Remove the Numbers

I am driving into El Paso. The light is familiar, on the cusp of being too bright, bleaching everything to a pastel tone. I am turning into a shit show of traffic and messy streets, attempting – and failing – to drink water as I drive – water has spilled all over my shirt – I'm stressed, and turning onto a street that will eventually become Transmountain, and I'm stressed, but I'm feeling an uneasy sense of comfort as I see the Franklin Mountains growing as I drive toward them. I'm stressed, but El Paso is just that for me: an uneasy sense of comfort.

Returning home is like witnessing time in fast forward. The desert remains, one timeless expanse, a mound of dirt etched by millennia of wind and erosion. Within its embrace, everything is changing. My family is a microcosm of this: a new generation burgeoning with my sisters raising their children, while my grandfather weakens, his body surrendering to time's relentless march. I see my mother, her strength now dedicated to caring for her declining father, her light focusing deeper, searching for luster. I talk to my father, who has an impressive skill of redirecting every conversation toward the latest election results, gloating about the return of Trump, and his excitement and fulfillment he gets from rallying up people with a difference of opinion. His "uneasy sense of comfort." I will continue to seek his luster.

The landscape reflects this duality: the endless desert nurturing the relentless growth of the suburbs, a testament to the human impulse to expand. It makes me think about my own roots here, and my desire to flee as far from the familiar street names reflected as I drive by – Montwood, Zaragoza, Pebble Hills, Saul Kleinfield – a teenager, dreaming of escape, of breaking free from the imaginary "gravitational pull" of El Paso that I created in my head.

Generally, I hate Christmas. However, now that I do not have to stay at the house I grew up in, the swelling has lessened. In recent years, when I visit, I get to stay with either of my sisters and their families. Our childhood was shit, but it was good because we had each other, even when we didn't. That bond has lasted into our adulthood

.

I love my sisters very much. I also love who they have chosen to spend their lives with, and I love having two brothers now. A brother is something I have always wanted. I enjoy watching my sisters become mothers and I'm grateful to watch them give their children what we lacked. Sometimes I am envious when I see them and their families, and I see what they have built.

I reflect on my mother and her aging father. I think about myself as him. He is an aging and irrelevant man who was once a pillar of strength in my young boy eyes – the closest Might to God besides God himself. He is now closer to a baby than a god. His might has dissolved. Not taken down by the cutting of hair like Samson, or by an arrow to his heel, like Achilles. But by time. By wind and erosion. He needs assistance to do almost anything.

I get scared, and almost immediately lonely, but then I think about right now. But then I think about how I get to participate now in this reclamation of love and adoration, right now. I get to be the light in the lives of these children, which sometimes was not provided for me. It is beautiful to be light.

After traveling across the globe, who would have thought my fantasies would turn into returning to the desert? I laugh at my delusions. A life I was scared to end up with now seems comforting and easy. I then realize I do not find comfort in ease. And I continue to think as I witness distance through time. I find this concept a bit haunting: observing the slow unfolding of change, and the expansion for the sake of space. When will it end? When will it be full? Will the expansion grow upward? The same insistent drive a weed must have. Growing upward when it can no longer expand outward. Insatiable for space and for growth.

I find satisfaction in accomplishment. I once used to say that I was fueled by spite; however, being spiteful holds no glory. There is no light hidden in spite. I am working toward objectively being driven by my own vision of beauty. I want to be fueled by beauty and showcasing an angle of beauty that I have not seen before, but have felt.

I think it might be involved with the concept of Memento Mori—remembering we die, and that the purpose is to enjoy the time we have before the inevitable. The pressure to enjoy is a bit much sometimes. I do not fear death, but I also do not crave it. Although I do find it a bit difficult to be "happy," I enjoy my life and everything I have, the people in it, and the experiences I have earned. I have few regrets in decisions I have made, and I do think that everything happens for a reason. I am also insistent, like a weed, insatiable for expansion and growth and the search for beauty. I become light again.