I left home around 10 am right on schedule. The drive was as boring and serene as I hoped it would be. I barely listened to anything. I wanted to let the desert do it’s magic and shear away the awful noise that had filled my brain these past few months. So once I got onto the open road around Beaumont and civilization started to clear away for long stretches, I daydreamed, staring at windmills, some of which were turning, some not, and they reminded me of kids in a classroom each doing their own thing. One picking his nose, another sitting completely still, another waving her arms around and doing a little dance.

Google Maps said 2 hrs 5 mins and it would have been exactly that had I not stopped at In-N-Out to hoover a grilled cheese, extremely oversalted fries, and a small iced tea, which they need to rename “mini” because it was the size of a mouthwash rinse cup.

I sailed through fields upon fields of date palms from Mecca onward. They mirrored each other in shadowy lines and angles and I’d catch occasional glimpses of the shimmering sea beyond, looming like a mirage, except it wasn’t one. The desert and sea are neighbors here. This lasted for a while, until finally everything cut away and all that remained were train tracks to my left and the Salton Sea to the right.

It’s hard to miss Bombay Beach. It just suddenly appears like a thorny colorful cactus. I arrived just as the Union Pacific barreled past me, it’s tagged up cars familiar art where I’m from. The town is on an easy grid but I’ll never get it because I’m me and there is there is just so much else to look at. Everything is art here. I didn’t spit my gum out in some gravel earlier because I thought it was art and somebody would pop out of the milkweed and hand me a citation. No spitting in the art!

I arrived at Pirate’s Alley and was thrilled to find out from our instructor that I actually have my own room. A boon from the God’s! Big guy in the sky was like, “This little girl is freaking out, let me throw her a bone, give her her own little space.” The house has a nautical theme with wood paneling everywhere that reminds me of the tiny home I grew up in. The whole place smells like a freshly sharpened box of Dixon Ticonderogas.

I unloaded my suitcases and hung out with our instructors and hilarious housemate Jenny while we waited for the others. Once everyone arrived, we went on a walking tour of Bombay Beach, starting with various houses turned art installations, the sea itself which is desolate in places, and very active with tourists, settlers, and activities like parasailing in others, and I could tell the place was changing more visibly and rapidly than most people have to reckon with in their home communities. The sea has literally receded hundreds of yards in the last five years. Our tour guide Grant, who also runs the local radio station, kept pointing out structures that used to be under water just a year ago, but are now far from the shoreline.

You don’t have to be here long for big questions to come up. Is this place home or an attraction? How long before the sea evaporates and it’s all gone? What activates a place? There is tension here.

For dinner, we walked over to the Bombay Beach Arts and Culture Center for their community feast, which doesn’t happen often, but we got lucky. Mealtime was in full swing by 6 pm and I got lucky because my interview subject is actually the guy who runs the center. I caught up with him grilling and was able to record some ambient sounds of him cutting up chicken and the community connecting over food. We did a little pre-interview where he showed me around various structures on property, including a makeshift home for a Dietrich coffee roaster he helped build back in the day.

Boy did I find a good talker. David gave me some interview tips as I walked around chatting with people. Now, hopefully I hit the record button. I think I did. Either way, it reduced my startup friction and I was actually proud of myself for just going for it and taking advantage of the opportunity to record on day one.

And that’s kind of the approach I’m going to take this week. David assured me that nobody has failed out of this workshop or not made a story. So I’m just going to trust myself, the moment, and go with the flow. I’m going to carry my gear with me, make the mic an extension of my body, and soak it all in. If trash can become art, I can be a dork strapped with gear. I can do this.

Anyway, I’m forgetting a million things, and I don’t even know what I said here. I’m sorry if this was boring and terrible. I’m so tired. I have a million more pictures to share, but the house I’m staying in doesn’t have wi-fi and I’m on my phone hotspot and nothing is uploading.

So I’m just going to not read this, hit send, have a snack, brush my teeth, and crawl into bed in my galleon on the sea.