Story for the SCA website

Shh! Listen.

And our breath held, eyes focused on distant spaces unseen, we heard the coyote song while fixed firefly lights quietly emerged with the night. In these brief moments of utter awareness – awareness of sleeping, eating and working in the desert; awareness of the ocean of creosote and rock invading our souls; awareness of our insignificance and simultaneous determination to affect change – there exists happiness.

We rise before the sun and it greets us only once we have eaten and then sometimes only once we have arrived at our worksite. With short days it seems any time not building bushes is dedicated to keeping warm. When we are restoring desert, though, a rhythm emerges, when the day is right, to bind this crew and circulate warmth like an energy floating between each of us. Our silence while gathering branches and vegetation is meditative. Observant and focused we collect and pile, collect and pile, wandering father and farther away from the trail.

And as if sharing thoughts, the digging and the building and planting begin en coeur once meditation has ended, lending much discussion to placement of bushes. Excessive debate seems to be one of our defining characteristics and we must remind ourselves to act on our planning. This quality also brings out one of our best traits, our special attention to detail. Artists and engineers in each of us, our work is our pride.

The orange and brown patterned couch found on the side of a dusty road out by California City now sits patiently at our campsite on the northern slope of the Rand Mountains. It reminds us to breath once the day is done and invites all seven of us to pile onto it and each other, to appreciate the clear breeze, the last bits of sunshine and our company. Soon the air will cool, the light will fade and those same stars will emerge quietly. Dinner will be prepared with care, dishes will be washed in haste, and laughter might grace our circle.

Then, perhaps again, the howl of nearby coyotes will drift on the wind through immense silences.