Red Dirt Girl

by Kajsa Vlasic

            When I was a little girl, I thought it was normal to live in the desert. I thought it was typical to come home after a day of playing and empty mass amounts of red sand out of my shoes and pants onto the concrete living room floor. I was used to the harsh rays of the sun penetrating my fair skin and bleaching out my already-blonde bob of hair into a mess of loose platinum curls. The vast expanses of the savannah made up the only home I knew and its open areas, filled with the kind of wonder both children and adults dream of exploring, kept me calm. It was my sanctuary.

            The Kalahari Desert of southern Africa derives its name from the Tswana word kgala, which means “of great thirst.” The semi-arid savannah stretches out over Botswana and sections of South Africa and Namibia, between the Orange and Zambezi rivers. It is vast and dry now, but once it was a much wetter place. Covered by Lake Makgadikgadi 10,000 years ago, it is now the barren homeland to many.

            The sand in this place is dyed a rich red. Between the empty spaces rest giant Baobobs, acacia trees and tall dry grass. The Kalahari is a mysterious place. Not only is it desolate, but the legends and tales of the San people, the Bushmen of this desert, describe this open space as the home where they used to live undisturbed and free. They lived without connections to other tribes. There were no roads, no tourists, none of the busy life that most people now call “normal” in this world. It’s a special place, the Kalahari. Its treasures, the barren land and the stories that come with it, are a kind of beauty most people will never know and never feel deep into their bones.

We moved away from my desert home when I was five. Although young enough to not be affected too drastically with a move to the other side of the globe, my never-ending sand-filled playground held a special place in my heart. I never forgot what the aroma of the sand in the yard smelled like after the long-awaited rains finally came and the soil turned into a deep red mud. I dreamed of running through the sand or watching the clouds of debris form behind the family Land Rover when we drove home after safari trips deep into the confines of this African wilderness. I could feel the grains sifting through my fingers if I closed my eyes tight enough.

Sand is a specimen of history. It is made up of a variety of small rock and mineral particles and not one type of sand is the same as that of another geographic area. Its mode of transport is regularly wind and water. From sand bars to sand dunes to elementary school playgrounds, this grainy substance never ceases to exist in the natural world.

            Desert sand is my favorite. The fine grains sneaks into every fold of your clothing when you’re surrounded by it and weeks later it escapes from your pockets when you find yourself sitting in class or walking around the grocery store. In the early morning, with the desert sun high in the sky, the sand will have made its way into your nasal cavity overnight and it will often times be necessary to forcefully sneeze the debris out. It’s only a reminder of the dusty and dry environment that you’re in.

            Although every desert is physically different, something about them always remains the same. Perhaps it’s the feeling of isolation or the sense of calm relaxation that takes hold in my body when I’m surrounded by nothingness. To those who know what the desert looks like, the term nothingness may seem like the wrong one to use. But I find it to be the only description fit for this place.

            The surrounding desert is nothing but barren. With the high-crested buttes of sandstone, canyon after canyon of loud braying mules and light-footed big-horned sheep, and a mixture of vegetation that has learned to survive without much water, life is present. The anxiety and worry and stress of living in a big city are gone however. There is no time schedule. There are no traffic jams or car accidents. The wait for dinner is not a line of preoccupied individuals standing out the door of a local posh restaurant, but the time necessary to make a home-cooked meal of enchiladas or paella with the cool river water lapping at the shore nearby. The serenity of the desert, the nothingness if you will, is present. It’s a warm sensation. My blood rushes through me, a thousand miles per minute of sheet joy to be in a place I can connect with. This void, a physical detachment from the busy world around me and the expectations that come with it, is natural. I can feel my heart rate beating a stead seventy-two beats per minute and I know that this is where I am supposed to be today.

A few months shy of turning twenty I find myself standing in the darkness of the desert completely alone. Tents are pitched on either side of the road of the Sand Island campsite, just outside of Bluff, Utah, but everyone’s asleep and it’s just me sitting in the middle of the dirt with the full moon above me. I stepped out of my sleeping bag in order to find an appropriate place to relieve myself, and now that I’ve done so I can’t seem to force myself back into a tight tent with Cassie and Alysha, two girls I am only starting to know. The light from the moon is so intense that there’s no need for my headlamp. I turn it off and lay back on the gravel. The small pieces of rock dig into my scalp and I realize I haven’t been this happy in a long time.

It’s been years since I’ve really spent much time isolated in the desert. With the expectations growing up of going to school, obtaining a degree and then creating a career and lifestyle that suits your sensibility and interests, the city life is one you have to accept for some time. But it’s when I get back to this place, this desert, that I realize how much this environment is a part of me. I fall asleep for a while out in the middle of the road and wake up to the sound of people in a nearby campsite moving gear around their truck. Though the sun hasn’t risen I can sense it will be morning soon and I head back to my tent to try and rest for a while longer. I can hear Sadie snoring from her perch on the picnic table and I smile as I slither my way into my bag and drift off into my dream state once more.

The sun is up once I actually wake for the day. Seeing the condensation on the outside of the tent makes me cold deep inside. The desert cold is the kind you can’t just shake by standing up quickly and moving around. It’s the chill only a piping hot cup of coffee grits can warm until the sun’s rays burn through your clothes and the heat of the day begins.

            By the time the sun starts warming this area up, the boats are loaded and it’s really only a matter of finding our places in them and beginning our float journey down the San Juan. I’ve never done this before, and I know deep down that I’m afraid. Not afraid of the physical exertion required or the people I’m joining on this trip, but I’m afraid of the water.

            I’ve been afraid of large bodies of water since I can remember. The unnerving feeling that settles in when I don’t know what’s under the surface makes me shake. Water is the element I have no understanding of, no connection to, no experience with. So, as I step into the paddleboat with a crew of women I find to be some of the strongest and most independent females I will ever meet, I take a deep breath and remind myself that this will be another adventure to add to my list.

Three days later, on the last stretch before reaching our final destination at Mexican Hat, I float down the river in a completely tranquil state. I find myself in a corner of Utah I have never experienced. Alone in a duckie, paddling when I feel like it, staring up at the rich and clear blue sky, I take in all that surrounds me. My bikini bottoms are soaked through from the water that spills into the inflatable kayak when Lyra passes by me, splashing it my direction with a forceful slap of her oar against the surface of the river. The rays of the sun burn my fair complexion. The familiar feeling brings a smile to my face, although I know my mother, a survivor of skin cancer, will relay the importance of sunscreen to me when she sees my peeling skin under the hem of my shirt in a few days.

            Today, I don’t mind being alone in the water. The river doesn’t scare me. My anxiety is gone. I accept that the distance we have covered is a fairly mellow stretch of river flow, but no longer fearing the substance that surrounds me is a beautiful feeling. It dawns on me, as I float by myself, that perhaps it’s not so much the river, but what lies beyond the shore that is keeping my emotions in balance.

            The San Juan River is surrounded by desert. The Colorado Plateau is roughly centered around the Four Corners area of the southwestern United States. The magnificent rock layers of this area, sculpted by river and time, remind us that many have walked here before. Earlier in the trip we took the time to explore a wall of paintings. I know that remnants of Puebloan culture cover the shores of this area. The pictographs and pottery shards serve as memories and clues of adventures that once took place. The desert environment of this area gives sparse vegetation. The surrounding landscape, a mixture of peaks and cut-off buttes, are build up from years of erosion. There’s no place like it on earth.

            As I float down the river, surrounded by new friends sitting on rafts, marveling at the beauty that surrounds us, I realize that my parents raised me in the right way. I paddle through some rapids, attempting to balance my Coke can in between my knees without spilling, and watch the buttes that surround me. Some people spend their entire lives in busy cities with not so much as a trace of real nature in their environment. I was fortunate to be raised in two completely different environments, both with incredible access to the physical world.

            Being in this void, this quiet, this isolation, is what rests peacefully in my bones. My mom carried me for nine months with the desert as our surroundings, and even though she’s not with me I can feel that deep connection with the dry and open space.

            On this day I feel lucky to be surrounded by a kind of people who understand this awareness. These people, good-hearted souls with the temperament perfect for river life and desert life alike, are the kind I hope to continuously surround myself with. And although I cannot be in the desert always and cannot float through the canyons of the desert every day of my life, I am happy that when I do these people become my family.

            To an average person, the connections between Utah and Botswana are slim to none. But to me, they complete a puzzle. These two far corners of the world, full of desert sand and desolate beauty, come together and make up what I call home. My father says I’ll always be a “Kalahari girl.” He’s wrong. A mixture of Utah sands and Kalahari desert skies, I’ll always be drawn to the desert. Any desert. Any place where I can hold red in my hands as everything else in life falls away.