Mesquite Thorns

Here is another post I started around November, and never finished. Perfection paralysis. 

Start post: 

I love mesquite for so many reasons. First, in the desert southwest it is the quintessential tree of life.  Mesquite beans are full of carbohydrates and sugars, and have fed both people and wildlife for as long as they have existed. They provide excellent shade, and they help nitrogenate the soil around them. They are also armored with large, frighteningly beautiful spines, which do an excellent job protecting the tree. 

End post. 

This is not what I really wanted to talk about. The real reason I love mesquite trees is because of a particular memory I have of a field day while working in the riparian ecology lab. It's not a pretty memory. It's quite ugly, actually, and until now it existed only in the space between me and the mesquite canopy along a transect on one of the rivers - I don't even remember which river. It's not important.  

I was working as a technician doing plant monitoring transects. It was honestly the best job I have ever had. We worked outside, 12-14 hours per day in summer heat, only taking long enough breaks to make sure we choked down some food and water before moving on. I would get dizzy and stumble, slur my speech, get horrible cramps, and keep going as long as nobody noticed. I had an amazing ability to always be cheerful and ready for the next task, whether it was slogging through mud up to my knees while doing cover classes of streamside plants, or throwing myself on impermeable walls of vegetation in order to break the next transect. I counted thousands upon thousands of 1 cm diameter Baccharis spp. stems in 112 degree weather while cracking jokes about Ed Abby throwing beer cans to try to keep my labmates laughing. I could do this shit forever and uphold moral for everyone, whether they asked for it or not, goddamit! 

However I was unable to make even the slightest mistake without completely falling apart. That was true for every aspect of my life, but the stakes were especially high here, because the job had become my entire identity. Hell, even my mechanic, who I never spoke more than a few sentences to, commented years later that that time, I was my job. 

In the case of a mistake I would go into full blown panic. I tried to keep it as quite as possible so that those around me would not notice and be distracted, but I was losing my shit. I would have trouble seeing straight, I would duck out of the way and cry while nobody was looking, I would be almost incapacitated with thoughts of worthlessness and self-harm. There was one day that I had messed something up - I don't even remember what it was, and the next leg of the transect led straight into an especially thorny, nasty mesquite tree. I immediately offered to take that job, even though there was some discussion about whether or not it was necessary. I barreled through the branches as quickly as possible with no attempt to find a path or stay out of the way of the thorns. I threw myself at it in the name of science and finished the work in record time. I fell over exhausted under a small opening under the canopy, laying on top of years worth of tiny, spikey branches and letting them stab at my back. I remember looking up at the canopy and the blue sky beyond it - it was so beautiful but I was completely enraged. I reached up and threw my arms across the branches, tearing the skin in what would look like just an average day in the field to anyone who might ask. Someone called me, I sprang up, barreled out of the tree and laughed off the scolding from my lab mates for not being more careful. 

The wonderful thing about that job and mesquite branches is that every scratch, cut, bruise, or gash just looked like part of the job. I walked around for 4 years looking like "a prisoner of war" as a friend put it, and it was perfectly acceptable. Honestly, most of that mess really was just from the job, but it just made hiding that shameful, inexplicable, anger that much easier. 

The South west is full of all kinds of pokey vegetation that one can easily get snagged on, really. If you turn around fast without looking at where you are swinging your arm, an agave spike can really catch your wrist and do some damage. One could accidently fall into a thorny bastard in someone's landscaping while fighting with their spouse on what was supposed to be a date. If you are really, really dedicated to getting the last few lemons from that lemon tree that hasn't been pruned in 10 years you are bound to come down looking like an extra from Sweeny Todd. And that's how it's done. That's how good girls in the desert hide rage. 

So why to I love mesquite trees? I guess I feel they've kept my secret. Looking up at that canopy made me feel safe somehow, that the world could go on around me and never really know what was going on. It all looked like just another day on the job from the outside. But they also represent resilience and strength to me. Yes I feel so rotten and worthless that the only thing that makes me feel better is to bleed. But I'll still be here tomorrow. 

These days I am reflecting on my relationship with work I am thinking about how I have thrown myself on the most difficult situations I could find over and over again. In a way it is a point of pride for me to be able to do what others cannot. It is also another way to distract from a lot of things I would rather not face. Does this mean that my work is bad? Certainly not. I may need to find a new normal, though.