A rock feels no pain and an island never cries.
There are days that I get a sinking, uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. It is a nagging feeling that looms in my psyche and plays on my insecurities. This was one of those days.
After six long hours of driving, I approached Page, Arizona, a place that reminded me of adventure and togetherness. Memories of a family vacation in a houseboat on Lake Powell and amazing pontoon boat trips down the Colorado River occupied my thoughts, mixing excitement with my lingering uneasiness. My adventure was about to take a downward spiral towards self doubt, mistrust and anxiousness. I was a couple of days away from the events the triggered the shift, but I could feel the trepidation on the horizon.
I pulled into the parking lot of my next destination - Under Canvas Lake Powell/Grand Staircase. It didn't have the same vibe as it's sister location in Moab. The driveway entrance was gravel instead of dirt giving off a more urban feel and the setting wasn’t nearly as isolated in the wilderness or as majestic. The girl at the front desk was exuberant and friendly with her welcome but the ambiance felt forced, commercial and high strung. The guest tents were grouped closer together and there were more sites than the Moab location. I got a tour of the front lobby area which included a restaurant and fully manicured patio. This was not camping and was barely glamping. It wasn’t an outdoor luxurious campsite or even convenient camping. It was staged, contrived, and pretend camping at best.
My tent was located at the far end of the property, almost a mile from the parking lot. Just a little too far to carry my gear, which was in multiple small crates and bags making it tedious to transport, so I agreed to a lift in my host’s golf cart. Along the way, she told me that I scored the best tent spot, but her speech sounded like a script that had been repeated multiple times. Khaleesi and Kahuna were very hesitant to ride in the golf cart. New things are usually scary to them if they don’t involve bacon or a squirrel. We went over one big bump, and Khaleesi literally had the crap scared out of her; a few small poop nuggets emerged from her butt as she jumped off the seat in the horrifying carriage ride. I apologized profusely as I cleaned up her mess and in the words of my mother, I was mortified.
Once we unpacked and settled in, the day shifted for the better. We hiked a rocky area by our tent, indulged in a beautifully presented charcuterie platter and watched the sun set behind a vast pink canyon. The air was warm and for a moment, all of my problems melted into the earth.
The following days I made a delicious breakfast, woke up to amazing skies of oranges, pinks and indigos and explored the Lake Powell area. On Friday we hiked down to the dog friendly waterfront. It was unbearably hot and the walk to the water was an endless march in the hot sand, reminiscent of the scene in Star Wars a New Hope when C3PO and R2D2 land on Tatooine. Like R2, Khaleesi was on a mission. She high tailed it to the water for some cooling relief, pulling me the entire way. And like Threepio, Kahuna and I complained about the desolate surroundings and woes of walking a mile in the endless sand.
Saturday morning we took a short hike above the lake to the Hanging Garden Trail secret pool. The water was dried up and it was hotter than a monkey’s tail dipped in a vat of boiling oil. The area was pretty with hardened sediment layers stacked high and slanted rocks forming stairs up to the only shaded area. I couldn’t fully appreciate the beauty around me as moments before our jaunt I received a call from the glamping campsite manager. He had sent one of his workers to the doctor - Kahuna had nipped at the lobby host when she walked up behind me. At the time the girl told me that she was fine and that Kahuna barely touched her, so I was surprised at the report. The manager asked that I limit the areas that the dogs occupy to just my tent. I was going to be out exploring all day and leaving the next, so that plan seemed to work for everyone. Nevertheless, I became obsessed with the incident. Was my sweet little pup actually a ferocious beast that needed to be tamed? What had prompted him to react and protect? How could I have been so distracted and unaware that the girl was able to walk up behind me undetected? How do I nip Kahuna’s tendency to protect in the butt (pun intended)? As the day grew long so did my anxieties.
Back at the campsite I made some dinner and packed up my belongings. I barely ate as I was still preoccupied with the incidents of the day. I researched why dogs nip, how to train them to stop and how to use a muzzle. At sundown I was already in my pajamas and ready for bed. As my head hit the pillow and my eyes started to drift closed, a man walked up to my tent. It was 9PM. Who was this unwelcome visitor shining a flashlight in the tent door? The dogs went into intruder alert, barking their alarm. As the man walked up the stairs, my heart was racing with fear. My hands were shaking and I scanned the tent for a weapon since there wasn’t an escape route. In my late teens an incident occurred that made me a date assault statistic. Ever since that ancient summer night, I get paralyzed with fright in precarious situations where I am vulnerable to possible invasions.
The man beamed his flashlight inside the tent and asked if I could come talk to him. As I walked towards him, with a barking dog at my side, he stated that he wanted to talk about the incident that happened earlier in the day. After seeing the hesitation on my face, he announced that he was with the sheriff’s office. My heart was still beating outside of my chest and I was trying to calm myself as he threw question after question my way. He told me that when there is a dog bite in Utah, dogs need to be quarantined for 10 days and that he would need to take my dog. I collected my fears and stored them in a box to be opened later so that I could be calm, cool and collected as I handled the situation. My first verbal reaction was to tell him that he really startled me. He replied that many people get scared when they see a cop approach them. I rebutted that I didn’t know he was a cop at the time, that I just saw some unknown man approaching my tent late at night in the dark and shining a flashlight inside while he tried to enter. He seemed to back off a little by taking one step backwards but he still attempted to intimidate me with his interrogation.
My tactics and tone switched to sweet friendliness as I explained that we were leaving first thing in the morning and heading to Tucson but that I would be more than happy to leave the state of Utah immediately if that would resolve the situation. We agreed that I would leave at the crack of dawn, I would self quarantine Kahuna and check in with him periodically over the next two weeks. He continued to try to trap me into incriminating myself by asking leading questions. I didn’t play his game and thanked him for his consideration of the self quarantine. It was clear to me that he was trying to get a rise out of me, but I was fully composed by then and as my favorite Damon Wayans In Living Color character says, Homie don’t play dat.
Once the cop left, I called my sister and replayed the entire incident. I decided to forgo the two days I planned to spend in Nevada at Lake Mead and head straight to Tucson to be with family. I couldn’t wait to get out of Utah. All of the grounding, confidence and peace that I had cultivated in the past week had slithered out of my body. Instead, thoughts of being violated and vulnerable created anxiousness and unrest and filled the newly formed holes in my mind. That night I had nightmares of people taking Kahuna away from me and sentencing him to death. I woke up just as the sun was rising, packed up the car and hit the road. A small sense of relief came over me as I crossed into Arizona. I was getting the hell out of Dodge and not looking back. All of my desires to spend more time in Moab had vanished. All of my strength to face new challenges was diminished. I just wanted to become invisible and go back to being a rock. An island. Because, as I know so well, a rock feels no pain and an island never cries.
It has been three weeks since I left Utah. I am finally starting to find my way back to trust, openness and and some peace. I struggled to write this post but am feeling a huge sense of relief as I hit the save button. Kahuna now wears a muzzle in public and we have been working on being friendly with new people. He has been sweet as pie in public and is enjoying being in a comfy home, sleeping on a real bed and getting much love from my sister. He and Mindy’s cat, Hilary Kitton, are even becoming friends! I am super aware of my surroundings and keep Kahuna close to me, not just to protect people from him, but for my protection and sense of safety. I am now ready to go back to Moab and find myself. Again.
