At the bathroom mirror of a rented casita somewhere in Flagstaff, I discover half the desert came home with me.
Red dust gathers along my collar, settles into the seams of my brown canvas backpack, which used to be cream-colored, and fills the tiny crease above my sock line where the trail outsmarted me.
When I untie my boots, sand pours onto ceramic tile in two soft cones.
The room suddenly feels like a painting, “Composition of Woman and Borrowed Earth.”
Juniper pollen clings to the cuffs of my sleeves.
There’s grit beneath my fingernails, iron-rich and stubborn, the color of old brick after rain.
OPI might name it Jazz Hands In the Desert.
I touch my scalp and feel dust there too, worked deep into my hair through wind, sweat, sunlight, and twelve miles of canyon trail.
Good.
Today earned its right to linger a little longer.
Some people spend all day trying not to stain themselves.
I understand the instinct.
There are white couches. Important emails. Polished shoes. Entire industries built around remaining untouched.
But somewhere between mile four and the moment I sat directly on a warm rock without checking for dust, my body remembered something older than neatness.
Children know it first.
Mud puddles. Finger paint. Grass stains.
At one point I crouched low to photograph a cluster of desert marigolds forcing themselves through fractured stone.
When I stood again, one palm carried sap, and a line of sweat ran slowly from my neck down the center of my spine.
Perfect.
By late afternoon, my shoulders glowed pink, my lips tasted faintly of salt and sunscreen, and every object inside my backpack had acquired the thin orange film of Arizona.
Even the map.
Especially the map.
I ate trail mix with dusty fingers and decided the extra crunch only improved it.
Somewhere near the ridge, a woman passing me said, “Beautiful day.”
Then both of us kept walking without needing to improve upon the sentence.
There's nothing important to say out there. Beauty speaks and we simply listen.
And feel. And I'm convinced—
The body experiences some landscapes on a cellular level.
Scientists eventually gave the phenomenon a long Latin name after discovering certain microorganisms in the soil can calm the nervous system.
Mycobacterium vaccae. But I think we should call it thereasonpeoplecry when kneeling in the dirt.
Meanwhile, every child who ever came home with muddy shoes was already conducting the experiment.
Back at the casita, the sink runs briefly orange-brown when I wash my hands.
Dust circles the drain.
I pull one sock inside out and enough sand falls free to start a small dune beside the bathmat.
I hope my Airbnb rating doesn't take a hit.
The shower waits.
Still, I linger a moment longer in the mirror, sun-tired, windblown, grinning slightly at the woman standing there with desert still gathered in every visible place.
The road is empty, so naturally I walk to the center and stand on the line.
Silence but for the tapping of the cooling engine and the sound of waves— or maybe wind— blowing through pine needles.
Yellow lines under my feet— broken, then whole, then broken again, each piece looks like it's racing but I know better: resting.
Ahead, the road lifts.
Not much— just enough to take the next stretch out of view.
Driving, you don't notice how pretty the variation of black, gray, and blue after years of repaving.
You just keep going.
Inside the car you are listening, or talking, or thinking . . . anticipating, over the hill, onto the next stretch already laid out.
Standing here, the journey slows then stops.
Everything here knows one another and all is stable, but the wind and the clouds and the sun and moon and stars— but the road.
Each yellow line serves a purpose to guide to rightly divide . . . but also to watch to remember to enjoy?
It occurs to me in the middle of the road:
Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.
No matter how fast or slow I move, God.
The road is the road.
The adventure— where I go— is up to You.
—Iris Lennox literary pen name of Jill Szoo Wilson
Iris Lennox 