It’s the one place I come to find clarity.
Within a few blocks of my Palm Springs neighborhood, I leave the pavement and stride up a tan path that's tamped down to dust by runners, bikers, dogs and a few horses.
I head east about a mile in one direction. To my right, there’s a steep slope down to a ravine that locals call “the wash.” The rare inch or two of rain we get here can transform this divot that’s situated between my elevated path and the mountains into a rolling river.
I stop in anticipation just before the path ends, then turn completely around to face the direction from which I came.
It’s the money shot that makes the next breath catch in my throat. Every. Single. Time.
I’m facing the San Jacinto Mountains, raised like bronzed fists whose peaks are gloved in white. Along with the Santa Rosas and the San Bernadino ranges, they encircle the Coachella Valley like a wagon train. I feel protected here, and the Cahuilla Indians who settled this place many centuries ago, and whose descendants still call it home, consider it sacred.
I settled here seeking something, too.
When my marriage came to a crashing halt, I left Kansas City to move here permanently. It felt as familiar as my favorite fleece. I'd spent a decade vacationing here and once owned a second home here with my ex. I already knew a gaggle of gays and had my yoga pals Lyn and Eileen and Randy to welcome me. My gay bff Jack told me, "I'll be your date to every social soiree in town until you feel like walking into a room alone."
But as a year slipped by, I could finally see a future that included me on the arm of a straight man, which at this end of the valley is as rare as a dolphin in the desert. Since I wasn't ready to throw myself into the digital wasteland of dating apps, how would I find such a man?
Blind date, anyone? The guy was divorced, played golf with my friend’s husband, and she arranged for the four of us to meet for dinner.
The anticipation leading up to that dinner made me feel undateable. The last time I had a boyfriend, I felt good about my neck (damn you Nora Ephron, may you rest in peace) and my stomach resembled the Utah salt flats. This would require extra due diligence I thought as I shaved my legs clear up past the dimples in my thighs, poked at pores on my face as I studied it in a 10x magnified makeup mirror, and applied eye shadow and liner like I was in a runway show.
Runway show?? OMG, I needed an outfit that said, “I’m a notch above a wild librarian but not as edgy as an inked-up tattoo artist.”
So as my left eye developed a nervous twitch, I chose a stretchy navy column dress that was ankle length, with silver zippers up both sides that I unzipped to above the knee. I’d been doing lunges with my trainer, so better for my date to look down at my legs than up at my breasts that still headed south, underwire be damned.
I watched my friend come into the trendy Italian restaurant, followed by a nice-looking guy with a shaved head who was a bit short but hey, no worries, I had on flat sandals. Uh oh, wait, behind that guy (who turned out to be the husband) was a tall, lumbering gent, a bit on the stocky side, who wore a flowered Tommy Bahama shirt all tucked in tight with a pair of clunky black shoes peeking out from his khakis.
I discreetly zipped my dress’ zippers to below my knees as I stood up to greet the group.
What followed was a two-hour talkathon with my date regaling me with tales of his law enforcement career where he rubbed many a celebrity’s elbow. “I can introduce you to people you wouldn’t believe!” he told me with gusto. He never asked about me, but at some point my friend mentioned that I’d had a long career in healthcare.
“Look at this,” my date said as he pulled up the left leg of those khakis as if I’d worked the ER with a stethoscope around my neck instead of projecting sales for a drug company. “I just saw my GP and he cut out a skin cancer, but it’s not healing.”
My eyes averted lest I lose my lasagna, and all I could think was, “You’re an idiot. If it’s cancer, see a derm, not a GP!”
His best line of the night? “Nice earrings,” about my delicately carved dangles.
My friend was full of apologies the next morning, saying she’d only seen my date from a distance in a white dinner jacket at a country club event. “Everyone looks good in a tux,” she whined in her own defense.
So do I still get the nervous twitches of anticipation before a date years later? It depends.
Some weeks, where words flow onto my computer screen and my yoga stretches wring out the tension from my neck to my toes, I put on my three-inch heels and stride into a restaurant to meet a date like Wonder Woman. Other times, when I’ve spent a week eating Skinny Pop for dinner and watching murder and mayhem on "Dateline" alone in my den, the heels are shorter and my insides feel like they did at 12, walking into the school gym for my first boy-girl dance.
My future is unclear, just like my walking path when I head east, the mountains distant and their outlines softened. It's as if the water is rushing in that ravine after a storm, and I’m too close for comfort.
But today it’s quiet, with ethereal smoke trees rising up from the low scrub like ghosts, and the only remnant of last week’s rain are the ruts cut into the muddy floor below.
As soon as I turn back west, my sight sharpens as if on zoom, and I can almost reach out and touch the San Jacintos in that moment as each angle and curve seems clear and familiar and sure.
I still anticipate the feeling, the catch in my throat, when I head into the unknown and meet someone new. I try to believe in the possibility of something special as I sit across the table from a man and he asks, “What are you looking for, Linda?”
And I think, “I’ll know it when I see it.”