Relief

By Morgan Williams

We have left the waterless, ignorant and impossible Southern California. Creosote. Highway. House. This endless pattern from ocean to desert. Creosote. Highway. House. One of our Country’s arteries: I-10. They carry goods. We carry bitterness at this truck economy. They carry agribusiness. We are educators, emissaries carrying messages from plants to L.A. kids. But I can’t shake the feeling of lack I have, even as I approach Nirvana on Ryan Peak with a full Nalgene next to me. The aridity makes me uncomfortable.

Joshua Tree is astounding, from its ecology to geology. The piles of rocks reminisce about the old times when water flexed its muscles between their seemingly solid bodies. But only fingerprints of water remain. Water tanks are empty where there used to be cattle grazing. Hikers walk to Barker Dam expecting to see water, but only see a wall of concrete. The National Park doesn’t hypothesize why there is less water in Joshua Tree than there used to be, they just reveal the facts. California lives in the history of water’s shadow. The local desert dwellers are living with the receipt of old water laws.

The forests of Joshua Trees are fantastic and inspiring. But these trees only sip from the memories of water. Today, Quail Springs Road is the only consistent waterway that exists in Joshua Tree where climbers, campers and hikers buzz along in their SUVs or Westfalias with five-gallon jugs they’ve filled in nearby cities. The local watering holes fill from water tankers that drive water in from Northern California, Colorado, Alaska or Saturn’s moons. The only answer to this waterless situation is time travel. Or steal more water. Or drive east. Stealing more water is, in fact, the West’s tried and true answer to this situation.

Leaving California was both exhilarating and sad. There is a profound diversity of people, geology and ecosystems, from Hummers to old trucks, Donut shops to Indian markets, Joshua Trees to Redwoods, GMO golf ball-sized blackberries to locally made honey, and the human landscape of differences between Barstow and Venice Beach.   

This Manifest Destiny landslide extends into Arizona. We met my parents in Phoenix. My father and I ran along the dirt road byproduct of the Central Arizona Canal Project. Because of these waterways, the public has found a lucky outlet in which to experience glimpses of outdoor pleasure. The roads along the waterway were packed with sweatpants and hoodies bringing back memories of the workout videos that lined my grandmother’s shelf next to the treadmill. People wandered this man-made canal as if it were for décor rather than for their very own toilet water. Water is a habit for Midwesterner imports. I’m perplexed at the complacency of Phoenix citizens to live on an island of water surrounded by drought. Phoenix is a profound hiccup, a societal CD skip, an ocotillo turned into a Ford Expedition. From Southern California to the Four Corners, the Mojave to the Sonoran Desert, I never felt a peace of mind.

Ironically, in Cortez, Colorado, while cooking dinner in a truck stop, after the tow truck driver lost our car, I suddenly felt a hint of satisfaction. It was like popping a spiritual boil in your soul. Here was water abundant with old mining minerals. Water with cow shit. Water with silt. I will take these waters over the stolen waters of the Southwest. Those waters have greed, immorality and doubt. My consciousness is more peaceful when I drink from the faucet in Colorado rather than a plastic spaceship water bottle in California.

These mountains have authentic watersheds. A Colorado river is not as much of a virtual reality, or a bureaucratic water source as it is in California. Living in these dry places without the simple, most-needed human resource besides sunlight, created a depressing uneasiness. Being without always enforces what we have. Southern Californians and many Arizonans are water striders in a knee-deep pond. Tomorrow, ankle deep. Trace the old waterways of a dead civilization to find out what it will look like two days from tomorrow.

If it is their bass systems, malls or lowered Honda Civics that hinder an Arizonan’s view from these environmental crises, so be it. I’m subscribing to the apocalyptic vision of water shortages. Nonetheless, the underlying peace supplied by water availability cradles me. The unnatural, unsettled feeling I had in SoCal has been amended. I walk into the gas station convenience store and buy a Dr. Pepper for my girlfriend to celebrate.