shake my head with incredulity. Was I really allowed to live for four years in this place? Did I really spend four years here? Does this place actually exist? It's a flippin' dream world. Sometimes I just can't believe it. It's one of those times in my life where I feel like forces are conspiring in my favor.

Anyhow, I went on a run with the team the other day. A run I had never done. We piled into the 16 passenger van and drove out to the Pacific Crest Trail out off the 215. It was windy as hell. Dave, was struggling to keep the van in our lane and being the night after Smiley 80s, everyone in the van, couldn't care less. It was early in the morning but the sun was shining and it looked to be a warm day. When we reached the trail head the wind whipped with such ferocity that the sun was powerless to warm us. In skimpy shorts and a Dri-Fit shirt, I huddled into myself trying to reduce the area of my body exposed the the wind and desperately conserve body heat. We launched off as a large group toward the trail head from the van. My head still thick and unresponsive from the night before I immediately lost any thread of conversation within the group and chose the caboose, attempting to keep the whole group together. The trail was single track forcing us to string out into a long train of swishing legs. The first couple miles wound through a rocky canyon with a small stream in the trough and an old man panning for gold, seriously. Large reddish boulders loomed on either side of us giving respite against the silent but persistent wind.

Emerging from the canyon a desert wonderland spread before our eyes, with layers upon layers of soft hills criss crossing our panorama. Plains scattered here and there, dotted with scraggly desert chaparral. Directly in front of us stood a large tall hill scarred with a winding yellowish band. This is where we were headed. And scampering across dry river beds and a small plain we began our climb at the foot of the desert hills. Treading through the contours of the hill, inward, outward, around and back but constantly up, we traded parries with the wind. We crossed ridges that fell off sharply on either side and with every footfall stones and pebbles attempted to resettle. Clinging to the air we struggled to keep our footing on the narrow path, wishing for a more solid body frame that might provide better resistance to desert wind. Once atop the hill and circling around the back, down, down, we saw from a distance our mountains, but from a different view. Our mountains looked majestic from this new angle. Their backsides towering tall and gleaming in the desert sun, proudly bearing their snowy caps. But it wasn't more than a glimpse, we snaked down the hill into a gentle canyon. The wind didn't follow and we cruised through the flats of the desert, alone, dry and under the sun. Between snippets of conversation that never quite developed into anything consistent or substantial, all one heard was the grinding of rubber and rock. Climbing now and again the desert encompassed our vision and we could only stare out into the unending wilderness into which we charged with each increasingly fatigued stride. Out into a landscape of loss, where you had only things to lose and nothing to gain.

My watch beeped an hour and so I slowed my pace for the about face. At this point, I had lost most my teammates, either passing them a ways back or to earlier turn arounds. Now Will and I were alone. Turning around, the trail I had just traversed for the past 60 minutes looked entirely different. But I struck out again and this time knowing, without seeing, that I was headed for something, instead of nothing. I stopped at a creek, whose clear running water seemed out of place in the stillness and dryness of the vast expanse that surrounded it. I had ceased to sweat long ago and under the baking sun I splashed cool water over my arms and legs, shoulders and back. Cupping my hands I closed my eyes and brought the water to my flushed face. After only a few steps, the previously unnoticeable wind in the canyon became extremely apparent. The water was evaporating off my skin rapidly in the heat and now chilly wind. I grew cold. And began to wind up the mountainous hill I had climbed before. Interrupting the rhythmic sound of my breathing was a cry of PPXC! I looked up from my stony path, up the hillside to see 3 or 4 of my teammates at various levels of elevation on this hillside. Some running to my right, some running to my left, as they climbed the switchbacks. The cry had failed to echo because the desert had swallowed it, accentuating these people, these active familiar beacons against the desert backdrop. I couldn't help but mutter badass breathily on my exhale. I continued to take my mincing steps up the mountain, trying to keep the yellow t-shirt of my fellow alumnus in sight ahead of me. Cresting again, the wind returned, blowing with that overwhelming but indifferent power of things grossly larger than oneself.

I became reckless. I abandoned myself to gravity in an effort to catch my companion. His yellow shirt magically appearing and disappearing amongst the undulations of the path down the mountainside. I leapt over a renegade tumbleweed, just as reckless as me but not feeling constrained to follow the path, it flung bouncing wildly straight down the hill. Striding, sliding, turning and banking up the sides to catch wild momentum, I tore down the hill bringing that yellow shirt closer and closer. By the time I came to a slow smooth pace in the small plain below I had caught the yellow shirt and we now chatted happily, knowing our concrete jungle was not far away and with it, the pleasures of electrolyte, high protein, scientifically precise mega foods with drinks to match. Back into the reddish canyon with the gold-panner, it seemed a final antechamber, a bottleneck passageway, an airlock separating the deserts. And as we cruised out of the trail head without looking back, we were given one final thwap in the face from the humbling, crippling, wind.

Then I spent the rest of the day drinking Coronas with limes and playing beach volleyball with all my '07 friends. We played until we needed the lights. And after a game under the artificial light, we broke for dinner. Wholewheat pasta with artichoke sauce in the hot tub prepped me for the night of 40s in the steeple pit: a classic PPXC tradition. All in all, it was a good day.

But now it's Tuesday, and I've said goodbye to many of my friends. My liver is grateful, and so am I. Now I can rest, sleep a full night, or finally get back to my book. But first, I'll romp around LA a little longer. And consider myself, unbelievably, blessed.