February, Sunday
morning: leaving Los Angeles at 10 a.m., hoping not to get stuck in too much
traffic, and driving east, towards the Joshua Tree National Park. It tastes a
little bit like a pilgrimage, this trip on the Lord’s day.
It is possible to
ride on highways pleasently empty of vehicles, ideal for fostering
concentration and meditation on the journey’s ultimate goal, while many casino
signs, with their sulfurous enticement, lure the passengers, unsuccesfully.
Some solitary bird cuts through the dazzling sky, looking for temporary
amusement.
White clouds unravel
upon the car, in a gentle attempt to preserve the people inside from the
outdoor temperature, oddly high, for such a time of the year. Palm trees and
waves have been replaced by bronzed and copper land, dotted with scattered
houses and twisted shrubs. The temptation of scrutinizing the horizon in search
of threatening vultures gets more persistent by the minute.
Unexpectedly, the
long, slightly inclining road that leads to one of the immense park’s
entrances, shows up, diverting the attention from everything else: a bighorn
welcomes the visitors, giving them his most professional bleat, as a gift. In
the surroundings, tens, hundreds, thousands of Joshua trees ask for pity or cry
out for revenge, lifting their many, hairy arms up to the careless, sometimes
even mean, sun. Behind each plant
there is a distress call, within each trunk there is a preacher looking for
inspiration; everywhere is a sorrowful demeanor.
Human and animal
signs mingle on the gravelly soil, plastering the path with prehistoric hints;
elsewhere, ruffled bushes and dark rocks are sometimes spotted with snow, white
and hard: a sudden breeze brings in the air ancient voices and sounds of
stranger languages, idioms dear to the prophets and the god-fearing from the
Old Testament.
The day is quickly
fading, the blinding light of the beginning turning into a mellow sunset: consoled
by the mystical landscape around, it could be possible to park waiting for the
evening, full of mystery and ambiguous promises of will-o-the-wisps. For, even
though nobody has whispered it and no guidebook has made any mention of it,
this seems to be the perfect place for such a thing to happen. Protected by
their own car, semi-hidden by tall, strong stones, travellers could spend some
time in thrilling await, cheerfully upset by the biblical images collected so
far. Or, more easily, they could just go back home, inebriated with the beauty
of the californian desert.
E.M., Santa Monica