Another Imaginary Line in the Sand

I've been through the desert on a street with no name 

It felt good to be out of the rain 

In the desert you can remember your name 

'Cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain

Well, it’s that time again. The time when we cross an imaginary line and say, “That is last year and this is this year.” In reality, there is absolutely no difference between Monday, December 31, 2018 and Tuesday, January 1, 2019. Oh, I guess there is one difference. I tried to renew the license plates on my trailer online today and discovered I have to do it by mail because my address changed. California has no grace period, so instead of owing $250 today, I owe $282 tomorrow. Just another arbitrary line in the sand.

While I muse about mortality and boundaries, I thought I’d include a few more pictures of Quinne’s and my adventure when she visited. We spent a day recovering after the rigors of the Cabeza Prieta adventure and then we were on the road again, seeking new ways to exhaust the father. These pictures were taken under the Great Tree of Arizona, 1,020 years old. My 25-year-old daughter looks so young under it.

* * *

I almost understand why people are so obsessed with building a wall between Mexico and the United States. A wall or a fence or an imaginary line in the sand, all symbolize a division between what is mine and what is others’. This side of the border wall is the United States. That side is Mexico. Except it isn’t. The longest unprotected area of the US/Mexico border is in Texas—nearly two-thirds of the entire border. That border is the Rio Grande River. As evidenced by the sections of fence (about 130 miles) currently existing, the route of the wall could be miles inside the US boundary, thus excluding thousands of square miles of US territory, most of it privately owned, from the border of the United States.

I guess that is like saying you have a square mile (640 acres) of property, but you have to fence it ten feet inside the property boundary. Doesn’t sound like you’d lose that much, but your 640 acres is now only 635 acres. It’s unlikely that we’d ever even get an actual reckoning of how much US land lay outside the border wall. Some estimates place it at a little over 200,000 acres. Not that much.

Among the places Quinne and I visited was the Poston Memorial. This section of the Colorado River Indian Reservation was taken over to provide a concentration camp for Japanese Americans during World War II. Overnight in 1942, it became the second largest city in Arizona as panicked Americans fenced in American citizens because of their race.

* * *

I guess the idea of fencing and walls and lines in the sand are not just to define what is mine and yours, but also to raise a barrier to my fears of anything that is different than me. Whether it is the color of skin, the economic condition, the shape of eyes, the language spoken, or the god worshiped, we would rather raise a wall or draw a line in the sand and keep ‘other’ away.

On Kofa Mountain, known to the campers on the BLM as “Homer,” is a place called Palm Canyon. It’s a half-hour walk from the parking lot to a sign that points to the sight. Another mile away, you can barely see a canyon with the only stand of California Palms native in Arizona.

* * *

I draw lines, too. Most of them, I call chapters. Some, I call books. I even put spaces between the 880,000 words I wrote this year. But sadly, the lines on the calendar separate me from one age to the next. It is another day and another year and another few hours of writing that I have to do.

On Christmas Eve, I had to take my little girl back to Palm Springs so she could catch her plane back to Seattle. We stopped for a yummy Italian dinner before I took her to the airport.

* * *

So here is the line I’m drawing this year. I’m looking for five friends to share my life with. I don’t know who they are, but I know what they are.

• The inspired
• The motivated
• The open-minded
• The passionate
• The grateful

Which are you? We have some good times waiting for us on the other side of the line!