I’ve been doing it for years. Picking up nails on my walks. And other stuff: screws, nuts, bolts, various small hardware, pennies, nickels, dimes. And of course the bristles out of the street cleaner brushes (knowing my proclivity for the latter, a youth at Westminster Presbyterian Church brought me a bouquet of them 25 years ago in a nice vase). All kinds of stuff I’ve picked up in the streets. But I specialize in nails.
For the longest time, I would put these nails on the nearest mailbox or other streetside flat surface — like a driveway pillar or plant holder — just to let the resident know that some caring person had possibly saved them from a flat tire, but then one day I had an experience in the desert, and I started bringing those nails home, each a reminder.
In my present circumstance, I walk about 20 miles a week, almost entirely on the same route — which you should know is a neighborhood nowhere near the city dump. Lest you get the impression I do these treks with my nose to the ground, I affirm to you that I am looking up. I see the sky and clouds, the mountains, trees, flowers, birds, dogs pulling heavily on their leashes, dog and coyote poop, and even the occasional coyote itself. I am not going through my environment unawares.
But, I have a keen eye for small items on the ground. Sometimes they’re reflective, caught just right in the sunlight, though usually not. I see them anyway. Laurie, stepping along beside me, usually does not. It’s a gift I have. I honor it as best I can.
The stuff accumulates. I collect it in a plastic container in our carport storage unit.
Life goes on like this, walk after walk, month after month, year after year. And you would never know about it but for the incident in the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park.
It was March, 2024. Laurie and I drank our coffee and ate our RB Donuts donuts as we traveled over the mountains and down the winding road into Borrego Springs for the spring bloom that was not categorized as super this year, but close. Recommended viewing was out Henderson Road a few miles from town, and we added ours to the line of parked cars and hopped out. There were not big crowds, just handfuls of couples, small groups, or individuals scattered across the hundreds of acres of valley floor.
Marvelous, gorgeous, stunning, beautiful, as we wandered out among them, listening to the birds in the distance. The colors were predominately yellow and purple. There were no paths, trails or limitations. The obvious rule was go where you want, step carefully, soak it up and enjoy.
We were four hundred yards or more from the road, Laurie having strolled off in one direction and I in a slightly different one as we looked for photo opportunities.
And there they were. Right at my feet. There was no reason why I hadn’t chosen a route a few steps further one direction or another, but right there I was. And so were they.
Three nails. Just lying there in the sun, enjoying the bloom, the birds, the breeze, the sky. Actually, the sky was mostly what they could take in from their vantage.
But there they were. In the middle of the desert. For no rhyme nor reason. And there was I, at the very same spot, for no rhyme nor reason. Or is there reason, even without the rhyme?
As I have pondered this happenstance over the months since, I have been infused with overwhelming joy and awe. The universe has a sense of humor! And I (like all of us, probably) have a gift.
Want to go for a walk?
Don Fisher, who with his wife of 50 years, Laurie, has lived most of his days in Iowa and Kansas City, now resides in San Diego, just down the road from two granddaughters. For the entertainment of family and friends, he writes autobiographical tales of questionable veracity. However, in the case of “Even in the Desert,” he affirms complete truthfulness.