So Much Horizon
I've been traveling to remind myself that life exists outside these walls.
Welcome to my substack #7. Soundtrack to this post: Summer Road Trips
1. I saw four shooting starts the night we set up camp on the Big Sur coast. We had arrived late and were so busy pitching tents and building a fire before the pending sunset, we hardly had a moment to take it all in. I stepped away from the billowing smoke of the campfire and looked up, speechless. The stars sparkled awake as dusk settled into the ocean. I convinced everyone the stars were out and to step back into the darkness of the night around us. We walked under the bridge of the PCH and down to the alcove of our beach. A swath of pale white swept down across the sky and the moon was nowhere to be found. It was the Milky Way or, more specifically, we were in the Milky Way looking out at a sweeping arm. The six of us stood on different parts of the sand, silhouetted by night, and looked up at the sky so big. I saw one star shoot by and then another. There was yet still so much life out there in our universe.
2. I did not grow up camping but I did grow up going on road trips. Our road trips were never planned stays at hotels, but rather, planned based on where an Uncle and Auntie lived and if they had a floor for us to sleep on. I always thought it was because my parents were too cheap to pay for a hotel but now that I’m older I realize that this was the pre-internet Bangladeshi Green Book – a way to travel this dangerous nation safely and not worry if a racist would show up to knock on your hotel door. We would do day trip often to the Opryland Hotel and to the raging waters in the Blue Ridge Mountains. The most memorable road trips were taken in our Oldsmobile station wagon with the faux wood paneling, up the East Coast to Canada and back to Tennessee. That car was so beloved, we brought it with us when we moved to Jubail, Saudi Arabia in the early 90s. We took that station wagon across the peninsula on a twelve-hour drive to Makkah and back. The Saudis didn’t have station wagons in their country and we would often get looks and sometimes even offers, for our ride. I would sit in the backward rear seat and wave out the window, until my parents realized that as a 12 year old woman, it’d be better to hide me from the gaze of sleezy Arab men. When we left the country we left the station wagon behind too.
3. I saw a tribe of zebras hanging out on the coast of California. Felt the mist of the Multnomah Falls spray on my face. Drove across bridges that felt like we were touching the sky. Hiked to the top of a red rocked vortex in Sedona. Played in the tide zone shadow of Haystack Rock. Was greeted by a desert toad on the doorstep during an Arizona monsoon storm. Saw an ancient castle carved into the cliffside. Bats swooping down to eat mosquitos in a creek at sunset. Went off roading in the sepia toned canyons. Walked a labyrinth overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Floated in multiple pools under palm trees in Palm Springs. Wandered through outdoor art in the disintegrating Bombay Beach. Saw the clouds roll in from the mountain tops of Lake Arrowhead. Everywhere – huge horizon, big sky, moonlight and so so many stars.
4. I am often scared at the thought of traveling alone. Scared to go out at night or to go on a hike where my phone won’t get reception. I wish I was one of those Single Woman who felt comfortable enough in the outside world to swipe on Tinder in new cities but I have listened to too many crime podcasts doing exactly the same thing. I am scared of spiders, and ghosts, and drowning, and breaking an ankle, and 911 not working if a bear attack happens. I’m scared mostly though, of white supremacists and what kind of islamophobia they’ve been fed.
5. Renting houses with friends in this pandemic is the grown-up version of slumber parties. The tenderness of cooking for each other and falling asleep on the sofa together until late into the night and laughing in hot tubs under the stars in unison. What a charmed life to cuddle with friends in hard times that have robbed us of touch.
6. As we drove up the narrow Lake Arrowhead road, we saw a bright blue Trump flag hanging off of a tree at the base of the property. I asked Neelanjana if the property owners were Trumpers and she said they definitely were not. It was the weekend after the we knew we knew he wouldn’t come back into Presidency. Flags with his name were still up, always sending uncertainty of how people with my color skin would be received. When Neelanjana & Akhila come back from their afternoon stroll in the neighborhood, Akhila exclaimed that she ripped down the flag. Completely?- I asked. It’s still hanging by a nail - she said. But it’s daylight. Did anyone see you? – I asked again. Probably – she responded, with a shrug.
It made me pause, maybe because I am overly cautious, but also, as a post-9/11 Muslim Brown woman, I move through this world differently. I am reminded how the two of us had surreptitiously cut down the islamophobic signs that were zip tied on the 101 Overpass a few years before. We planned it at night after a rain, kept the engine running, and made sure no one saw us.
Here in Lake Arrowhead, in broad daylight, for everyone to see – it felt like the start of a Brown indie movie that could shift to horror or existential dramady.
A couple hours later, we heard a knock on the cabin door just as the mushrooms eased ripples into our body. We knew it, we just knew it. Neelanjana went to open the door and I went to the kitchen to grab my phone in case we needed to film something. She closed the door behind her with a bewildered look on her face. It was a cheery White guy holding the blue flag. He asked if the flag belong to us, that it had fallen, that he was returning it, in a cheerful voice. She answered it wasn’t ours. And he sadly walked away. He had been so happy. We laughed and laughed and laughed until the tears came rolling down our eyes. And the next morning when we sobered up, we just cried.
7. The house we found an hour south of Sedona was in the middle of stretches of dry prairies. The neighbors lived in a trailer; the house was behind the Family Dollar store; the gate was broken. The house inside was recently renovated in that mid-century 2020 way and as soon as we arrived, we went through room by room inspecting all the doors, as cautious people are known to do. Suddenly, the alarm starts wailing and all I can think about is how we don’t have proof that we belong and that I was with my two younger Brown sisters. We call the number in the binder and get the code to disarm the alarm, but it was too late. Thirty minutes later, my sister yells from the front of the house that the cops were here.
My mind kept going through the pages and pages of stories I’ve read about homestays going bad because BIPOC people were caught in White places by White cops or White neighbors. This was certainly that kind of place. The two Sheriffs were White handsome, and in their 30s. I found myself code switching and light flirting, asking about what there was to do around here for fun. Inside my heart was beating like a drum, but outside I casually pulled up my email and showed them the confirmation on my phone. NEVER hand an unlocked phone to a police officer, I have been to enough security trainings to know this, but in that moment, it was all about making myself as least threatening as possible.
I forget how talking to White people is an important skill. We used to make fun of my Mom when we would be able to tell the race of who she was talking to because of how her accent changed to accommodate. I teased her but now I know that was survival. It was code switching to be amenable.
In my review I mentioned the alarm, the cops, the neighborhood, and the torrential water coming through the ceiling when the monsoon hit a couple days later. The owner balked and mentioned she is Italian and complained saying that she has people of color friends that have enjoyed the stay. Airbnb pulled the review, saying there wasn’t enough “relevant information to help the Airbnb community make informed booking decisions” (which of course, the Sheriff coming for an alarm and a leaky roof is relevant to this community member.) Airbnb then called me to tell that it wasn’t relevant because a) I talked about the rain which was “outside of host’s ability to anticipate” and b) that my comments about the White neighborhood were “outside of host power of influence.” Airbnb then found my tweets and sent them to an escalation team who said the review was in “violation of content policy… Please know that we prohibit content of any kind that promotes discrimination, bigotry, racism, hatred, harassment or harm against any individual or group.” They end the email with, “Lastly, please consider this a warning.” A warning for WHAT – like, bitch, are we in the Hunger Games all of a sudden and I didn’t know it?
So, in conclusion AirBnb finds reviews by a Muslim Brown woman stating her discomfort as discrimination. I’ve been warned.
8. I just want to travel this world as an unchaperoned Brown skinned woman, and to feel safe. When a White Man goes on his international walkabout it’s because he owns the world. It is his to colonize. He will never fear a strange woman’s catcalls will escalate treacherously. When a Brown Woman travels, it’s despite. It’s in spite. It’s rebellious. It’s exhilarating and dangerous and beautiful and a risk and brave in ways that the rest will never know.
9. When people like me travel we don’t walk away thing that the world is so small and accessible. We walk away thinking the world is so wide and magnanimous. Its breadth is miraculous.
10. Sitting by the campfire in Big Sur, I mentioned how I’ve been spending my summer trying not to work. Delia scoffed. Your art is work. But I disputed. I think if I was actually treating my art like work, I’d have been more disciplined this summer – less trips, and writing schedule. Then what do you call what you are doing? She asked. I’m just being inspired by life again. I’m reminding myself what it means to go live. To be alive. To get inspired. To laugh with joy. To get bored to the point where making art is the only outlet. I didn’t see God in my tiny apartment when trapped during the pandemic. I see the miracles of God when I travel and see the world’s wonders. I see spirituality is in nature. Good is in nature. I am reminded of why we were born in nature. How can you not look at a gorgeous sunset and be reminded of a higher being?
11. Of the five love languages, experience is my number one and sharing sunsets together is how I show care.
12. So much horizon.
13. I can't believe the Delta is finally here. I hope I did enough in the wild before being locked down again. Did I joy enough. Was I touched enough. Did I heal enough. Is the well full enough. Do I have enough memories to hold me through next wave. Was I reminded of life enough to live enough. Did I see outside enough to be inside alone again.