Getting Over My Cleansing Obsession in the Desert
Feeling hemmed in and obsessed with purging the toxins in her life, the author heads to the hot springs of the Chihuahuan Desert
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Whenever I鈥檓 feeling down in the mouth, I get in my car. For the seven years I lived in central Texas, I drove the spaghetti-bowl highways or the ranch roads of the Hill Country. I listened to bad country radio. But if I really needed to get out, to just go, I鈥檇 drive west until I was in the desert.
In the late spring of 2015, I had to get out of the house. I felt allergic to everything in Austin: the pollen and dust, the swarms of bugs, my cats, their fleas, my agoraphobic neighbor, my friends. When the class I was scheduled to teach was canceled three days before summer term began, I took it as augury and drove west by myself for eight hours into the Chihuahuan Desert. It wasn鈥檛 going to be a long trip, a few days in Marfa on the way to the , where I could only afford to stay a day.
I鈥檓 not entirely sure when it happened, but sometime in the early 2010s, I found myself feeling contaminated, overrun by a toxic world. Austin鈥檚 population was swelling from half a million to two million people, most of them tech-company transplants; oil from the Deepwater Horizon disaster was spurting into the Gulf; and I seemed to be floating in a perpetual cedar-fevered heat wave.听If I had to identify the point where my interest in cleansing turned obsessive, I鈥檇 say it was around the time of the turmeric. For a week or so that April, I drank so much turmeric鈥攖urmeric tea, turmeric smoothies鈥攖hat it dyed my teeth and tongue and countertops bright yellow. One night I spread it all over my face, a homemade turmeric mask that I found on the internet, and my skin was stained听yellow after I washed it off, and my towels and pillowcases and shirt and sink were all left the color of highlighters. My face in the mirror the next morning was still yellow. Turmeric is supposed to be one of those miracle substances. Anti-inflammatory, anticancer, anti-everything.
The desert and the hot springs called to me. They sounded like just the cure for what ailed me, physiological and otherwise.
About 100 miles outside Austin, I realized I had forgotten ice for my cooler. It was 95 degrees. I also needed more water, gallons of it, considering how few places there are to stop on I-10. I pulled into a gas station in Segovia, a Valero that advertised with red stickers on both sides of every surface: 鈥淏akery Inside.鈥澨齌he whole place was piled with pastries.
I got my water, my ice.听I loaded everything into the cooler. As I slammed the trunk shut, I knew already what I鈥檇 done: my keys were in the trunk.
So was my phone.
I went back inside the gas station. The attendant, a kid, let me stand behind the counter with him while he rang up customers who paid zero attention to me. I was a sweaty woman in cutoffs dialing the numbers of every locksmith in the county from a phone book. When the locksmith was 鈥渙n my way in 45 minutes,鈥澨齀 abandoned my resolve and immediately bought a pack of cigarettes, a Drumstick ice cream cone, and a few scratch-off lottery tickets for company. I was irritated, and one of these things had to be my solace. The attendant told me that everyone has done this at least once, locked their keys in the car, which is baldly untrue.
In the shade of听a picnic table outside, I watched baby birds nesting in the halogen light posts. I wrote 鈥渟o far this trip = not as relaxing as hoped鈥 in a small notebook I found in my purse. Eighty-five dollars听later, around 4 P.M., I was back on the road.
I got to after dark. Everything was closed, though the town鈥檚 main street looks that way even when everything is open, due to the lasting vision of minimalist artist Donald Judd, who bought half the buildings on the strip and whited out all the windows. Behind some of the blank windows lurk Warhols. I pulled into a听dirt parking lot at the El Cosmico听hotel and campground听and used a noisy wagon to wheel my bags and a stack of books through the otherwise soundless night to my tent. Emily Dickinson鈥檚 , Gretel Ehrlich鈥檚 . Marcel Proust and Dorothea Lasky. I dropped my belongings and grabbed a听red towel and my bath salts, went directly to the outdoor bathroom, and took a bath staring up at cloudless purple sky. I waited for my mind to catch up with my body, to realize it was no longer hurtling forward at 80, 85, 90 miles an hour. I tried to slow down.
I got my water, my ice.听I loaded everything into the cooler. As I slammed the trunk shut, I knew already what I鈥檇 done: my keys were in the trunk. So was my phone.
On the edge of Marfa, El Cosmico is a pristine desert getaway that just barely saves itself from cuteness with the absolute apathy of its staff. For the middle of nowhere, it was crowded with road-trippers. I was staying in what鈥檚 called a safari tent, which could also be called glamping. It would have been more glamorous if the beautiful white canvas tent didn鈥檛 smell like mildew.
I spent two days munching on Cheetos听followed by two nights cooking elaborate vegetarian meals (which, I think, balanced out) in the outdoor kitchen, accompanied by stray cats who ate my tempeh when I wasn鈥檛 looking. I was alone, and I could eat what I wanted, when I wanted. This is a freedom that solitude awards me. Sometimes Twizzlers are detoxifying in their own way.
El Cosmico was lovely, and it was dusty. When I arrived at my tent, my sandals left four dust footprints across the wood floor. I promptly put my shoes outside, though it soon became clear that there was no contending with this dust. I woke up the first morning to find a thin layer of grit on the copy of Proust I fell asleep reading, and I could feel sand between my teeth.
Sweating in a hammock, I thought听of the time听I鈥檇 just moved into my 1927 duplex in Austin and听decided to scrub its听two old southern porches. I started by sweeping away the dust and cobwebs with a broom. I came back with a wet rag and some cleaning听spray. Soon it became clear that I would need a bucket, because my rag turned black almost instantly.
I tell this story to introduce the fact that I found myself trying to clean the outside. And the moment I realized this, I started to wonder: What, exactly, was so dirty? I鈥檝e never felt the need to clean the rest of the outside鈥攖he lawn, the fence, the sidewalk, the driveway, trees, grass. Not once. Where does it stop? Where can it stop? This is another way of asking that question ecologists always bring up about throwing things away: What is 鈥渁way鈥? There is no away, they intone. Where did I plan to put all this dirt, where do we plan to put all our toxins once we鈥檝e released them from our bodies and things and spaces and cordoned off everything that touches us from further contamination? I felt like Danny Tanner, vacuuming his vacuum cleaner.
Cleaning is a way to keep things under control. The power of dirt, the chaos of clutter, is, for many people, the source of a basic fear that governs behavior. At some point听it occurred to me that I may have left town simply to get away from my stuff. My house and its many reminders of my identity, my past selves. My messes.
My first hot day in Marfa, every single visitor wound up at Balmorhea, a swimming hole a short drive away. Its sign boasts that it鈥檚 鈥渢he world鈥檚 largest natural spring fed swimming pool.鈥 While I lounged in the pool on several $5 Styrofoam noodles, I heard each new person show up at water鈥檚 edge and ask if this was听the natural spring. Seeing the concrete ledges, they wanted to know what parts of it were, in fact, natural. The woman who sold me the noodles assured every visitor that the spring鈥檚 bottom would be 鈥渁ctual earth.鈥 Now, before getting in, they wanted to make sure this earth was also natural.
As I paddled along, I was beginning to realize that Marfa, this tiny nowhere town, was still too busy, too full for me. I was overcome by the desire to get further out.
For the rest of the afternoon, I escaped the sun and the heat of my tent to bask in the air-conditioning of the Marfa public library. In a book called Taking the Waters in Texas, I read, 鈥淭oday鈥檚 resorts are most associated with leisure and recreation. The term, however, also implies a place where one turns for help, a final solution. One 鈥榬esorted鈥 to the waters when all else failed.鈥 As I drove the stretch of Highway听67 to Chinati听Hot Springs, I wondered what I was trying to solve, why I had resorted to this.
I drove two and a half hours toward the Mexican border from Marfa to a bright green valley carved in rock between mountain ranges, home to听the mineral waters of Chinati听Hot Springs. No other cars passed me on the drive. Eventually, I was on a rocky gravel road with no signs or lines, and I stayed on this road for over an hour. My phone had no signal, I had no map to check. I had nothing to do but keep driving. It occurred to me, in my semidelirium鈥攁nd I semideliriously recorded it as a voice memo into my phone, which I could find no trace of later鈥攖hat this is what the desert helps me remember: I am at once completely alone, completely vulnerable to this waterless terrain, and totally empowered, sufficient within it. I have several gallon jugs of water, I have air-conditioning. I am an anomaly.
Finally, spotting a hand-painted tile sign from some other era marked with an arrow, I pulled through the open gate and parked my car. When I walked into the office, Mattie, the caretaker, asked me听if I had come听by myself. 鈥淵ou didn鈥檛 even bring a dog?鈥 she said, looking听baffled. I smiled broadly. Already my feelings were swelling in the air out there, making me suddenly certain I鈥檇 been headed there all my life.
Cleaning is a way to keep things under control. The power of dirt, the chaos of clutter, is, for many people, the source of a basic fear that governs behavior.
The very first thing I did was take a dip in the hilltop pool, which used to be a cabin but听is now flooded with 22,000-year-old water,听water that has never emerged from the ground to be recharged, that was surfacing for the first time as I floated in it. I soaked听beside Tony, who Mattie said had been living in the pool all day. We were the only people out there鈥攖he springs still require a pilgrimage only a few of us choose to make. The isolation made the place feel even more special, cleansing, soul reviving. Later in the evening we were joined at the campfire by John, a living,听breathing, swearing cowboy who鈥檇 been out on the range for 25 days and needed to sleep in a bed. John said that the water, which I learned is chock-full of lithium, had saved his life:听鈥淚f it wasn鈥檛 for that water, me and Charlie woulda shot each other.鈥
Tony took me for a drive in his truck to the Pinto Canyon road. As I rode through the valley, along the ridge, the sun set behind us, and everything looked completely different by the minute. Quickly, it became clear how completely alone we were. A thunderhead sat on the horizon, behind mountains, but never moved closer or further away. Mexico was visible at all times. The fires whose smoke I had听breathed听in Austin the year before had burned out here, all along the border. Mattie told me you could see them听from the pool.
In the desert, the air sucks all the moisture from your body. I听barely felt听myself sweating in the hundred-degree day, with the sun more powerful than any I鈥檇 previously experienced. Sunscreen has zero effect. The only protections are long sleeves, long pants, large hats, and shade. Everything evaporates instantly. Skin has no way to resist this environment. It鈥檚 too soft and too moist to withstand, so it quickly dries, hardens, thickens. There is something deeply satisfying to me about this discomfort, this feeling of being sucked dry by the very air.
The water at Chinati felt oddly charged. I took my first hot bath before bed, around 12:30, under the stars in my own private horse trough听fed by the hot springs. All my skin tingled.
At the hot springs, I did nothing. I decided to stay an extra night, unplanned. I didn鈥檛 have to worry about whether or not my debit card would support this decision until checkout. I was so far from the push and pull of my daily life that I forgot to call Adeena, who was watching my cats. When I reached her that evening, she was panicked. She had called El Cosmico and found out I had checked out yesterday, then she called the hot springs but听no one answered. I told her on the phone that everything just fell away. That I forgot. I spent an entire day moving from one tub to the next, up and down the hill. I read and wrote some notes, but mostly I stood or sat in water that is heated geothermally, a heat that is old and constant. I floated the way Tony taught me, with my heels hooked to the edge of the pool, my body utterly still, my eyes closed, keeping my nostrils above water by breathing in a very shallow range, my body rising above the surface as I inhaled, sinking to the tip of my nose as I exhaled. I could not remember the last time I did this little. I took the waters. I allowed them to permeate my skin, my sunburn, my bee stings and bug bites. I soaked. Marinated, even. Incubated. In my head I tried to describe the perfect temperature of this water. All I could come up with is that it felt like submerging my body in my body.
I kept coming back to the description I鈥檇 heard in a yoga class of tapas, deep meditation听achieved through asceticism or hermitism or just plain isolation. Its听Sanskrit root is the word for heat; Iyengar interprets it as 鈥渢o blaze, burn, shine, suffer pain or consume by heat. It therefore means a burning effort under all circumstances to achieve a definite goal in life. It involves purification, self-discipline and austerity.鈥 Like the Greek root for pure, pyr/pur, which means fire, it corresponds to the earliest, most fundamental way to cleanse: heat. The way the teacher described it, tapas can be any kind of suffering that leads to a release, a relinquishing, a ridding of residues that are referred to in yoga classes as all that which does not serve you鈥攂e it physical pain or irritation;听emotions like anger, fear, or sadness;听or toxic buildup from an unclean diet or lifestyle. Tapas is the burning you feel in your muscles, the discomfort of sitting still with your own thoughts and feelings, and if you endure it, you will be relieved of what ails you. You can burn yourself clean. Dry yourself out. In this way, yoga鈥攂ut any especially thoughtful exercise, really鈥攃an be seen as asceticism turned inward. The actionlessness of tapas is one of the most important aspects.
Cleansing is an unfolding, an allowing to unfold. To become clean is to slip into a state of stillness, actionlessness.
Detoxification of all kinds is a framing process, a ritual with a clear beginning and end, a sense of completeness to the removal, the desire for which derives from our basic fear of indefinite, indeterminate states, like dirty dishes. Cleansing, then, is spending time in this in between, abiding through the transition. Submerging yourself in it to await transformation or rebooting. It was only weeks after my trip that I could look back and see myself in the murk and mire of major change, within which鈥攚ithin the desert鈥擨 never know how close or far I am from the edge until I reach it.
Back from the springs the following week, drinking detox tea I鈥檇 bought in Marfa, anise and cardamom, while the Roomba hummed and vacuumed my three-room house in incomprehensible patterns, I still thought about the water. I missed it intensely. I brought as much as I could back home with me, to give to friends as a cure-all. They laughed with me about the lithium content that keeps everyone out there so happy, but I wasn鈥檛 kidding. I went to McCoy鈥檚 Building Supply and bought myself a steel horse trough, what would amount to a failed attempt to recreate the springs in my backyard. It soon became a mosquito habitat. Like before, I busied myself with cures and remedies and destinations and projects, but I was starting to learn that I really just needed to sit still.
Cleansing is an unfolding, an allowing to unfold. To become clean is to slip into a state of stillness, actionlessness. I was rubbing handfuls of aloe all over my body. I was trying to prevent scarring. I tried to salve my heart through my very skin. Do we pray in times of need because it, too, takes us out of the realm of swift, decisive action and reaction, requires that we stay in one place for a moment, find stillness?
The hot springs are far from everything. The nearest store is a gas station at least an hour鈥檚 drive away. There鈥檚 no cell-phone service, no internet. I鈥檝e never been someplace so isolated. When I called to book my stay, I informed Dianna, the owner, that I鈥檇 be coming alone. I asked if I should be worried about safety. 鈥淥h honey,鈥 she said, 鈥渘ot out here.鈥 We allow ourselves to forget this simple fact, that our bodies are susceptible to everything that surrounds them, but such awareness is always available in moments of stillness. In removal, pause, there is time for heat deep below the surface to remake what鈥檚 already there.