Yesterday, I was sitting with a coworker and explained to her that I felt like it was time to “get back into the desert.” She looked at me like I was crazy and asked what, exactly, I meant.
I meant that I had the “itch” again, the sense that I needed to be on the road, learning something new, meeting different people, broadening my perspective so I could engage more fully with the world around me.
As I’ve written previously on this blog, solo travel and authentic life choices have been the most powerful drivers of personal growth for me throughout my 20s. The past few times I’ve “gone into the desert,” I’ve come back to the real world with the courage to make transformative changes to my life, like switching careers or moving back home across the country.
I don’t know where the idea for solitude in the desert came from for me specifically, but I do know the concept isn’t particularly novel. Matthew McCounhouney talks about his, sometimes multi-week, forays into the desert, in his book, Greenlights. Cheryl Strayed hiked the Pacific Crest Trail alone for 3 months to reflect and regain her sense of self after the loss of her mother. A journey alone, particularly into the desert, has consistently proven to be an effective method to de-stress and re-center.
As I get older, and more immersed in the adult world of full-time employment, taxes, and paperwork, I find myself “itching” to get back into the desert in more frequent intervals. Maybe it’s because the real world feels increasingly overwhelming. Maybe it’s because I need to move from an urban center to a more suburban area to lead a more balanced life. Maybe it’s because sometimes I feel like I can only think clearly staring out at the Western horizon. Whatever the case, I just keep giving in and going out to the desert.
Next month, I’ll trek out to Ghost Ranch, Georgia O’Keefe’s former home in Abiquiu, New Mexico. I’ve eyed this destination wistfully for years, since visiting the Georgia O’Keefe museum in Santa Fe on a road trip in 2019. But now, it feels like I’m ready.
O’Keefe is another desert dreamer. Meant to live as a dutiful wife in New York, she traveled to New Mexico for the first time in 1929, and over time, began visiting more and more frequently- without her husband. Eventually, she purchased Ghost Ranch, on her own, and made the move permanent.
Coincidentally, I read today an essay Joan Didion wrote on O’Keefe for her nonfiction collection, The White Album. In the piece, Didion describes O’Keefe’s careful discernment of herself, and her ability to stand against those who tried to smother or belittle her artistic pursuit. In particular she is, of course, referring to many of O’Keefe’s male peers of the time period, who found her colors too bright and her subjects too outlandish. O’Keefe didn’t care. She kept painting.
In relating this back to my own life, I should be clear in saying that no male influences are attempting to belittle my dreams or smother my vision, but the essay felt like further fuel to “get back to the desert.” If strong women like O’Keefe found solace and inspiration there, what better place for me to go in times of restlessness?
So, I booked the ticket, rented the car, and now patiently await this next adventure into the desert under the New Mexican sun. Check back soon for my updates on where this solo expedition took me and the little epiphanies that the desert air brought out of me.
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