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Palm Springs

December 31, 2022

I refused to let Dort join a traveling soccer team in high school because I thought it was wasteful. Why trek all over creation to play a different group of girls when you could have a game right in Madison? But there the four of us were driving almost an hour from Palm Springs to lie down and listen to a bunch of noise. Cassie claimed the sound bath would rearrange every cell in our bodies, so maybe it would be worth it. She thought it would be a powerful way to welcome the New Year.

Cassie had struck up a conversation with Melody when she’d stopped by to pick up Grant and me for Christmas dinner at Melvyn’s, and she invited Cassie to join us for the meal. As we sipped lemon drops and ate chicken potpies, I worried Melody would say something about the job offer. She didn’t. That was when Cassie floated the idea of the New Year’s Eve sound bath, and to my shock, Melody agreed to join us. She drew a hard line at the Jeep—Melody refused to be seen in or near it—which is how, a few days later, we all ended up in her silver Jaguar with shiny burled-wood paneling and white leather seats. I sat in the back with Grant so that Cassie could give directions. Compared to the Jeep, the car was so silent and smooth, I felt that I was floating.

“Nice ride, Queen,” Cassie said.

“My husband bought this car shortly before he died. He called up his old friend at the dealership and had it delivered to the ranch sight unseen. A man in his condition had no business buying a car he couldn’t drive more than a few months, but it made Vandyke—and the car dealer—very happy. When you’re falling apart, the idea of possessing something perfect and new is very appealing. We’d get in this car and drive up to Idyllwild or the coast, Temecula, Death Valley, to Lake Havasu and back—it didn’t matter. We drove and drove. This car is where we passed our last happy moments together.” She started to cry; I’d gotten used to her fits of tears and passed her a Kleenex.

We floated up the San Bernardino Mountains and breezed past Yucca Valley, a town I now recognized from a day trip Grant and I had taken to Pioneertown, where all the westerns were filmed. Already there were destinations I’d visited twice. Now I could see where it sat in relation to other places. The map in my brain was filling in.

“These cures can backfire, you know,” Melody said to Cassie. “I once saw a shaman in Putumayo who lived on a hill in a tent covered with jaguar pelts. He gave me some medicine that made me grow a whole new head of hair. What do you say we go to Two Bunch Palms for facials, instead? The manager is a friend. She’ll let me show you the bullet in the mirror from the Al Capone days. It’ll be my treat.”

Cassie said, “I don’t need old-dead-mobster energy today. I need androgynous vibrations.”

“Good lord, young lady. The nonsense that comes out of your mouth.”

Cassie stuck out her tongue.

We inched up the steep incline. Coming from the domesticated coolness of Palm Springs into the wild, instead of the other way around, was its own kind of whiplash. There was more of everything in the high desert: more cacti, more sagebrush, more brownness. The rocks here were bigger and bulbous, turd-like. Everywhere we looked we saw Joshua trees.

Cassie told Melody to pull into the lot near a sign that said INTEGRATRON.

“What is this?” I asked, looking at the odd, white dome-shaped structure in the middle of nowhere. The parking lot was empty aside from a dilapidated school bus that said WE LOVE YOU TRACK across the side. Next to it was a courtyard filled with empty hammocks. “Looks like it’s closed for the holiday,” I said.

Cassie smiled. “Not for us. My friend Sienna works here. She’s doing us a favor to get us in.”

We were greeted by a rope-sandaled woman who was just as beautiful, young, and cool as Cassie. Never in my life had I seen as many beautiful people as I’d seen in California the past two months. Sienna turned to Grant. “Do you feel different already? Since you got here?”

He said, “I’m not sure what you mean by different. ”

“You’re standing above a gathering of rivers deep underground. This is a geomagnetic vortex. You’re part of a metaphysical connection with the earth.”

Grant said, “Well, when you put it like that, sure. I feel like a new man.”

We entered a round space with a ladder-style stairway off the center that led up to the dome. While Cassie and Sienna caught up, we fanned out to read the materials that were on display for the tourists who came here.

“This is definitely the sort of space that needs to be explained in order to be understood,” Grant said. It was designed in the fifties by George Van Tassel, an eccentric engineer and inventor who claimed that aliens from Venus, “Venusians,” took him on their spaceship and provided him with instructions to build a structure that could change human cells to make us live longer; in this way we would become wiser because, according to Venusians, humans don’t get wise until we get very old.

“It’s like we stumbled into a Kurt Vonnegut novel,” Grant said. “Look at this.” He pointed at a sign that said THE INTEGRATRON: A TIME MACHINE FOR BASIC RESEARCH ON REJUVENATION ANTI-GRAVITY TIME TRAVEL. “Is this for real?”

Sienna told us to take off our shoes and climb the ladder leading up to the domed space, where the sound bath was conducted. We entered a lofty room paneled with redwood from the Pacific Northwest. The space was amazing, both airy and cozy, almost like a church. Padded mats were spread out in semicircles around the perimeter, leaving room for the “stage,” where there were massive crystal bowls and a gong.

Sienna explained that the structure, built without nails, was acoustically perfect. “If you stand by the beams on one side and say something, you’ll hear it perfectly across the room. And in the very center there’s an invisible chamber of sound. Go ahead.” Sienna pointed at the tube of light coming from the opening in the center.

Cassie went first. She took a deep breath and let out a throaty scream. For all her lightness and love, I could see—even though I couldn’t hear—that whatever she was releasing came from a dark and troubled place she didn’t share on Instagram. To Cassie, the sound was amplified ten times.

Sienna told us to lie down. She sat in front of her bowls and picked up the mallet. She paused and locked eyes with Melody, a meaningful gaze. I waited for Melody to brush her off, tell her she was crazy, denounce the whole adventure as ridiculous. She didn’t. “B is for the crown, connecting you to the divine,” Sienna said. “This is for you, wise one.”

She made a remarkably loud sound on her bowl that sliced through the air.

She moved on to me. She pointed at her neck. “And for you, G is for the throat. Communication. I sense blockages.”

“And, Cassie, here’s an F for your heart chakra. You’re already inviting the right people into your life to help support your dreams.”

“What about me?” Grant asked.

She paused and studied Grant. “Your sound is E for the solar plexus, for inner strength, autonomy, and personal power. You need it right now.” She backed away. She had a concerned look on her face.

“What’s wrong?” Grant asked.

“Your jinga.”

“What’s that?”

“Too much or too little energy. You have so much energy it cuts me.”

“That’s what all the girls say,” he joked. She was dead serious.

Sienna told us to form a semicircle with our heads near each other and to close our eyes. She made the most unreal sound by rubbing the rim of the crystal bowl with her mallet.

The word bath had thrown me off. Baths are soothing; that’s not what this was. The sound grew and grew, slicing through my entire body like a blade, a series of blades. It was almost too much. Then there were more sounds, and they didn’t go anywhere. Instead, they seemed to gather and expand. The whole dome filled with echoes, vibrations, and humming.

I woke up, astounded that I could have fallen asleep through all that. Grant had fallen asleep, too, although that didn’t surprise me—I’ve seen him sleep through everything. Our arms were effortlessly pressed together. I could tell the moment he woke up from the way his breathing changed.

I looked around the room and discovered we were alone. I was going to suggest that maybe Melody, Cassie, and Sienna had gone time traveling, but the silence felt too sacred to break. We stared up at the beautiful wood ceiling without saying a word. It was as though the sound bath had vibrated all my worries away and opened up a space inside me that I hadn’t known existed. I felt open and clear for the first time in a long while, maybe ever. I knew I wanted to give Palm Springs a try. I turned my head and saw Grant grinning at me. He might as well have been the only person in the world, my singular focus. I looked into his eyes the way I had on Christmas Day.

I saw him not as my partner or future husband or future ex, not as our children’s father, not as a professor or hiker. Not as the man who took off when times were hard, but as the man who came back. If we hadn’t come here, would I have missed out on the opportunity to see him with these fresh eyes? Would he have been new to me again? New to himself?

It was time to tell him about Melody’s job offer. I’d been thinking about it for a week, and I’d decided.

“Want to try that thing where we go on opposite sides and say something, like in Grand Central?” I asked.

“Sure,” he said.

We walked to opposite sides of the room and sat at the base of the giant arced beams as far apart as we could get. Grant said, “ Tap tap tap, is this thing on?”

“It really does sound like you’re speaking into a microphone. Like you’re sitting next to me.”

“It’s always been like that between us, Kim. For two people who’ve spent so much time apart, I’ve always felt you near.”

“I need to talk to you about something.”

“I need to talk to you about something, too.” He was unusually serious. The sound bath had made space for this.

We talked over each other, me saying, “I have an opportunity to—” And Grant saying, “There’s something I’ve been—”

“You go,” I said.

“That job at Creighton? I had a Zoom interview a few weeks ago. It’s just a visiting position, and not much money, but it’s a chance to teach again. James says it’s mine to lose.”

“Omaha?” Our night in Nebraska seemed so far away—thousands of miles and weeks ago—that I’d almost forgotten the job was even a possibility. So much had changed since then. My heart sank.

“I’m not even sure I want it anymore, to be honest. But I’m not ready to retire, and I can’t just hike all the time, even though I’d like that. I’ve spent my entire adult life building my career. And I miss being around young people.”

“Melody offered me a job here. In Palm Springs. She needs my help. She offered me a salary that’s frankly too much. And benefits. I’ve thought about it, and I really want to do this. I’m excited about the idea of trying something totally new.”

“So, you’ve decided? Just like that, without even talking about it with me?”

“And have you? Without talking to me? I’m talking to you now. I’ve decided on a lot of things, not just the job. Grant, I’ve decided—”

I was about to tell him I wanted to get married when he said, “You’re asking me to give up my career.”

“I’m not asking you to do anything.”

“No, why would you ever lean on me, need me, impose yourself?”

“God, Grant! Because I can’t! You always run off.”

“I haven’t done that in years! I’m better, Kim. I lost my mom, my job, my community in Mounds, and I’ve been here this whole time. Instead of leaving, I’ve doubled down. You’ve been the one pushing me away, pushing us to change our lives, and I haven’t gone anywhere. No wonder you wanted to snowbird. You can’t commit fully to being with me any more than you can commit to being in one place. Relationships are about sacrifice, you know.”

I began to shake with frustration. “I did sacrifice! I moved with you to Madison when I found out I was pregnant. I followed you for your postdoc and stayed in Wisconsin. I sacrificed my entire youth in order to be with you.”

“You think you sacrificed your youth ? Ouch. Here I thought you wanted to build a life with me. A life we’d chosen to spend together.”

“Grant, I think—”

“You want sunshine and warmth? You want to live where everyone is on vacation? Fine. After you gave up your youth for me, I won’t make you sacrifice your old age, that’s for sure. You can ride that out alone.”

Before I could say more, he stood, walked to the center of the room, and let out a scream in the sound tunnel that only he could hear. He thundered to the lobby on the first floor. I followed him down, careful not to break my ankle again. He put on his shoes; I slipped on my sandals and followed him outside into the thin air and the bright high-desert sun.

He stormed over to Melody’s waiting car. “You just can’t stand to be in the same place with me, can you?”

“That’s exactly what I want! But being in the same place means weathering more storms. It means that we can’t rely on the high of being reunited to keep us tied to each other. When you don’t have another place to escape to, I need to know you’ll stay and work things out. What are you going to do, Grant? Disappear again?”

That’s the last thing I said to him: What are you going to do, Grant? Disappear again?