Joy of the Day, Day 24: Water

Oceans, rivers, lakes, sounds: I have always lived near the water, and have come to feel uncomfortable if forced away from it for too long. Having lived on the East Coast for my first thirty-plus years, and having lived ever since on an island tucked in the sound just west of Seattle, there has really never been a time when I’ve lived more than a few minutes’ drive away from some sort of land’s end. Even the trips I’ve taken, with the exception of a handful of ski vacations dotted here and there, have revolved, to a large degree, around a body of water.

In 2009 I made my first trip to the California desert to spend a weekend with girlfriends in La Quinta, a small town about a half hour southeast of Palm Springs. Of course I had heard about Palm Springs here and there during the course of my life, and seen it caricatured in plenty of pictures and movies. But frankly, as a child I had always confused it with Palm Beach, a coastal destination in southern Florida with which I was very familiar, and by the time I was an adult I had firmly pegged it as barren, waterless place populated almost exclusively by golf-obsessed retirees. So while I was excited for the trip, in advance of it I was honestly a little mystified by our choice of destination: why would anyone choose to vacation where there’s no beach?

Over a decade has passed since that trip, when I, first, then Stephen soon afterward, became so smitten with the spectacular desert landscapes and sunshine that we decided to buy a place of our own in La Quinta. And now we’ve sheltered here for nearly six weeks, developing a sense of connection to these surroundings that I consider to be one of the real gifts born of our quarantine.

But smitten or not, there is irony in the fact that I find myself sheltering so long in this landlocked desert. Our current home is, true to my earliest perceptions of it, a dry and waterless place—even the pools are closed in order to protect us all from infection. Today, the temperature hit 100 at about 4pm, and it’s predicted to climb higher as we move into the weekend and beyond. Pictured below is my view from an inflatable raft, floating in a small inflatable pool, perched on a concrete patio outside our bedroom, looking out at one of our very few neighbors—a fellow water-seeker—wading in a nearby fountain. As I float around in my tiny pool, all feels somehow back in balance, no beach necessary after all.

Today, this little bag of water and the fountains around me are my joy. #joyinplace