Dyeing in the Dunes
In a campground in West Texas, there was a woman who was by herself when she set up a clothesline between the metal poles of the shelter. When finished, she opened her camp chair in the shade afforded by the Prius’ hatchback. Her hair was tied back with a silk scarf, the triangle point of which flapped in the ever-present wind in the desert.
We were in a state park featuring sand dunes, which were not elements I understood Texas to contain. She clipped up three pieces of approximately rectangular fabric to the clotheslines, careful not to upend the three metal vats sitting on the picnic table.
Even though we were just across the path, I couldn’t discern what kind of fabric she was using or the subtleties in their color. Her movements were deliberate and she was in no hurry. Between phases of whatever task she was performing, she did not have her neck bent over her phone.
“I mean, she was dying as well, and so am I, but perhaps she was doing both at the same time. ”
The most practical action I can think of is that she was dyeing because that’s the kind of thing for which you need multiple tubs. I mean, she was dying as well, so was I, but perhaps she was doing both at the same time.
That there was sand getting in those fibers worried me to a degree it shouldn’t have, this not being my project. Not earning an A+ on a mythical task being undertaken by a fellow camper should have come second to the contemplation of mortality but, as with the big questions, it was superseded by smaller but more immediate concerned.
I was too nervous to ask what she was doing and she was gone the next morning. Perhaps she finished in the middle of the night. Maybe the starlight was the fixative for the cloth’s new color. Perhaps she was just finished.
I’d like to know. I’d like to see what she made with it. I’d like to know if she’s still alive. But I won’t, and I suppose that’s really the the thing.
We are the grains of sand picked up by the wind and we are carried wherever it takes us.
Inspired by events at Monahans Sandhills, Texas
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