The Great Texas Road Trip Thank-You Tour: 59. To Touch Ground Again in a Place I Spent So Much Time as an Outsider Looking In

Plaza Hotel from San Jacinto Plaza, Downtown El Paso

Travel Date:  September 13, 2018

The road into El Paso this time was much less bedazzling.  We entered the valley around 3:00, not a spectacular time of the day as far as light goes.  We stopped at a rest area just east of Fabens, and I got out to stretch in an unwelcoming heat.  Texas this trip had been unusually green, even the desert areas, such as the Davis Mountains.  However, we'd crossed some magic line and were now in the drought-ravished West we'd left behind in Utah and Colorado.  The creosote bushes had thin, waxy leaves that seemed curled in on themselves.  I was hot, tired, and as excited as I was to see El Paso once again, part of me wanted to turn back and head towards the verdant, cicada-humming Hill Country.  All summer long we'd experienced excruciating drought and raging forest fires that created smoke filled skies.  I wasn't sure I wanted to leave the almost tropical green of Texas this year behind.  However, one thing you always do on vacation is move forward.  You have to.  There are set start and end dates, and on my road trips anyway, there's a lot of ground to cover.  Reluctantly, I got back into the car and we headed into the West, that part of the country I once bragged about so often.  I eagerly agreed with Jim Morrison's stupid rhyme:  "The West / is the best."   It's harder to say that now.  Climate change is so blatantly real in the West.  It's impossible to pretend things are as they once were.  In a place where distance once took on so much meaning--mountain ranges often clearly visible eighty to one hundred miles away--it is incredibly disheartening to view that same world through smokey, dusty skies in the summer and smog in the winter.  I think I almost prefer to be east of the Rockies now, where the environmental devastation isn't as routinely obvious. I stay where I'm at because I have land and trees, and I'm determined to do my best to make my inheritance support as much wildlife as possible in these times of shrinking natural habitat, even through my efforts feel painstakingly futile during the long, unnaturally hot summers.

This trip had been a great escape from being a caretaker of 90 acres.  Now, we'd entered drought again, and I had this feeling similar to returning home to a house full of disease.  It may bring sadness being there, but it's still home, filled with ones you love.  You accept the love and the sadness as one.  That is how it is living out West in these latter days.  Sorrow, love and loss all mixed together--as you cling to memories of alpine summer days in cool, green forests while in reality viewing acres and acres of drought-ravished, bark-beetle devastated spruce dying before your eyes.

I got back in the car, grudgingly accepting the new reality, and off we went to visit my past.

. . . . .

My mood picked up as we entered the city and passed sights once so familiar to me.  El Paso is an amazingly unique city even discounting its location across the boarder from Juarez, Mexico.  It was built at the south end of the Franklin Mountains, and as the city grew, it wrapped itself around both ends, so now there are two branches, like butterfly wings, spreading out from the southern tip of the range.  It's a lopsided butterfly to be sure, as the eastern sprawl is far more expansive, but it's a butterfly all the same.  I lived on the west side of the range while my friend George lived on the east.  I spent a lot of hours driving back and fourth along I-10 passing the same street names and sites we passed now:  George Dieter, Lee Trevino, Yarbrough, and Cielo Vista Mall.  I was amazed the mall still stood and looked very busy as malls most places are now empty shells ready to be demolished or already wiped out for shopping centers or high rise office complexes.  Little did I know I was flying past the soon-to-be memorial sight of a mass shooting created by the hateful, divisive rhetoric of our president.  I was just glad to see the mall still there because when you return home to a place you always desire it to be exactly as you left it, for it to match the nostalgic views in your mind.  So far, El Paso had that wonderful glow of yesteryear, and I was quite enjoying myself.

We found our hotel downtown, which was the delightful Aloft located in the renovated Bassett Tower, a historically significant building designed by the notable architect Henry Trost, whose work is often compared to that of Frank Lloyd Wright, although personally, I often find it to be superior.  We are normally Super 8 or Motel 6 travelers.  However, our downtown, sky high room in this trendy chain of the jet-set crowd was only $89, and as Motel 6 was almost as much, it seemed like a good idea to spend the extra $15 and lodge like those-who-matter rather than feel like the poor peons we normally happily settle for because in the big, grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter.  I would never willingly fork out good money for luxury, but if they are going to give it to me for almost the same price as poverty, then, of course, I'd have to be a fool to pass it by. 

After leaving the hotel and driving around, for some reason that I can't remember, I had to have internet to contact Bobby Byrd, a mentor of mine.  The one and only downside to staying at the Aloft is the valet parking, and so I didn't want to head back to the room.  After driving around downtown for a while and seeing that many of the everyday eating establishments, Burger King and the like, no longer existed, I drove over to the library to use the internet and after some difficulties with my laptop starting up, I got Bobby's number.  It would be a while before he and Lee could meet us, and so we had some time to kill.  No problem.  

I once knew downtown El Paso far better than the back of my hand.  I only lived a few blocks away, and I spent every night either in Juarez or here.  For a while I also worked downtown.  It was my home and it was good to be back.  We left the car at the library and walked down to San Jacinto Plaza where long ago I spent many, many hours just sitting in the park, watching the ever-changing light and shadow play with the old masonry buildings as I listened to the preachers predict the fiery end of times.  I'd watch the buses pull in and out around the edges of the plaza and people watch until I started to drift off, and then I'd get up and move to another part of the city to avoid getting pick-pocketed during my slumbers.  Why I never just sat and wrote, I don't know.  I've always been somewhat intimidated with writing about where I currently reside.  I'm afraid I'll get it wrong, bring dishonor to its inhabitants.  Time and distance seems to be a necessary ingredient.  It's not that I'm afraid of getting lynched for something I write or anything like that.  I'm not published enough to worry about such stuff.  No, I worry that in over trying to get down the essence of a place, I'll miss it altogether.  Place matters.  Culture matters.  Visitors and new arrivals see the community through stereotyped eyes.   It takes time not only in the community, but also away from the community, to honor a people and a place the way they should be.  Even then, I'm not sure it can be done well unless you are part of the particular culture you're covering.  At least that is my fear.  So, although I loved Juarez, I have written very little about it.  I'm afraid I'll get far too much wrong.  I also loved living on the Navajo Nation, but as I have the same fears, I've written so little about there also.  You see, being a Mormon, I know just how wrong outsiders looking in on a culture often get it even when they have the best of intentions.  It's just hard to write about something you didn't absorb through your pores growing up.  Hispanic America is best written by Hispanics and the Navajo Nation is best documented by Navajoes.  I don't know why I'm so drawn to places I can't really understand, but it has always been that way.  I have a feeling that if I ever write a book that matters, it will be about here, Dry Creek, this inheritance I know as well as I know my own soul, if not better.  But I'm not ready yet, and so for now I'll travel, and get down as best I can places that I don't really understand.

It felt good to walk the short distance from the library to the plaza, to touch ground again in a place I spent so much time as an outsider looking in on a world I couldn't begin to comprehend.