ADRIFT IN

WHITE STANDS

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a lyrical passage through New Mexico’s white sugar desert

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ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN WOVEN MAGAZINE.

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In the sprawling outskirts of Alamogordo, tucked behind miles of dropseed and scruffy creosote bushes, you glimpse the ivory hills of White Sands. The dunes glisten and roll like waves across the desert, stretching 275 miles between the rocky San Andres and Lincoln National Forest. You're driving faster now, your eyes wider, and though the land is flat and dry around you, you feel as if you're swimming through the shallow sea that covered the Tularosa Basin millions of years ago.

As you drive through White Sands, the hills overwhelm, tiptoeing, until there is nothing but white. You stop the car and stand at the base of a dune. The steepness of the slope threatens to advance, to swell and crash around you. It breathes sand into your eyes. You retreat. This breathlessness, the fear of standing face-to-face with the ineffable. It is awe and wonder, the realization that you are small and breakable and human. And suddenly, your lungs awaken. Your heartbeat rattles against your ribs. Gypsum and sky swirl inside of you. You are terrible and splendid as the dunes.

You slide off your shoes and step forward. Barefoot in its waves, you are a child again. The cold sand nips at your toes but cannot wake you from this dream where summer and winter coexist. The dunes are snow and sand and sugar, and you are exactly where you need to be. You chase the ripples across the sand, your footprints in zigzags behind you. The wind catches its breath and blows the sand smooth again.

You lie down and shut your eyes, inviting the wind to bite your nose. You spread your arms and legs like the blades of a windmill, spin your turbine limbs, and taste the grit between your teeth. You will remember this moment.

As you rise, the wind wrinkles the sand again. Like a castle built in the path of a flood, your impression is washed away. The wind whips past your ears. By the time you reach your car, the sand has taken on another's shape. You smile as it cups a stranger's toes and watch the dunes evaporate in your rearview, the magnificent hills absorbed into the grainy sea once more.