On the Theft of Dreams

The desert. Despite everything, it’s still the country that I fall back to. I have lived among Douglas firs and coastal redwoods, clambered up hills of blue oaks and golden grasses, spent hours floating in the immensity of the ocean, run wild among the moors and the ruins, stood and looked up at the dappled light of maple leaves, watched snow swallow the conifer forest. Yet indescribably, the desert remains the center.

I am 16 years old, sitting near the back of the bus, looking out at the hills of sleeping giants, the sentry saguaros, and the stagger of empty fivebedroom houses. The friend beside me scoffs, “The most beautiful part of the desert—and they build houses for the rich who are only here in the winter.”

We’d just spent two nights backpacking in the Santa Catalina Mountains, following Sabino Creek, and sleeping to the noise of running water, of rustling leaves and scurrying tracks. During the night, we turned off all our flashlights and looked up at the grand southern sky, the marvelous spectacle of indigo and stars settling over us. Never had I experienced such quiet.

We enter the city of Tucson, flat four-lane intersections, low sun-bleached strips of shops, windows darkened like eyes squinting against the sun. Being in the city is disorienting after days in the mountains, the roar of the highway a persistent buzz in the back of our skulls. I say into the air of cheap leather and scuffed shoes, the thought welling up out of me, “Here is the place I have felt most like home.”

***

The Sonoran Desert lives in a basin. Mountains carry her. Beyond the buildings you see them, and outside the city you can almost touch them. Climb up one and the cacti retreat, break way to evergreen and aspen, trickling rivers and heaps of snow.

The desert is dizzying.

All desert folks acknowledge that the cacti are people themselves, and it is hard to not believe it once you see them intertwined like lovers, or slumped over like old men, or once you realize they have skin and bones, upright skeletons just like us. We see Coyote and tell stories back and forth of what he has done and is doing.

For my 16th birthday, a group of friends and I went to Patagonia. Not Argentina. Growing up in the Tucson area, I only had a vague idea of that distant place. To me, Patagonia was a small man-made lake an hour and a half southeast of the city bordered by scraggly grasses and cattails with a quaint and charming town. The true marvel of the area is Sonoita Creek, a riparian ecosystem in the desert with towering trees. It is one of the few remaining rivers in Southern Arizona that runs year-round. Looking at it from afar and above, it appears as a parade of trees marching down an otherwise empty lowland.

We walked down the creek, barefoot, crawdads sliding past us, amazed at the oasis. Birds sang a riot above us. Sonoita Creek was something otherworldly to me—an abundance and a presence, thick trunks reaching out over the water, frogs croaking, and the skirts of willow trees catching the light. It’s almost too much to bear now, the knowledge of it, and the love of it. Three months later I heard of the mine.

The beautiful, ecologically diverse place where I wandered in the water, picked mint in town, visited the hummingbird garden, is now slated to be mined for metals to power electric cars. American Mining Inc., a Canadian company, proposed the Hermosa Project, which includes a deep open-pit mine for silver and manganese and an underground mine for zinc, lead, and silver. In 2018, American Mining Inc. was bought by South32, an Australian company. South32 has since been building out and applying for permits. Patagonia is a town that relies solely on groundwater. The new mines would threaten drinking water and possibly contaminate Sonoita Creek.

For inhabitants of the desert, there is nothing more precious than water. The heavy thunder of the rain on the hardened ground awakens frogs from hibernation. The smell of creosote beckons us outside to wait under the gray skies. The saguaro’s roots linger just below the surface and spread out as far as the cactus is tall, awaiting the rain.

The people who live here, so in love with the sun, the yapping coyotes, the prickly-pear fruit, the blooming ocotillos, even the obnoxious bloom of the palo verde trees, experience frequent destruction of their homes and themselves. The barista at a coffee shop near my house tells me a story of how her parents’ well ran dry after the dairy farm nearby drained the upper reaches of the aquifer, then used their wealth to dig deeper, where residents’ wells cannot reach. Water is diverted to grow acres and acres of alfalfa that will be shipped out of the country. The Tohono O’odham have had water stolen from them for years by multiple mining companies, until their river and wells dried up and the ground cracked and sank beneath them. I watched nearby mines churn water into poison as mysterious cancers began to grow under my friend’s skin—not from drinking said water, but from showering in it, washing dishes in it, simply being within the proximity of the wound in the earth.

***

I am going to place something in your hands—it’s small, no larger than a hummingbird, with small bones and a fast heart. It is the dreams of a child. I am asking you to clasp it in your hands, hold the bzzz up to your ear, and listen to the echo.

When I was young I did not question longevity—my dreams were full of it. It seemed like everything would last forever. The way sunlight hit the leaves, the orange poppies blooming by the roadside, the green apple tree ripening without any help from us. To look out the window and see green grass and dappled light, to one day have my own quiet farm. It was only as I got older, as I watched crops die and farms go out of business with the violent shift of the seasons, that I realized these dreams need water, healthy soil, and clean air.

A friend in New York City told me that there is a tree that she has been climbing since she was a small child. That there were low-hanging branches that she could just reach with her outstretched hands. She explained to me that the parks department recently cut back the branches, which had grown too wild, and once again if she stands on her tiptoes can she just reach the lowest hanging branch with outstretched hands.

***

Look closely at your little hummingbird. We are locked into an act of theft. We are robbing ourselves of hope. We are stealing childhood—stealing the magic a tree can make when there is a child in its branches. We are robbing ourselves of beauty and wilderness and sixteenth birthdays spent walking barefoot down Sonoita Creek. We are sacrificing rain. We are sacrificing soft-bodied creatures and things with feathers. We are supplementing ourselves with old ideas and zinc and manganese.

The degradation of the Earth is the degradation of ourselves. In parallel, the healing of it is also the healing of ourselves.

I wish for the stories we have to tell future generations not to be wistful re-creations of something bygone, but stories of success, of places still green and breathing, to visit my hometown and for there to still be the monsoon rains, the birds still singing, and the saguaros still waving in greeting, in homecoming.

Yes, here is what I am clasping your palms around, my hands enveloping yours, and then letting go. I am giving you the anger, and I am giving you the hope.

Author’s Note: There is a poem by Nicolette Sowder that I remembered at the time of writing this titled, “May We Raise Children Who Love the Unloved Things.” It is a beautiful poem, and it is what I remember when I am speaking of my love for the desert, with all its spines and snakes and heat.