Title : But I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For
link : But I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For
But I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For
Last week, for the the second time in my life, I was lucky enough to touch a Joshua tree.
My three college roommates and I, scattered across the country, decided to skip our 20th college reunion and meet up in Palm Springs instead. Driving through the park, listening to (what else) U2, it was easy to imagine how this alien landscape once inspired a musical opus.
Yucca Brevifolia. That's the Joshua tree's scientific name. It's endangered, like all living things, by climate change. Something between a tree, a cactus, and a cartoon out of a Dr. Seuss book, the Joshua tree grows only in the deserts of the southwestern United States. Per Wikipedia:
I put my right hand on the trunk of one of these trees and thought about the tattoo I had inked on the back of my neck (shoutout High Tide Tattoo) shortly after the 2016 election. It was one word in lower case typewriter font, with an ellipses: "unless . . .". It refers to one of the last lines in Dr. Seuss's The Lorax: "unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not."
Even then I recognized that I would need a permanent reminder of the work I knew was coming. The work of caring. The work of trying to make things better. Problem was, I was naive and blinded by privilege, because I thought I would be able to do that comfortably, loudly, without real sacrifice, without pushback, from a place of safety and support. I was wrong. Extremely wrong. And I've been wrestling with that miscalculation and its ramifications ever since. I overestimated my friends and I underestimated my enemies. I grew more cynical than I already was. I lost faith in "the system," whatever that is, and I lost the ability to trust people. I'm never getting those things back. They are gone forever, and that's just something I need to accept.
Most days I just try to go about my business. I seek out work and when I get it, I do it well. I pay my bills and provide for my kids. I shuttle them from baseball to arts camp, driving the same miles of pavement over and over, listening to the same songs on the radio. I numb my feelings and distract myself with sugar, intoxicants, online scrabble, and books. I don't exercise enough and I cry a lot. For the state of the world, mostly, and out of self-pity for my disillusionment, shame, and the isolating limbo I find myself trapped in. I despair that this is never, ever going to end. And by "this," I mean exactly that: This. Everything. This time. The dumbest time. All of the irreparable damage it has done to families and to our national zeitgeist.
But now I'm thinking back to the Joshua tree.
I didn't realize it until I researched it later, but it turns out that I've got more in common with this weird looking tree than I do with most people. I have a deep and extensive root system that propelled me here. I can outlast the elements (maybe). I can reach out my hands. I can try to be a beacon.
Standing next to that tree, I thought about how easy it is to just wander off into the desert; crawl under a boulder with the lizards and the scorpions; lie there until you fade to black. That's the easy way. The hard way is to stand there: weird, resilient, waiting. Reaching up, reaching out. Just taking in and absorbing whatever punishments the universe metes out and whatever gifts it delivers.
Looks like I'm taking the hard way.
My three college roommates and I, scattered across the country, decided to skip our 20th college reunion and meet up in Palm Springs instead. Driving through the park, listening to (what else) U2, it was easy to imagine how this alien landscape once inspired a musical opus.
Yucca Brevifolia. That's the Joshua tree's scientific name. It's endangered, like all living things, by climate change. Something between a tree, a cactus, and a cartoon out of a Dr. Seuss book, the Joshua tree grows only in the deserts of the southwestern United States. Per Wikipedia:
The name "Joshua tree" is commonly said to have been given by a group of Mormon settlers crossing the Mojave Desert in the mid-19th century: the tree's role in guiding them through the desert combined with its unique shape reminded them of a biblical story in which Joshua keeps his hands reached out for an extended period of time in order to guide the Israelites in their conquest of Canaan.The Joshua tree has a deep and extensive root system and can live for up to a thousand years. (WUT). The evergreen leaves are dark and sharp, flowers bloom only intermittently.
I put my right hand on the trunk of one of these trees and thought about the tattoo I had inked on the back of my neck (shoutout High Tide Tattoo) shortly after the 2016 election. It was one word in lower case typewriter font, with an ellipses: "unless . . .". It refers to one of the last lines in Dr. Seuss's The Lorax: "unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not."
Even then I recognized that I would need a permanent reminder of the work I knew was coming. The work of caring. The work of trying to make things better. Problem was, I was naive and blinded by privilege, because I thought I would be able to do that comfortably, loudly, without real sacrifice, without pushback, from a place of safety and support. I was wrong. Extremely wrong. And I've been wrestling with that miscalculation and its ramifications ever since. I overestimated my friends and I underestimated my enemies. I grew more cynical than I already was. I lost faith in "the system," whatever that is, and I lost the ability to trust people. I'm never getting those things back. They are gone forever, and that's just something I need to accept.
Most days I just try to go about my business. I seek out work and when I get it, I do it well. I pay my bills and provide for my kids. I shuttle them from baseball to arts camp, driving the same miles of pavement over and over, listening to the same songs on the radio. I numb my feelings and distract myself with sugar, intoxicants, online scrabble, and books. I don't exercise enough and I cry a lot. For the state of the world, mostly, and out of self-pity for my disillusionment, shame, and the isolating limbo I find myself trapped in. I despair that this is never, ever going to end. And by "this," I mean exactly that: This. Everything. This time. The dumbest time. All of the irreparable damage it has done to families and to our national zeitgeist.
But now I'm thinking back to the Joshua tree.
I didn't realize it until I researched it later, but it turns out that I've got more in common with this weird looking tree than I do with most people. I have a deep and extensive root system that propelled me here. I can outlast the elements (maybe). I can reach out my hands. I can try to be a beacon.
Standing next to that tree, I thought about how easy it is to just wander off into the desert; crawl under a boulder with the lizards and the scorpions; lie there until you fade to black. That's the easy way. The hard way is to stand there: weird, resilient, waiting. Reaching up, reaching out. Just taking in and absorbing whatever punishments the universe metes out and whatever gifts it delivers.
Looks like I'm taking the hard way.
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