Sun, Rocks, Sand, Stars, and Scuffling with Fear out in the Desert
Friday 24 March – Thursday 30 March 2006
*Click on any foto to open up & expand the picture.*
On the rocks in Joshua Tree National Park! Morgan (now Dylan), age 12, learning to rappel with her climbing instructor on Sunday the 26th of March. Gravity rocks!
Stepmother & stepdaughter grinning together in the desert.
At Joshua Tree looking across the California desert to the mountains beyond. March 02006.
This hiking and climbing adventure was one of those little pivotal points in the intertwining journeys of our human relationships. Personal names and the labels of our relationships kept changing and growing, too. During this time I lived in a small, intentional community in Seattle. We called ourselves Dragonfly, or Dragonfly House, named after the beautiful flying insect. The dragonfly, despite its glittering, winged beauty, is a ferocious carnivore. Images of dragonflies are traditionally used in different cultures as a symbol for ascendance and transformation. This mix of memes and vision statement provides a sense of context for our network of communities during this period.
Kristina and I worked together with Gwen, my second ex-wife, mother of two of my children, and friend of Kristina’s, and others to integrate our post-multiple divorced blended polyfamily. Morgan’s my oldest child, and had recently turned 12 years old. Kristina’s idea was to spend one-on-one time together on a special trip away from Seattle. This would provide the opportunity to develop closer bonds as stepmother and stepchild without the relationship distractions of living in an urban cooperative household rooted in polyamory and intentional community. Morgan was 7 when she first met Kristina, and was 8 when Kristina gave birth to Talia. Both Morgan and Talia were born at home, so they became stepsisters. Kristina and I lived together as full life partners. We privately married ourselves in May of 2005, altho she became my fiancé later in November of the same year. The public wedding didn’t occur until July off 2009, but we conducted ourselves as if already married as in a sense we felt we already were even if unrecognized by the government. We were committed to blending our families together, and Morgan had gone the longest of her 3 sisters outside of the relationship between myself and Kristina.
Dylan, age 12, back when they were called Morgan, making friends with a doggie while visiting a family friend who’d moved south to Palm Springs. This was their first trip to California, not counting any airport layovers. Thus their first trip to the Southern California deserts, too! Quietly excited! Friday 24 March 2020.
My oldest child presents me with a challenge as an author with a historian’s bent I’ve yet to neatly resolve with language. So I’ll share it here. In her early twenties Morgan, who identifies as non-binary, changed her name and pronoun usage. The former she/her is now they/them. Morgan Bass now goes by Dylan Bass. Before this occurred, I referred to her in writings from those decades as a female daughter named Morgan. Since the name change I use their chosen name, Dylan. When I refer to Dylan back before Morgan became Dylan, well, I choose to refer to them as a she named Morgan. And why not? We evolve, adapt, and change. All of our identities are subject to change. We are, after all, fluid. Therefore you may see reference to my oldest child as, “Morgan/Dylan,” or as, “Dylan, formerly Morgan,” and as, “Morgan (later Dylan).” Dylan prefers I use her current name and pronouns all the way back, and I won’t obliterate history/herstory/theirstory. Our stories are complex and demonstrate how we changer and grow. Life continues to evolve in novel and unexpected ways as new patterns manifest.
This is a glimpse into their journey beneath desert skies as shared with me. Only those two went to Joshua Tree. I remained back in Seattle at Dragonfly with Kate and Talia. So here we go again!
Students & instructors gather from all over for a week of rock climbing. Dylan’s the youngest, in the center wearing a blue hat & shirt.
Early Spring’s a perfect time to explore Joshua Tree! First day out, Saturday 25 March 2006.
A fellow hiker & climber.
Two of the instructors.
Ropes, harnesses, & pro seem to take on a life of their own.
One of Kristina & Morgan/Dylan’s classmates practices a basic rappel.
Those first steps out…
Uh…checking & double-checking!
Yeah!
Kristina’s turn!
The stepmother descends with a grin…
There’s Morgan Hannah the future Dylan Blair …whoa…way.up.there!
They’re nervous. Hey, it’s OK to feel nervous. One must learn to trust the gear, and such must be derived from learning how the gear functions, how to correctly place protection and set up anchors, read people, & manage risk. All part of the fun.
One breath & one step at a time…if only falling didn’t hurt so much!
Aye, one breath…
…one step…
…lookit, no death!
Celebrate life!
Afterwards… Morgan (now Dylan) is on the left in green.
In her own world…and well aware there’s so much more.
The open vastness of the Southern California wilderness.
Stones & Plants. Each tells a story.
Many stories.
Prehistoric stories.
Dwarfed by Giants.
Long ago & far away a man lost to memory goes forth to reach the sky.
The forbidden beckons.
There’s my 12 year old! In the shadow of green blades & thorns…
She dances the slow dance of ballet played like multidimensional chess.
She goes.
Somewhere sometime ya gotta straighten out those legs to align spine, hips, toes…& mind, woo HOO!
Scuffles.
Watching in the present moment already passed. Eventually another 30 years will slide by and then 350 more and perhaps 10,000. Will these digipix survive even the Cloud?
Aye, she earned that jacket, the green North Face fleece, she did. Climbed past her fears on a steep rocked up wall outside at Camp Long in Seattle. There’s a story there about her crabbing up 20 ft high Schurman Rock.
Would’ve been nice to have had him demonstrate the leg there for a kinesiology class back when I used to teach professional massage therapy techniques with all those joints and muscle OIAs.
Still too far to tumble.
Chillin’
“Stop laughing, you guys!”
“Gee, there’s rattlesnakes and scorpions and bees and shit, and, hey, wait, I’m supposed to be bonding with my stepmother, yo!”
“True. So, look, why don’tcha just hang out there & meditate awhile?”
“WHAT? Really? Are.u.serious?”
“Wait…oh no, did you step on that scorpion?”
“Uh…um…I think I squished it. Felt something huge get all crusty crunchy under my foot.”
“It’s dead. You killed it!”
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Well, just a little bit sorry because it’s a scorpion. My Dad would tell you it’s all fully reincarnated now except I’m an atheist & don’t believe in any of that religious stuff.”
“Uh, never mind. Hey, you made it! Congratulations.”
CIMG0450 .avi (Video 1 – 2:42)*
CIMG0451 .avi (Video 2 – 1:33)*
*Note: The above are placeholders for two short videos of Morgan/Dylan rock climbing and dealing with fear. Sometimes fear won. Sometimes fear lost. Doesn’t matter as they’re all part of the journey of life. Lessons are learned, unlearned, even forgotten, and, sometimes, relearned. Meanwhile, these placeholders remain here until a way to re-upload these old AVI videos, shot with a now-vintage digital camera, into this WordPress dot org platform hosted by HostGator in such a way they’ll play. I can play them on my iMac desktop with an open-format VLC, but haven’t yet find a way to upload that here. If any ideas, contact me in the comment section at the end. Thank you!
Lookit Kristina climb!
Up she goes!
Life before smartfones.
Pausing to gaze across the Joshua Tree expanse.
Kristina’s the teeny tiny climber climbing steadily up the crack in the far upper right corner of the picture. Wow!
Kristina, Morgan/Dylan’s stepmother. Monday 27 March 2006.
“Oh no…me? Really? Cool! Watch me, then!”
Stepmother above in blue & Stepdaughter below in green.
Hidden giggles.
“Aren’t you gonna pull me up? Because I don’t think I’m gonna go anywhere.”
“I rilly hafta go the bathroom now.”
The Happy Sunshine Climber!
Joshua dreams rocks.
Kristina & a new friend.
I loved this adventurous, world traveling woman who chose to share her & her daughter’s lives with me & my two daughters. We made quite a blended family. Bloody hard work, too, & all the joy & love was worth all of it, too.
A moment in time and place.
With a camouflaged rattlesnake!
So much to explore! Careful with the placement of one’s hands and feet and, yes, one’s face. Especially the face!
Young Human and Old Mountain.
Classic Joshua Tree climbing crags.
Old ruins of Mother Earth.
Where Kristina & Morgan (Dylan) camped with the rest of the course. My oldest is the small person wearing emerald green fleece.
Zooming in on the green.
As I wasn’t on this trip, I wondered what went thru their minds? Secret disappointments? Pride and joy? Sorrow? Happy, sad, mad, and still glad? All of those? Those were wide, open desert skies in the springtime. So while the Sun was bright and hot, the skies were still partially cloudy during the day. Wasn’t a scorching oven by any means, not as Winter slid forward into Spring. The Full Moon had already occurred back on the 14th of March before leaving Seattle, and the New Moon peaked on the night of Wednesday the 29th. Everyone on the rock climbing course enjoyed spectacular starry skies.
“It was so cool,” Dylan told me years beyond being called Morgan. “I just LOVED looking up at all the stars!”
The first night camping, however, food poisoning struck. Morgan/Dylan puked inside the tent before they were able to unzip the doors and throw up outside. The smell stank up the tent for the rest of the night. The stories were so chaotic at first I thought Kristina had vomited inside the tent. No, twas her stepdaughter. They dealt the situation without acrimony even tho embarrassed and upset. Life went on. Morning arrived eventually. Years later, Kristina claimed she doesn’t even remember anyone puking inside the tent.
“Oh no, I don’t remember anything like that,” she said and laughed. “We had a fun trip. It was a very sweet time.”
For me such juggling of memories demonstrates the innate strength of both people. One was a preteen who struggled with self-identity as her parents divorce and recombine with others. The other person a woman in her late 30s committed to finding meaningful ways to relate to the oldest child of the man she was building a life together with. Both shared a love for adventure in the outdoors, an appreciation for travel, and a capacity to hold feelings for many people in their hearts.
“LOL! Gonna catch me a rattlesnake, so peace out, you guys!”
“I’m so happy it’s not pouring down rain like back home in Seattle.”
“Yes, bare feet!”
“But if I see a giant desert spider here I’m gonna THWACK it with my flip flop!”
“This is so much fun!”
“See? Spider yoga! Except I’m in a hurry to get onto Star Trek where they’re filming all those famous alien desert planet scenes! My Dad, he’s a hardcore Star Trek nerd!”
The former Morgan Bass back when they were 12 Earth Years along in spacetime.
Wow, my daughter reminds me of the young Wesley Crusher character on Star Trek’s The Next Generation when she made these expressions 14 years ago. Of course times have changed since then with Star Trek: Picard’s grittier, darker themes this March of 2020 as the Covid-19 pandemic rages as the Usurper in the White House flounders, the polar ice caps are melting far faster than initially anticipated, global warming is wrecking our planet, AI leaps faster to the dreaded Singularity, the economy tanks, enormous swarms of ravenous locusts, swarms 3 times the size of New York City, buzz across parts of Africa, the Middle East, & South Asia. Being in the outdoors brings peace. And, yes, the author’s still a Star Trek geek!
Time to get down.
Backpacking back to the trailhead parking lot. Tuesday 28 March 2006.
Morgan/Dylan & Kristina trot down the desert trails on a hot spring day.
“We are not ghosts!”
Sometimes you gotta go up and up to go down and down.
Stepmom & stepkid engrossed in deep conversations. Kristina’s a mastery of psycho-spiritual inquiry, of mind over matter. Morgan the future Dylan’s a storyteller listening to the rhythms of tales shared across the twists & turns of narrative arcs.
Things did not always go as expected, and, so what? Both had an amazing time & were so grateful they had this adventure together as this shared trip’s a rarity in a blended family community household. Also grateful for whomever took & shared these fotos.
Trudgin’ and a truckin’ on!
The Katayama-Bass stepsies backpacking in Joshua Tree.
Sun, rocks, & sky! And a jet plane soars overhead…
High on rocks.
Grins & Ughs
Morgan (now Dylan) & Kristina. The backpack Kris is wearing is a travel pack. She’s lugged it all around the planet for at least a decade abroad, traveling to many different countries as well as all over the United States. Kristina used to insist she didn’t need a regular backpack as hers worked so well. She humped up & down many a mountain during her time with me whenever we went backpacking together or with our kids. Became a weird sort of heirloom of a sort, one rich with the stories of “Mommastina” back when she was younger & before kids & careers. The famous, globetrotting pack, unfortunately, burned up when our house burned down four years after this foto was taken on Tuesday the 28th of March 2006.
Twelve years on Planet Earth & loving this national park.
Walking & crawling…
…and hopping!
Ahh, to be 38 & a half again!
Almost at the trailhead.
Desolation is not empty.
Kristina & Morgan (now Dylan)
Stepmom & Stepchild
Saying goodbye to Joshua Tree National Park & farewell to new friends.
Almost home. Views of Seattle east to the Cascades from the airplane, Thursday 30 March 2006.
Downtown Seattle with recognizable landmarks.
Seconds away from landing, a fun & unique adventure between two different & wonderful people comes to an end, and, uh, more construction. There’s always those seemingly endless cycles of destruction & construction. Aye, life goes on for those who choose to live.
Two years later:
Then Morgan, now Dylan, age 14, scrambling around at Peshatin Pinnacles, a popular rock climbing area in a small state park outside of Leavenworth, Washington, April 2008.
More than nine years after Joshua Tree:
My oldest child, with the whimsical trail name of “Weasley” from the Harry Potter mythos, atop 5,267 feet high Mt. Katahdin, Maine, during her 2015 attempt to thruhike the Appalachian Trail. This isn’t roped climbing by any means, but a remote and challenging steep hike with some scrambling in places. Foto for MB by fellow hiker AL. Summer 2015.
William Dudley Bass
Monday 23 March 2020
Friday 27 March 2020
Seattle, Washington
USA
Cascadia
Earth
Sol
*A Note on Fotos & Videos: All of the images from Joshua Tree were taken nearly 14 years ago as of this writing. I was not there on this trip, but were given these pictures as saved digital images including videos by Kristina & my eldest daughter. Many of these fotos & videos were shot by Kristina Katayama, my partner/wife at the time and Morgan/Dylan’s stepmother. Most of the rest were taken by other people with Kristina’s camera. The remainder were taken by various other people with their cameras, given directly to Kristina to share with our family, or generally shared around the group.
My preteen may have shot a few with their stepmom’s camera, but doesn’t remember. Dylan did not take many if she did, nor did she bring her own camera.
The foto of Dylan scrambling around at Peshatin Pinnacles was snapped by me or another family member during an family & friends outing in the Leavenworth Area in the eastern flanks of the central Washington Cascades. The picture from atop Katahdin, Baxter State Park, Maine was snapped by a fellow thruhiker and given to Dylan who shared it with me and others on socmed.
These fotos & videos ended up me as I was the family archivist & author. These images survived the house fire of 2010. After cleaning them up with the iPhoto program on my old iMac, they were finally self-published here as part of a foto-essay geared more as a family legacy post than as a straight-up, outdoor adventure post. This article does dance a little bit with blended family dynamics and relationship challenges, of course, for ultimately everything is about and for relationships of one kind and another. Enjoy!
A note on Joshua Tree: Originally a national monument in the American state of California since 1936, Joshua Tree was declared a new national park in 1994 during the Clinton Presidency. Congress passed the California Desert Protection Act and then-President Bill Clinton signed it into law. Despite what may appear to be a barren landscape, Joshua Tree is rich with intricate ecosystems and unique life. It’s a gathering point for astronomers seeking open wilderness free from urban light pollution. Joshua trees themselves, Yucca brevifolia, are a rare species of plant, and their survival is at risk due to global climate change as temperatures continue to rise. While the Little San Bernardino Mountains range along the southern edges of Joshua Tree, the rest of the park is shared between parts of two deserts with two distinct ecosystems. The Colorado Desert sprawls across the lower elevations while the Mohave dominates the desert heights. Joshua Tree is, of course, a world class rock climbing and desert hiking destination when the rest of the nation may be too cold or wet.
Visit the Joshua Tree National Park website at: https://www.nps.gov/jotr/index.htm.
Copyright © 2006, 2020 by William Dudley Bass. Article Rights Reserved by the Author & his Descendants until we Humans establish Wise Stewardship over and for our Earth and Solarian Commons. Thank you.