UFO Clouds, Thirsty Bushes, & the Stories We Make Up
When we finally left Las Vegas, Lex said they wanted to see the “real” desert. So, we pointed the car toward the highway and drove straight through Death Valley.
It was stunning. We kept stopping to take stock of the vast, endless landscapes—the kind of long open highways you always see in movies out West with a lone motorcyclist riding into the distance. But as we drove further in, it got hotter, rockier, emptier, and much more desolate. The wind howled through the canyons where the only creatures around were small moths or timid hoppers. Up in the sky, the clouds looked like bright flying saucers, casting far away shadows over the landscape. We just kept pointing the camera at all the beautiful sights, trying to take it all in.
Then we reached the sand dunes, where the air was dry and suffocatingly hot. People would jump out of their cars, take a quick picture, and immediately run back to the A/C. You could see small pine trees being slowly swallowed up by the sand, while others had already succumbed to it, leaving dry trunks tossed in the middle of the dunes like twisted, abandoned furniture. All the while, there was this deep, ominous rumble in the background—unseen military jets piercing the UFO clouds and making dark silhouettes against the bright blue sky.
Later, we stopped to look at the salt flats shimmering far away like a white sea. It felt like walking on a knife’s edge. There were warning signs everywhere saying “Heat Kills” and “Stay on the Road.” We heard on the news that sadly a tourist died out there not long ago after his car got stuck and he tried to walk for help. Being there in person, you totally get it. It’s so easy to imagine that nobody is coming to rescue you in that desolation Around the rocks, though, I started looking closely at the plants. Some looked like little sticks with trembling green lollipops on the ends. Others were pale bushes with twisted leaves that caught the light, shimmering to deflect the sun like the silver ants of the Sahara. Looking at them, my mind immediately kicked in: How harsh it must be to live here. Maybe I should give this poor plant some of my water. It would appreciate it so much.
Then I stopped myself. What about the rest of the plants out here? They didn’t need my water. They’ve lived here forever. This harsh heat is just normal to them. Do they suffer, or do they just call it “life” while I’m the one making up all these urgent stories? Surrounded by all that beauty, the alien environment, the heat, the “helpless” plants, the weird rumbles in the distance and the UFO clouds, I was ready to help the plants; the small bushes needed my help, according to me.
That was the real lesson of the desert. In that massive isolation and stillness, my mind got caught up trying to “rescue” a bush that was doing just fine. The desert became a kind of meditation. There was just enough space and harshness out there to quiet the ambient world so I could finally notice my own internal noise. When things get quiet and tough, our minds love to create seductive, urgent narratives. If we can pause and catch ourselves doing that, we might actually understand ourselves. And when we listen to that stillness, maybe we can start to understand each other, too.