Love in the Desert

One of my favorite writers, Anne Lamott, hates the desert because "It is way too hot, there are snakes, the light is implacable, and when there is actually some shadow or shade, it contains too many surprises -- and I'm not talking Easter eggs." Just today I did battle--and lost--against the desert's implacable light: at about 5 PM, I gave up trying to garden because the setting sun just would NOT get out of my eyes, no matter how I turned, squinted, shielded my face. Snakes don't bother me (I appreciate rattlers' early-warning system), but I'm not thrilled by creepy-crawlies--scorpions (haven't seen one in decades), tarantulas (ditto, though they used to scamper through here in fluttery, blanket-like herds) and cigarillo-sized cucarachas we never had before the flood of '78 but who now romp all over. Summer heat here sometimes flattens me, I admit, but (having spent five summers in Cambridge) I always remember to be grateful that summer's dry, here, rather than wet.

So in her way, Anne Lamott is right, I guess.

But has she never been here at night? If she had, she'd feel differently.

Tonight, for instance, is the first genuinely cool night we've had since early April. Not the cool that is merely abated heat, this cool is a Presence, come intentionally to replace the dark, arid exhaustion of July and August (though they are not without their charms). Warm or cool, summer night air in the desert has the aura of a fragrant, erotic embrace. It wraps itself around you, runs its fingers through your hair, soothes you with nonstop crickets and occasional birdsong. Its warmth, and its heady blend of cooling sand and grasses, sharp creosote, flowering vines, blooming citrus, invite you to take off your clothes. Especially in the vicinity of a swimming pool, especially if its underwater light is on, rippling turquoise depths beckon, Siren-like: "Strip down and jump in!" they call. "We're waiting!"

Before I was old enough to know what "romance" meant, I felt it. Because I grew up in the desert, when my time came to put a name to natural, erotic intoxication, I was ready.

I saw my first outdoor bedroom when I was nine, and I've wanted one ever since. (No, it's not camping; an outdoor bedroom is architecture--not something tacked on, like a sleeping porch, but a portion of the house that has three walls and a set of curtains that are meant to be open but can be closed against light or breezes. There's a bed with linens, a lamp, bedside tables, an adjoining bath. But no phone, no TV. I think the Romans must have had them.)

Though I've never had an outdoor bedroom, I've spent many desert nights outdoors, alone, feeling the night and thinking, "What an ideal setting to be in love, to be with a lover."

I've been a lot of "romantic" places--New York, Paris, the Greek Islands--and each of them is beautiful and sexy. "How you gonna keep 'em down on the farm/Once they've seen Gay Paree?" etc. But none of them can touch my desert for romance (though the Greek Islands come close).

To me, the erotic intoxication comes naturally: here I am, all these years later, and here I'll stay. In the desert. In love.

Comments

[Tom Montag]

I contend that the place you choose, or that has chosen you, gets its claws in you and doesn't let go. This post, Your Honor, I offer as Exhibit #1. (Thanks for it!)

[Chris Clarke]

Soulmate!

(Except that I like the creepy-crawlies, as long as they are willing to leave my boots before I put them on.)

If I was handed a month-long romantic vacation with my dear one, and given a choice among Waikiki, Central Park West, and Nipton, California, it wouldn't take me long to decide on Nipton.

[fred1st]

Swooon! I can sense your love, and could love the desert, too, had I known it. Instead, it is the leafy comfort of rounded Appalachians at night (and her own cadre of insects) that sing me sane in late September.