We Each Need to Have a Desert

As we cycle through life with its transitions, the chaos that surrounds us in today’s world can become overwhelming. In order to mitigate the intense emotional reaction to the hurricane of fast-moving continuous news cycles, political divisiveness, and personal life challenges (money, job, family, lack of time, health), we need to find a resting place. In this place, we can turn off our phones, slow down our pulse rates, forego the continuous deluge of conflict and controversy, and breathe. In this place, we can recharge our souls.

My daughter, Katie, has found her resting place. She has found that the desert (Big Bend) fulfills her need to “release reality”. She steps into the quiet canyons, treks the mountains, discovers new vistas, relishes the beauty of sunsets  and sunrises. The desert’s “alone” places allow her to breathe and focus on the “internal” rather than continually dealing with the “external” that her reality requires. She tells me that it normally takes a day to melt into the relaxing mindset that Big Bend provides for her. As her visits extend into several days, she is able to gain clarity about her priorities and to process the beauty and calm afforded by her desert.

When Katie returns to “reality”, the drive from Big Bend to her home in central Texas requires six to seven hours during which, Katie does not turn on her phone for the first two or three hours of the drive. This quiet space allows her to get back into sync with the passing towns, sign boards, traffic and other facets of returning from her “peace place”. During this quiet drive time, she metabolizes the emotional calm that she attained during her time in Big Bend. She uses this “stored peace” as it’s needed in her coming days of rehearsels, gigs, travel, and the other requirements that the “real world” presents. While living her life with its many pressures and obligations, she finds time in the hill country of Texas to take nature walks, alone or with friends. She consciously creates these back-to-nature times in order to maintain her ability to forestall becoming overwhelmed.

While many of us cannot travel to Big Bend, Katie has taught me to create time and space within the confines of my world that allow for the obviation of becoming overwhelmed by life. Like Katie, I allow my mind to wander into the quiet layered greens of western Ireland. There I find my “peace place”. After even a few minutes of remembering the breeze on the hilltop rock surrounded by green meadows and a stellar view of Dingle Bay upon which I sat and listened to the harmonies of the late nineties “Misty River Band”, I can return to Texas and take on the next item on my daily “to-do” list.

Bill@safeharborpathways.com