ONE MONTH PASSED, REFLECTIONS

Its been one month at Drylab. It feels like we’ve always been here- born in the desert to hot days, little water and this weird little family we’ve created. Only soon this will be as much a memory as the days before water privatization, drought and war. Soon indeed. The group has already begun to part: Moso left to meet her husband. Saf and Na.Ru moved on too. Who knows where BCC: will go next but we hope to hear her voice on the radio again someday.

Our initial calculations had us staying at Drylab 30 days at 4 gallons each/day but we used our water well and have enough left over to sustain the rest of us for at least another 29 days. For those staying behind, we’ve agreed on a new way to manage the water: our remaining supply will be completely communal and we will take only what we need each day. No personal vs. communal allotment, no banking extra water for future personal use. We will be 100% accountable to each other and our ability to stay here are long as possible.

Perhaps our initial decision to allot 3 of our 4 daily gallons to personal use was a result of being raised in a capitalist culture and it felt safer or just easier to manage it individually… easier and safer to be accountable to ourselves rather than each other who we barely knew. Now however, we’ve worked out our systems for limited water use and we know how much we actually need. And perhaps more importantly, we have formed a community- a deep caring for each other’s well being. Maybe it is these things that have loosened our feelings towards sharing a limited resource? Maybe now it doesn’t matter how we allot the water? Maybe it is these things that will take us through our new reality? This remains to be seen.

SAF

I spent a month in the desert and I don’t know why. It’s easy to say there’s a reason, an explanation, to create a synthesis of my experience, but it would just be words.

I imagine it will be years before I truly know the impact of Drylab. What I do know is that I was set. I knew who I was and what I was doing. I was vaguely dissatisfied with life, it was traveling along its merry way, buffeting my in its wake, but I knew that and I was alright with it. Then I was given this assignment. I fit the criteria, though exactly what that was, I don’t know.

And I spent a month in the desert, on desert time, no clocks, no screens, no scheduled life, just myself, the other women, and the landscape we dwelled in for that short time. We had our own agendas, our reasons for being there. We were very different people, but we managed to live with each other. Truly, exist with other people, without distractions or the filters we usually experience the world through. The strength and give of our minds was the filter.

And we lived.

I walk along the road side. Cars pass occasionally and the sun scorched my skin. I have gallons of water strapped to my hips and I refill them when I am able. The cold at night chills me. I sleep in ditched among refuse, wrapping sun-bleached scraps around me. I keep walking.

I will find the new me. It will take some searching and some time, but eventually, I will be able to greet the person I have become, to shake her hand and hug her and laugh at the harsh moments we experienced. And a few years after that, when I have had other encounters and been to other places, I will recognize the person I have become then. I will embrace her and we will look forward to meeting all her sisters yet to come.

Na.Ru

The women each taught me about themselves, how they move through the world, and how they manage to live sustainably. I still cannot fathom how excessive our lives were before the war. It feels hopeless still that our standard for living was so harmful to our bodies and to earth. I used to worry that I wouldn’t be able to make it with less; I would miss the good life too much. I still think that sometimes, but I know that if I practice gratitude and open my heart to the world and to humanity that I will empower myself enough to survive and cultivate meaning and worth in my life.

I left the group to return home. I don’t plan on remaining long, I just need to gather my family and get them ready for the trek to the Pacific Northwest. I hear there are an abundance of water and a culture of sustainability an activism still going strong there. Since Washington became an independent state, people have been able to enjoy sanctuary and live with more peace.

I used to write off places like Seattle and Portland as privileged white bubbles twisted with classism and racism. I realize now that I must forgive the cities for their shortcomings, assume positive intention, and be the force of progressive humanity that I envision is best.

I used to think that all of the work that Seattle was getting done (the pollution tax, the waste reprimands) was irrelevant and miniscule until the rest of the country adopted those practices. I realize now that pockets of progression like the cities have been models for real change, and it is very important that they exist. Large scale and widespread change is crucial, but society doesn’t work that way. We are going to crash. We need to be resilient, and people are usually resilient.

I will carry my family with me, discussing with them and teaching them the methods that I’ve learned this month. There are many checkpoints and militias along the way, but we must try. We will travel at night, walk, and hitch rides if we find people we can trust. I have heard of networks of people who help folks like us, like Harriet Tubman’s underground railroad. There’s enough on this earth for everybody. We cannot manage ourselves with hate and alienation. Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.

MOSO: I have known for some time that I do not like the city, and I have been waiting for my chance to escape it. Drylab gave me that chance. I have left drylab to search for my husband and have returned to the city before venturing northeast. It has been no easy transition. I don’t wake with sun. In fact, I don’t see how I could, my room is so dark. While there is the relief of air conditioning inside, I find it discomforting and prefer to spend my day outdoors. But there is no breeze to cool my skin and the only noises I hear are cars and police sirens. A wall blocks my view, and if it were not there, another home would still stand in the way. The sky is a dingy gray and purple haze at night, and only a few stars are strong enough to shine through. I don’t think I will ever fully transition, but hopefully I won’t have to.

I am staying with a friend of a friend for the time being, a home equipped with running water. The toilets flush. The sink turns on full force. Water falls from the showerhead. The first time I turned on a faucet, I panicked. I quickly shut it off and felt a tinge of guilt. All that water in a mere second, down the drain. No basin to collect it for another use. During my last few days at drylab, when things were running smoothy (outhouse was up, graywater and my own water storage were at a surplus), I felt myself begin to relax. I treated myself and took a two-gallon shower. But to what gain? That extra gallon could have sustained me a day longer or helped a friend in need. Now I find myself back where water runs freely, but there is still a cost. And today, it is too great to waste a drop.

NAYARA:

It has been a month now, I have gotten used to idle time. I have finished four books and write regularly. The people in the café have really opened up to me. I guess it is because I am there all the time. I would even say we have become friends. I had even invited them over for dinner the other day and our group made a huge feast, only two people showed but we were still happy to break bread with new people. The heat still makes us lazy, at the hottest part of the day most of us do not do anything it is just too hot to handle. We lay there and let the sweat roll off us. I have finally gotten used to being dirty, sometimes when I get wet from doing dishes or something, the dirt starts coming off and it’s a little awkward if I wasn’t intending to clean up. We all have gotten used to sleeping outside every day and that is how I deal with the heat. What I like the most is our routine, we have gotten in kind of a process that we know the same way every day, people have broken off into groups, naturally gravitating towards like-minded individuals. The day is broken into three parts for me, making breakfast, waiting for lunch and cleaning after dinner. The only activities I partake in fit between these three-time units.

I use less than a gallon of water a day, I created a surplus, in fact, I have the most surplus of the group and thus plan to stay longer now that I am able.  I don’t know where I will go next. I thought that the USA would be the answer to the drought but it seems that they are suffering too. It does not seem likely that I will be able to find a surplus of water that I could share with my family. I feel that I have failed in this mission, perhaps though with this new-found wisdom of living lighter and off one gallon a day, I can go back and practice it. After all, these were the ways of my grandparents, and now that the modern is going extinct, I must go back to relearn the traditional ways that will save us from this situation. Living here has taught me how to live lightly, work towards a circular life cycle for consumption, and how to cook food made from real, raw, ingredients instead of that processed food that we strived so hard to eat back home so we could look fancy eating Western food. I think of water differently now, I can no longer let it go down the drain, I must catch it and use it again. Round like the earth, it is the natural way of things, things were meant to be reused again on this finite planet

SKIP.

Our projected month is coming to an end. Though we were smart with our water usage and saved up to stay longer, many feel it’s their time to go.

As per usual we are split down the middle, 4 are choosing to stay, 4 will go.

Estranged. Will this be like my last group?are we meant to move through the world replacing one with the other?
I look at the relationships we’ve created. The bonds that were made.
Will we stay in contact and if so, how?

I made a friend at the market, she has invited me to spend time at her property.
I don’t have much to offer in exchange other than time and labor.

She lives a simple, sustainable life. She very much so understands the scarcity of water.

She has running water and a flushing toilet. She offers me a shower and I accept.

Running water scares me. Where does it go? Does it only have one use? Why does it move so fast?

Survival. To survive you think past A.
You think past turning on the faucet to wash your hands, brush your teeth, take a shower, rinse a vegetable.
You think past using two gallons of fresh water to flush the toilet.

How can I collect this? What else can this be used for? What is my order of actions, wash face, then my body, then my clothes? Are the ingredients found in my products (body wash, shampoo, detergent, etc.) safe for my garden?
What can I do with the running water while it comes to temperature? Too cold to rinse my body, but not to rinse my hair.

How have we not created systems that address these issues. Why are we still flushing the toilet with fresh water?

Like minded, my friend and I discuss changes that can be made and systems that can be fabricated.

I finish helping her with a project and the topic of “what’s next for you Skip” comes up. I don’t know.

For now I will return to Drylab while I still can. My time is not done there and I must rejoin those who are left of my family of odd kins.

FAREWELL

 

I left drylab Saturday. I was not the only one to say goodbye. No, Saf left before me. She headed east on foot. I assume conflict drove her mad. Inexplicably drawn to the group, forming relationships with each of us, simultaneously spying on us like we are criminals, reporting back to greedy men. I’d like to think this group made her think twice, but more than likely she turned us all in and left before it got ugly.

A few others planned to leave after me, but I did not stick around to find out.

I’ve stopped in a city on my way northeast. It’s quiet here, but not the same kind of quiet as the desert. Rather, it’s false. No owls wake me. No ravens call to me. No lizards ruffle in the creosote. There is no breeze to cool my skin and no stars to guide my way. Tall structures of concrete stifle the morning sun. Roads and structures smother growth.

People seem to think time moves faster in the city, in the ‘real’ world. And I think it moves too fast for me. I left drylab and thought I’d never look back, but I’m still sitting outside and drinking tea every morning. The people, the place, the situation. They made more of an impression on me than I thought. Perhaps someday I will venture back to drylab, and perhaps it will rain for the first time in seven years. Until then.

MY LUCK IS RUNNING OUT

 

My luck may be running out. I caught Saf in my room the other day. She claimed she was fixing her hair but failed to mention why she wasn’t doing that in her own quarters. I have no doubt now that she is a spy, though I am still not sure why she is here. We aren’t breaking the law living out here. We didn’t come by this water in any illegal means. But we are defiant, and that is always an issue to our wealthy but fearful government. Wealth only brings a false sense of security. When one resists, others will follow, and perhaps that is why Saf is here.

She is not here for me, that is certain. She would have turned me in long ago. But I can’t have her going through my things; she will surely learn who I am. It has almost been a month here and my husband is still missing. I will leave tomorrow.

 

Reflections from Two Weeks

Two weeks have passed at Drylab. The temperatures have reached 110F, but the mornings and evenings offer relief. Water use has increased as heat has increased. Average use is two gallons a day personal and seven gallons communal, which means we have built up a surplus. Showers are happening more frequently. With the heat and working on site projects, we are sweating more. Gray water is building up enough to flush toilets for now, and outhouse is almost complete.

BCC: 

Over the course of the past two weeks the nature of this existence has become more clear.

Living with limited resources can not simply boil down to survival technique.

The future is living through intention.

Every action counts.

And sustaining this existence demands community.

Respect, patience, and understanding allow for a healthy environment, in which all walks of life can bring their creative problem-solving to the table.

Negotiation demands compassion.

And when we receive, we say thank you.

Because living from three gallons of water per day, is just as much about the individual actions I take, as it is about the other pair of arms helping me carry the water home.

NAYARA: Its now been two weeks together with these women, this desert and 4 gallons of water a day. A few things have changed, I feel less anxious than I did when I got here, at first I was so use to always doing stuff, it was hard to sit still or wake up and have nothing planned to do for the day, I guess the capitalist modes of production have been ingrained in my behavior to the point where I would feel guilty for not producing. This is a process of unlearning, and though I am not there all the way yet, I am starting to be able to wake up without my day planned and feel okay with letting life happen and see where it takes me. Even without anything structured I still feel busy, I am either writing, reading, exploring, blog posting, or building/fixing this place up. Every other day I am cooking for the group and every other day I am cleaning. Every night we have a meeting and we rotate checking in on housekeeping and group dynamics. We are getting better at the housekeeping, there was awhile where we needed to learn how to live communally but we are all being more mindful of sharing space with so many other people. The group dynamics are pretty good, some hierarchies have formed mostly around age, there has been some frustrations but we mostly try to keep in good communication so we can resolve things as they arise, instead of letting them build up. I am starting to develop friendships with all the women here, it feels like a family all of us together. My energy levels have remained pretty low, the sun has a lot to do with that, as well as amount of water and type of food I am eating. When it gets over 100 I do not move out of bed much for the hottest part of the day, because our AC is weak and there is no escaping the heat. I use and drink less than a gallon a day, this is probably not enough because my throat remains dry and my lips are constantly chapped so I think I have been in a mildly constant state of dehydration, not because of the scarcity of water, I just can’t get enough in me every day to offset the effects of the heat. I like this place, I feel safe, I wish I could stay longer.

KIRSTEN: It’s officially been two weeks since these women started occupying this place in the desert, living off of 4 gallons of water a day. Today marks my twelfth day here. When I first came to this place, I was nervous, anxious, scared, and overwhelmed. I was coming into a space with seven strangers and had to navigate not only these new personalities, but also how to live off of 4 gallons of water a day. It has been a balance of community dynamics and sustaining a common resource. At first, I felt as though time moved in slow motion. Days were long, dry, and hot. I really wondered if I could be happy here, if we could all truly be happy here, or if we would constantly be uncomfortable and long for a now dry home we could never return to.

There were certainly actions and behaviors that used an abundance of water that I was used to doing, but have learned now to overcome. I think critically and creatively about my water usage and how to be efficient. Showering continues to take a lot of effort and I never feel really clean. However, there is some excitement from knowing that it is possible. That I can sustain myself on 4 of less gallons of water a day for all of my needs is a comforting thought. I’ve learned to pass my time, but also be productive. I cook, read, clean, work, adventure. I have so much time here to really think and exist in the space. I think part of my anxiety in the beginning came from not being busy, which I am so used to. It’s liberating to have this time to reflect and think, even if sometimes that means not being sure what I should do.

I also feel stronger, healthier, and more energetic. The combination of drinking an abundance of water and eating a sustainable/ water efficient diet has helped my skin and emotions. I sleep so well. I can think clearly. My nervous ticks that I do when I am anxious have subsided to a minimum. I believe that any new environment requires time for people to adjust and learn. However, while it may be different that what we are used to, I know that we can find happiness here. A sustainable and environmentally conscious life does not have to battle happiness, it just has to prove that capitalism doesn’t buy it.

SAF: It’s been an interesting couple of weeks. I’m a lot more okay with the way my body works than before I came. I’m also a lot more in tune with how it reacts to food, water, and heat. I have never been in an environment like this, where I am unable to escape the heat during the day. I have no choice other than to experience it.

The desert has forced me to slow down. At the same time, I feel a lot more active here than for a good time previously. Perhaps that is simply because I am much more aware of what I’m doing as I move from place to place. I am aware of every single day, though if you were to ask me what I did the day before, I couldn’t tell you. My skin is browner, from dirt and sun, the spotty, pink tinge fading.

I have not noticed my relationship with water changing that much. I grew up near the ocean, so the lack of availability of natural water, I notice. I am, perhaps, dirtier than I’ve ever been, and I like to childishly splash in public fountains just to feel it on my skin, but the wind is a good substitute for those feelings and memories. I pay much more attention to the preservation of gray water and the clean water I drink, but I have always been aware of my own water usage.

I am finding the flow of myself and I will be sad to leave this place and these people. I am not used to living with so many people and in a strange way, I am finding my voice among them. At the organization, I was a minor member. I was never in the discussion on what to do and was only told what I would be doing after the decision had been made. I am enjoying their company, simply for the sake of who they are. I am worried that when this is over, I shall have to have them arrested.

MOSO: The first week here was a bit like being the first person to wake up at a slumber party. You know, not really sure what to do with yourself until everyone else wakes up. I’m not used to waking up at 5:30 a.m., but the sun pours light into my room when she wakes so I wake up, too. I would not call myself a morning person, so I didn’t know what to do. And no one else was up for usually another hour or two. I made breakfast. I cleaned. I just sat and did nothing for a while. The thing is, I wasn’t lacking in things to occupy my time, I just wasn’t used to doing things in the morning. I was also a bit paralyzed reflecting on where I’ve found myself: on the run from the government, in the middle of the desert with seven other women and enough water for a month, unsure of my husband’s fate, not sure what the next weeks will bring. You can speculate “what if this and what if that,” but you never know what it’s like until it actually happens. I knew it would get here eventually. I was physically prepared, but not mentally. Abandoning my busy life, I was lacking a sense of purpose. I mean, what are we doing out here except surviving?

I am comfortable with this way of life: reducing, reusing, recycling. It is how I have been living since the drought hit. I use an average of 1.5 gallons a day here. On the hotter days, I use more, drinking and soaking my bandana to stay cool. It’s an odd choice to settle in the desert. It is both forgiving and unforgiving. It is an adjustment, living in the heat with little air conditioning (it doesn’t cool below 100F on the hot days), but my biggest adjustment has been living with others. My husband and I have been on our own for a while. The city is full of people, but you don’t have to see them. We have a small place on the outskirts of the city. We used to have a small hemp farm, a garden, a few alpacas and sheep, and chickens, but with the draught and water restrictions, we couldn’t sustain it. We manage to have a small garden now and a small patch of hemp (it is quite resilient). Like I’ve said, we keep to ourselves. We usually go on missions alone, and water delivery is done discretely to not attract attention. All that to say, I don’t mesh well with others, especially for prolonged amounts of time. I especially don’t live well with others, yet here I am, a loner living with seven other women.

This past week started out unbelievably hot: 105-110F. It was as if there was no escape from the heat until the bottom of an old salt water tank here finally corroded out and rained down several gallons of water. We had been told that tank dried up a few years ago along with the rest of the desert, but somehow, there was still a little water in it. It actually felt like a miracle, and those have been hard to come by the past years. My spirits picked up after that, along with the rest of the group I think. I finally figured out how to be productive in the morning and became more comfortable with doing nothing during the daytime. I’m still cooking and cleaning here and there, but mostly I’ve been drawing, reading, and resting. I filled bottles with sand for the outhouse, helped fix the fence. Now it’s the end our second week here, and I’m finding a sense of purpose, even if it is a simple one.

SKIP: We hit the two weeks mark here at Dry Lab. I am adjusting. Things are starting to level out and become “normal,” but what is normal I ask? Normal is living communally with 7 other women with limited resources. They say you don’t really know a person until you live with them. I would like to add that sometimes you don’t know a person after living with them. The hardest adjustment has been learning to navigate a space with others where everything is shared, learning on a personal level but also communally. I’ve been pretty independent most of my life. I’ve done the roommate thing, I’ve lived in the dorm, I come from a household that fluctuated between 5 and 8. I thought I knew how to live with people. Dry Lab has shown me that I do not.  Living nomadically brings you across interesting folks and places, this place definitely makes the top 5 for both.

The women are lovely, I don’t want it to come across as if they are not. We all just have different life stories, different reasons for being here, and different experiences of being on our own. There’s a divide between needing structure and direction, and not wanting anything to do with it. This made that first week very long and full of meetings, stressful but also nice having my brain occupied by other things. We are starting to get each other, things are getting easier and happening more smoothly. My brain is starting to unwind, I’m still waiting on that to make sense.

I find my schedule to be pretty constant. I wake up with the sun around 5:30 but stay in bed until about 6-6:30. I’ve been having tea on the porch with some of the girls the past couple of mornings and that has been really nice. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, check-ins, and whatever in between. The constant heat definitely took a toll on me the first week, naps were happening often, not just to escape the heat, but because the heat completely drained me. The second week started the high heat, 105-110F. Those days were hard, nothing helped. I used a lot of water just soaking myself to stay cool. I felt weak, sleeping at night was hard. But I am now acclimated and the temperatures have gone down a little.

The food has been absolutely amazing. I enjoy being surrounded by so many knowledgeable women! I enjoy to cook, but I keep it simple. Since I’ve been here, I have spent so much time in the kitchen absorbing everything I can! I made enough curry for 2 meals for 8 people with leftovers, talk about meal prep! That has been pretty exciting, I would love to take these skills back home and cook for my family..

The water has not been much of a problem, I am averaging about 2 gallons a day, give or take depending on my workload and the heat. My hardest struggles with that have been controlling make anxious ticks if you would call it that. When I feel like I don’t have control of a situation I find control in cleaning something, the space I’m in, and/or my body. I will wash my hands compulsively because everything I touch is “dirty.” We don’t really have running water here and I’m not really into cleaning my hands in a wash bucket., I’m adjusting. Things are getting easier, the group is getting closer, my focus is getting sharper.

NADIRA: The hotter it gets, the less I want to do, and the less water I drink. I have had to change my cleaning habits. I used to be so particular and extra about cleaning and I’d rinse and re-wash my rag several times while washing dishes and whipping counters. I have to be conscious of my water use though, especially because we clean with communal water.

Some of the many influences had on me are the simple and significant acts of sharing thank-yous and being conscientious of other peoples time, space and resources. Like Hastings roller.

I have been cooking three times out of the week (every other night except for Monday). I like to cook Southwestern Mexican dishes. One of my most practiced love languages is gift giving, and I love making the women happy through tasty and enchanting meals. The flavors remind me of my grandma. It’s sweet to hear the nice compliments about the food, but it’s hard to enjoy and a pang in my heart to think that my time with my grandma is over. When I was younger and fearful of the climate change that only in my imagination, I worried most about having to choose to be away from my family. I couldn’t imagine life without them, and here I am. I thought I would have my partner too, but the circumstances are from what I had imagined. I am in good company here, we are all missing someone. I’ve got a headspace full of regret and missed “how are yous” and “I love yous”, missed quality time. But perhaps now I’m spending my time becoming the person my loved ones always needed me to be. Grandma always said, “if you can’t survive when I’m gone, then I didn’t do my job,”

A part of me feels guilty for spending so much time in my head, still, instead of immersing in research and art. How can I negotiate a purposeful life within water scarcity when I am negotiating in my head how to be a functional human mentally? Alas, true purpose can only come with time. On the contrary, true fulfillment comes from cultivation. Like what Mr. Gilmer said at my high school graduation 10 years ago (10 years!)… “Don’t chase your dreams; cultivate them.” I’m doing a bit of that now, writing this reflection here.

The train runs every 20 minutes carrying excessive amounts of cargo from China. Mass consumption economy is a main driver of water caused the crash, but of course we’ve found a way to blame immigrants. I’m reminded of it every time.

Yesterday I went to the train track and wondered what would happen if I jumped in front of it. I can’t believe those thoughts have become so natural. I think it’s because I desperately crave an end to the endless cycle within my mind, “You’re taking up too much resources. You are the disease, and not the solution…”

but I won’t do it. I never will. Nayara brought up a good point: we think of ending our life to end our suffering (albeit self-inflicted), but what if suicide causes us to remain in our suffering for eternity? I’m going to stay alive. No matter how much I struggle to justify my existence as a human born in America, and no matter how much I tell myself the lie that I am worthless and that I will never change, I am going to stay alive. And while I here, I’m going to let myself believe that I am a part of the solution.

Lots of really bad things happen, and a lot of those things are a result of my species and the lifestyles we’ve overdone. However, perhaps life isn’t all about negotiating the bad and the good but instead a balancing act of negotiating the bad with good.

I don’t see it as an inability to live sustainably as a society, but an issue with unwillingness to change our lifestyles. We needed to be resilient, change our behavior and take care of each other, all of us. Instead, we went to war.

I think there is hope, though. There are inklings of new visions of living not for convenience and overtones of the negative consequences of alienation.

A few quotes from these past few weeks:

“You know that saying, ‘work smarter, not harder’? Well why not both and get twice as much shit done!”

“I had an eating disorder when I was younger [relating to my own self harm], and it was important for me to recognize how I thought myself into that situation and then I thought myself out of it. I’m happy now.”

“You’re here, alive on this earth. You need to consume to live. If you’re gonna be consuming resources, you might as well do something great with your time”

JACK IN THE DESERT: When I first got here I would wake up early, make a tea and sneak out into the desert to spend a few hours of my morning alone before returning to the responsibility of the group. Breathing in the creosote, looking for rocks, following the patterns of the washes, encountering the crepuscular beings with bodies that blend so perfectly with their surroundings. There was a whole lot more life out there than what was visible from the Drylab compound.

From our back deck the desert was a backdrop for navigating this new situation of living together with limited resource. But being out in the middle of it— looking and listening and smelling and feeling it closely— it was a series of networks each dictating how the other could survive.  Everything that is surviving is doing it together, using what they need and sharing what they have.  It was this model that made the responsibility to the diverse needs of the group feel less overwhelming, and the responsibility to the entire network feel ever more pressing.

PURPOSE

The first week here was a bit like being the first person to wake up at a slumber party. You know, not really sure what to do with yourself until everyone else wakes up. I’m not used to waking up at 5:30 a.m., but the sun pours light into my room when she wakes so I wake up, too. would not call myself a morning person, so I didn’t know what to do. And no one else was up for usually another hour or two. I made breakfast. I cleaned. I just sat and did nothing for a while. The thing is, I wasn’t lacking in things to occupy my time, I just wasn’t used to doing things in the morning. I was also a bit paralyzed reflecting on where I’ve found myself: on the run from the government, in the middle of the desert with seven other women and enough water for a month, unsure of my husband’s fate, not sure what the next weeks will bring. You can speculate “what if this and what if that,” but you never know what it’s like until it actually happens. I knew it would get here eventually. I was physically prepared, but not mentally. Abandoning my busy life, I was lacking a sense of purpose. I mean, what are we doing out here except surviving?

I am comfortable with this way of life: reducing, reusing, recycling. It is how I have been living since the drought hit. I use an average of 1.5 gallons a day here. On the hotter days, I use more, drinking and soaking my bandana to stay cool. It’s an odd choice to settle in the desert. It is both forgiving and unforgiving. It is an adjustment, living in the heat with little air conditioning (it doesn’t cool below 100F on the hot days), but my biggest adjustment has been living with others. My husband and I have been on our own for a while. The city is full of people, but you don’t have to see them. We have a small place on the outskirts of the city. We used to have a small hemp farm, a garden, a few alpacas and sheep, and chickens, but with the draught and water restrictions, we couldn’t sustain it. We manage to have a small garden now and a small patch of hemp (it is quite resilient). Like I’ve said, we keep to ourselves. We usually go on missions alone, and water delivery is done discretely to not attract attention. All that to say, I don’t mesh well with others, especially for prolonged amounts of time. I especially don’t live well with others, yet here I am, a loner living with seven other women.

These women probably don’t know who I am. Why would they? I haven’t told them what I do. I keep to myself mostly – not the friendliest rebel in the west. I can be a bit abrasive at times, but I have been in the business of doing the things the government tells me not to do for quite some time, and that can harden a person. As I have mentioned before, I have a bounty on my head, which makes me more nervous for the group than myself. I do not wish to bring them danger. But this bounty has been out for years, and I’m still here. The government is smart, just not that smart. I am beginning to suspect someone among us may be a spy, though. I won’t name names at this point, but I am more alert now than ever. Perhaps I am just paranoid. If she was here for me, I would be gone by now, which is a good sign, but what is she doing out here? I don’t think we are much of a threatening bunch, but I suppose I don’t truly know these women or where they came from.

This past week started out unbelievably hot: 105-110F. It was as if there was no escape from the heat until the bottom of an old salt water tank here finally corroded out and rained down several gallons of water. We had been told that tank dried up a few years ago along with the rest of the desert, but somehow, there was still a little water in it. It actually felt like a miracle, and those have been hard to come by the past years. My spirits picked up after that, along with the rest of the group I think. I finally figured out how to be productive in the morning and became more comfortable with doing nothing during the daytime. I’m still cooking and cleaning here and there, but mostly I’ve been drawing, reading, and resting. I filled bottles with sand for the outhouse, helped fix the fence. Now it’s the end our second week here, and I’m finding a sense of purpose, even if it is a simple one.

I’m giving this place another two weeks, then I have to leave. I know better than to stay in one spot too long. If I haven’t heard from my husband, I’ll head to the Rockies. It’s cooler there anyways.

THE HEAT

 

110 fahrenheit
barricaded inside
fans running
dark cloths over windows

it’s still hot
so i lay low
and wait for the sun to sleep

…

wake up early
bask in the coolness of morning
do it all over again

How We “Shower”

MOSO: 1.5 gallons

I poured water into a large bowl and set it on the ground. I kneeled down and dipped my hair in the bowl to soak it. This was super awkward. I will not do that again. Next, I picked up the bowl and splashed water all over my body, then soaped up. I USED WAY TOO MUCH SOAP. It was difficult to get it all off. I had to rinse my hair multiple times, and I don’t have that much hair. Instead of kneeling down, I just held the bowl of water in my hands and rinsed my hair. When my rinsing water was too soapy, I dumped it on me and refilled the bowl with clean water. After that, I used my hands to splash water on me to get the soap off. This was all done in a kiddie pool we found (to save the water).

SKIP: 3/4 gallon

Wash what’s Important!

I grew up in a household of 6, 3 girls, 3 boys. When it came to getting ready as a group, our love and patience for one another was really tested. We had one bathroom. My parents always had priority use of that bathroom, after them it was a total free for all. Depending on the time remaining it went in several orders, who called it first, who woke up first, who was the strongest, etc. And sometimes my mother would just yell “Wash whats important and let’s go!”

My showers here have very much been, wash what’s important. To give you an idea of the set up, we have our water (amount varies by person), a blow up baby pool, and two salad bowls.

I started with my hair. I filled a bowl with around 3 cups of water. To dip my head into the bowl, I found it easiest to have the bowl on the floor, sit on my knees and bend over to really soak all of my hair. This made me uncomfortable for several reasons, but it works so imma get over it. This probably took most of the time. I had to really work my hair to get it untangled, wash, rinse, condition.  I used the soapy water to splash on my body and get most of the dirt off. I then used a wash cloth to really soap up and rinse off. When the water in the bowl became to soapy or gross, I dumped it into the gray water bucket and refilled with fresh water, each time only adding about two cups. I was pretty successful at not getting water in the baby pool. It’s nice being out in the open desert, you dry off pretty instant and you feel so cool and refreshed.

The first time I showered I used just over 3/4 of a gallon, the second time I used four cups! This was just a quick rinse though.

NAYARA: .5 gallons

Showering is a beast, aside from the part when I stuck my face into a bowl of water, it was extremely unsatisfying. Basically, I poured a bowl of water and used a wash cloth with soap on it to spread the water on my body. The actual shower is outside and made from wood. Though you can close the shower curtain it is better if you don’t (never mind that you have no privacy it’s not like anyone other than us are out here). The view from the shower is a beautiful scene of the desert and mountains. As you drip water on yourself using the rag and bowl of water if any of it manages to fall down, it is caught in the baby pool we stand in as we are washing. This way the grey water you produce is caught and could be used for flushing. I had planned to use my grey water to wash my clothes in afterwards but the grey water that came off my body was too dirty to wash anything in. I guess after nine days of not showering it adds up (yes I broke everyone’s record for not showering but not sure if I should be proud of that). What was surprising was I only used a quarter of a gallon for my body, and then I used another quarter of a gallon to wash my face. My face was feeling burnt from the sun, so I held it underwater, it felt so good I think that is the wettest my face has gotten since I made it to the States.

JACK: 1.5 gallons

My system is a series of bowls so I can keep the dirtiest water separate. I get pretty dirty out here… burning brush, digging in the dirt, collecting materials, desert walks, sweat, sunscreen…

Two big bowls, one small one for scooping, and a kiddie pool to catch the rinse water.

I start with my hair because its long and hard to get the soap out, lean over the first bowl and pour, dunk, add shampoo, and do a preliminary rinse. Then from there its just deciding what I can use the dirtier water for (like shaving) and what needs a fresh pour (rinsing the soap off). It takes time but I like it. It feels more like ritual than just something I have to do.

SAF: .5 gallons

I had a desperate need to be clean after being dirty for so long. I know we have to save our water so we can stay here as long as possible. I ned these people to stay together here. It will be much easier to investigate them if they are all in the same place. But I still wish I had used water to wash my hair, especially because others have done so.

I started out by sitting in the child’s pool in shorts and a tank top with a small pot of my personal water. I wet my legs and put a small amount of soap on. I used a rough washcloth to scrape away the grime on my legs and it felt wonderful. I splashed some water on them to rinse the soap. I did it piece by piece, conserving as much water as possible, but with special focus on my arms and feet. I might have used a bit too much soap on them since they had been exposed to dust, wind, and had multiple coatings of sunscreen. I had slept in all that! That night, it felt wonderful to sleep clean.

KIRSTEN: 2 gallons

Showering required me to use about 2 gallons of water. I used a large silver bowl and a large bucket to capture the water. I started by standing over the bowl and wetting my body with my jug of water, capturing it in the silver bowl beneath me. After wetting my body, I lathered myself in soap. I used the water already in the silver bowl to rinse off as much of my body as possible. When it got too soapy and dirty, I would dump the water from the silver bowl to the bucket. Once my body was rinsed, I put more water into the silver bowl and dunked my hair in it, getting it as wet as I could. I then shampooed my hair. After shampooing, I dunked my head again in the water. I added more water to the silver bowl and repeated until my hair was free from soap. I used the last little bit of water I had to rinse my body and hair again once more over before I finished.

NADIRA: .5 gallons

I stand above the bucket that collects gray water at all times throughout my bath. Initially, I pour 3-4 splashes of water into the metal cleansing bowl with a few drops of soap. I soak the wash-cloth. Then, I raise each limb (one by one) directly above the bucket and wring the wet, soaking wash cloth onto my skin to dampen my body while the bucket catches the water as it falls. Once I am soaked, I scrub myself with the soapy wash cloth. Then, I rinse by repeating the same process I used to dampen myself, pouring more water into the metal cleansing bowl as needed. To properly rinse, I pour the water directly from the bowl onto my body. Lastly, I pour the rest of the water onto my neck and my face.

My hair requires a lot of maintenance with various oils, so I wash it infrequently. When I do wash it, I dip my hair and crown into the metal cleansing bowl, scrubbing with shampoo (hardly) and conditioner (more frequently), and I rinse by pouring water directly on my hair until it is rinsed.

I am usually able to complete my bath with half a gallon of water.

A regular shower head uses 7 to 10 gallons a minute, while a water-saving shower head puts out 2 to 4 gallons a minute. An average shower lasts 12 to 15 minutes, resulting in a use of up to 150 gallons per shower.

SMALL MOMENTS

small moments
make small drawings
…
but i think
this cholla is thirsty
scorched by the sun
…
hey, so am i

ONE WEEK GONE

 

We have been here for a week, and our water supply is holding up. No one has been using their full three gallons a day, and even the communal water has a surplus. It hasn’t gotten too hot yet though, so I foresee as it heats up, we will be drinking/using more water. I “showered” the other day and only used 1.5 gallons. Makes me reflect on my 10-minute long showers back in the day and cringe – what a waste of water.

Since leaving the city, I have had little contact with the outside world, which is good – I would prefer not to be found. Mid-week we had some newcomers that claimed they had heard of our space but wouldn’t tell us how or where. Any of these women could be spies, and I have a bounty on my head. Never doubt how low the government will go.

The last I saw my husband, he was headed to the Rocky Mountains. I chose to stay back from this mission and hold down the home front, which is probably why I am writing now and my husband is missing. See, we are part of a rebel force. You can think of us like Robin Hood – taking water from the wealthy and giving it to the poor. The US hasn’t changed much as far as the distribution of wealth, except that it’s gotten worse. The wealthy are even wealthier, and they control the water and the government. Maybe what’s changed is that we all know of the corruption now, whereas back in the day, we seemed to either ignore it or be ignorant of its existence. But I believe in a great quality of life for all, and I will do whatever it takes to accomplish that. My husband and I stepped up and joined the resistance sometime in 2017. We do what we can, and we knew this was a possibility six years ago. For now, I still need to lay low, but if nothing changes, I may leave in a few weeks to search for him.