9 Days in the Desert: Day 6

Day 6: Finding a Way to Feel

I returned to Jalisco’s “Oak Tree” drop with Winston and Jason to take the water we missed the day before. The area still had heavy Border Patrol, but no helicopter.

We made two trips to the “Oak Tree,” each time carrying 8 gallons on us because while scouting the area we discovered two separate and distinct trails passing under two separate oak trees—the shade and placement of which could be a good rest stop. After dropping our 16 gallons we decided to hike back into the canyon for a couple of hours and see where one trail lead. The hike was not too strenuous and no one was in a hurry. We kept a steady pace and didn’t talk much. After an hour in, we stopped at a vantage point where we could see Ruby, Montana peak (Hippy Mountain), and the valley. It was all-encompassing and quiet. It felt good to be out there, in the sun, working out knotted emotions through the muscles.

I do these water drops every day and I feel good about myself, I feel like I’m accomplishing something, but then a migrant is found, or a person wanders into camp, or a story is shared, and nothing makes any sense anymore. My well-meaning tasks of the day are blown to tiny little bits of hope scattered across the desert and swept off by the wind.

But today, I don’t think of that because today I can climb, and move, and feel the breeze on my sweat-glossed skin. I can look across a vast valley and see its rugged, untouched beauty. Today I can feel my heart in my chest, my breath in my lungs, and my legs tire. Today I can feel.

On the journey back Winston and Jason have a talk about religion. Winston grew up Baptist but left the religion for many reasons, one of which being he identifies as queer. Jason grew up Catholic and went to a Christian Brother’s university, and though he is now a Catholic Worker, he is no longer Catholic and doesn’t know if god exists. They talk about callings. Winston is in seminary school to become a United Church of Christ minister. People in camp have often asked him about callings. I like to hear him talk. He is thoughtful and balanced. He shared that to him a calling is not always something you like to do or something that is good for you. I wondered if writing is mine. Together we talked about prayer, meditation and community, and I thought that this ritual of walking, this conversation we shared, could be a prayer. I don’t know if god exists, but I do believe in magic, and if anything the desert if full of magic and the unexplainable. It is in the mesquite trees, in the fire-orange flowers blossoming out the top of barrel cactuses, in the Ocotillo that stretch like fingers up to the sun like praise.

The second half of the day the entire group (Jason and Winston volunteered to “hold it down” in camp) headed back to Ruby Lake to celebrate Sonia’s 23rd birthday with swimming and brownies baked from a solar oven. The festivities were somber with six days of stress pressing on everyone’s minds and muscles, but people swam and even laughed. I tried to show Jacques how to float on the water to no avail, and people took turns jumping off the rope swing. Kennedy suggested that who ever jumped from the rope had to scream something funny, the more random the better.

“Hot Pocket!” Mike sang as propelled himself into the lake.

“Happy birthday, Sonia!” Jacques screamed making the whole group ring out in a joined, “Ah.”

“I heart Jacques!” Davey cheered with a click his knees before plunging into the murky green sludge. Over the days, our 18 year-old Frenchie had turned into object affection around camp. The frivolity helped lighten the weight of the week, and for once it felt like our collective fears had quieted for a moment.

Getting out of the water, I laid out on the white sand and let the sun bleach dark worries from my body. In a strange trance, I felt my limbs relax and sink into the sand, my cheeks warm with sunlight, my body calm with recent memory of green water washing over me.

And then we all gathered to go and I walked off the beach like waking from a dream, and headed back to reality.

Walt Staton and The Splinter Generation

Walt Staton is a volunteer for No More Deaths, a humanitarian group working in the southern deserts of Arizona to give water and first aid to illegal immigrants crossing into the country. This past winter, while placing water jugs in key points along the border, Walt was handed a littering citation. He fought the ticket, and in June was found guilty by a jury. He is currently awaiting sentencing, which may include up to a year in prison or $10,000 in fines.

No matter what your stance on illegal immigration or the government's border policies, in the words of Walt, "you have to be a complete crazy wingnut to say I want people to die in the desert."

Photo by Holly Winters and taken from her blog at brazilanduruguay.blogspot.com

Last month I had the good fortune to sit down and speak with Walt Staton on behalf of The Splinter Generation, the online literary journal I am poetry editor for. Seth Fischer, founding editor, offered me the assignment knowing my interest in immigration issues. The interview went live this morning at http://www.splintergeneration.com/.

Here is a piece:

Splinter Generation: When you actually see someone struggling in the desert, how does that change your original outlook?

Walt Staton: It starts to put the world in perspective. You start meeting real people. You meet moms, and you meet children, and you meet dads, and uncles, and grandpas, and you know, the people that I consider to be heroes. I mean these people are basically saying, “I refuse to raise my children in poverty, or I refuse to live in a situation where I can’t get a job that is dignified. I can’t live with dignity, so I’m moving.”

I think the courage of people to migrate is a really inspiring thing, but it’s kind of tough in a lot of ways because there isn’t a whole lot we can do. I mean, we are out there as medical people, and with food and water just to–– I guess if you find someone in their worst possible state, if they’re in real medical distress, then we can take them to a hospital or something. But the hardest part is realizing there is not a lot we can do. We can’t drive people places. So you meet these really amazing folks who are making a very powerful statement with their feet, you know, and you are just a little blip in their longer journey.

SG: How do you keep going?

WS: Ultimately, I think it’s the refugees and migrants themselves. I mean they are the ones who really have the journey to struggle through. I don’t know how to really explain it. But it’s sort of like it’s their lives that are in their hands, and I have a great deal respect for the people who make that choice to move for a better situation.

I think where we can blend into the struggle with people here in the United States is once refugees arrive and are being threatened by ICE or threatened by local police, I think that’s a big call for [all] us to respond and say, “No. These are our brothers and sisters, these are our neighbors, these could be family members, and we can’t just stand by.” That’s building our communities, and making it broader than just a couple of activists. I think it’s really important that we see ourselves in a community with all these people. That’s what keeps me going.

Photo by Holly Winters and taken from her blog at brazilanduruguay.blogspot.com

A poem inspired by Walt Staton:

from The Watcher

The Watcher witnesses
statements with feet
stamped into sand,
sealed into the boarder
making migration official.

The Watcher protects
each statement
as if ancient folklore,
as if oral history
articulated with toes,
as if hieroglyphics swept
over by history and dust.

The Watcher is a guardian,
he is an anthropologist,
he is the archaeologist
of living history
and attempts to clean away
corrosion and neglect.


For the full interview with Walt Staton please go to http://www.splitnergeneration.com/.