Averaging less than two inches of rainfall per year, Death Valley has by all accounts forgotten its thirst. A need that has been systematically denied over the course of thousands of years, since the Pleistocene era, since lake manly had depth, has become a mode of being; the lack becoming the architect of the landscape, it is not unlike the way in which we accommodate our circumstances, even as they cripple us, especially as they cripple us; the needs that await fulfillment become a part of our selves: our texture, our potential, our cross to bear, our hope. It’s amazing the way life keeps living. Like the runt of the litter, Death Valley’s rainfall depends on what’s left after the weather has made its way through the mountains. Perhaps this is why the mountains surrounding Death Valley are more akin to prison guards than they are guardians. Some years there is nothing left. Some years Death Valley is so inhospitable, it resembles both the moon and the sun simultaneously, or an emaciated dog, it’s life disentegrating, crumbling, carried away by the gentlest of breezes.

To the east the Amargosa Mountains tower over Death Valley, to the west it’s the Panamint mountain range leering down at the desolate landscape. If you look north the Sylvania Mountains, to the south the Owlshead Mountain range reigns supreme. The mountains faithfully ensure that Death Valley will never be a prairie, or a forest, or a house so packed with guests you can hear the laughter from a block away, feel the warmth as you stroll pass, smell the pies as they bake in the oven, wondering as you make your way, what it’s like inside, the faces; the affections, the exchanging of thoughts, the imaginings of being in someone else’s shoes. The loneliness of the desert even an island knows nothing of.

And the whole time the sun blazing away, responsible for all this, all of this. The sun throwing up its arms, you can’t have your cake and eat it too. Nothing more aware of this fact than a desert. Nothing, perhaps more vulnerable to this fact than a desert; the sun being what it is, you wouldn’t ask the sun for shade, would you? The desert takes a hit all right, defenseless against the sun, the desert takes a beating and by noon the desert is fuming and the heat is rising. And as the heat rises from the floor of death valley, as it ascends the sides of the surrounding Mountains, it cools, gratefully yet momentarily, for as it cools it begins to slide back down the mountains, compressing as it falls and heating back up, hotter than before, and then rising again, until cool enough, descending again, trapping and agitating the air closest to the ground, a symphony that never really loses its momentum but in fact accelerates everything around it, stirring up a strong wind with a life of its own, agitated, merciless, the winds of Death Valley, what they lack in sophistication they make up for in velocity.

Death Valley is the hottest, driest place in the United States. It’s the second hottest place in the world. It’s the kind of hot that leaves one perpetually second guessing themselves, the heat not only felt but also seen and heard, an endless hum barely audible, it’s source impossible to discern; a sight that distorts everything beyond and within it to the point that for the residents of death valley, the heat is something that inhabits them, something to be looked through, something that can never be seen past, a lens that never fully brings the world into focus. The altitude only exasperates the situation, the lower the altitude, the greater the air pressure, the greater the air pressure, the greater the propensity for high temperatures. Parts of Death Valley are below sea level, in fact, Death Valley was once a sea of sorts. 10,000 years ago, a sea surrounded by land; this was before Death Valley died, before the naming of things. Before before.

They came in droves. Thousands, tens of thousands, gently, almost accidentally pried, like a child afraid to pull out a loose tooth that’s later discovered in a marshmallow, or a bird leaving the nest for the first time that not so much flies as falls, the seeds of death valley shaken loose from their future, arrived, some crossing international borders to get there, travelling the air currents sweeping over the land. They parachuted in, as if ejected out of tiny airplanes; descending like ballerinas or helicopters with no gas, armies of determination and stamina, spinning into death valley, settling into the formidable landscape, destined to decades of quiescence, invisible to the naked eye, they alight softly, they disturb nothing

la mar

The sea is an anomaly.

In Spanish, every noun, with the exception of one, is assigned a gender. The Sea is the exception. The sea has two genders. La mar. El mar.

It is known as la mar to the men who spend their days, lines cast, silently, patiently, waiting, their callused fingers and grey eyes, sensitized to the slightest tug, the smallest disturbance, their minds stretched out across the surface of the sea; searching themselves in the restless, the fitful, their heavy boots make sucking sounds as they shift their weight, as they move, a few paces here, a few paces there, looking for the sweet spot, feeling for something they can’t see in that place where the sea ends and everything else begins: the shore, where La mar reveals its desire to know the land. La mar, full of trepidation, arriving right up until the moment it is receding.