I can see why the my Qatari classmates go to the dunes so often. They are beautiful, the way the high desert between California and Nevada, or the Yosemite highlands, are beautiful. Beautiful because they are so harsh, so difficult to live in. Beautiful because they showcase survival the way forest showcase the varied uses of mists.
I think it could get to feeling imbalanced, living in the air-conditioned interior of offices or schools, homes and cars. It can get to feel warped, constantly walking on hard, clean, cool floors, sitting on wooden or plastic chairs. It can get to feel off, living off of the contents of the desert, here the petrol, at home the watershed, but never seeing it, except through tinted windows.
It can make you feel oddly disconnected, to be so dependent on the desert, to be so loving of it, but engaging it in a physical way, surrounding yourself with it and breathing the sand in.
I saw this because this is how I feel sometimes in California about our highlands and deserts, our wild places.
I get to feeling like a balloon, barely tethered to my earth, constantly above but not part of her. I imaging that is how it feels to miss the dunes for my Qatari peers.
Inspirational Quote:
Keep steadily before you the fact that all true success depends at last upon yourself.
Theodore T. Hunger
