After considering several different possible directions, we decided to focus on the Four Corners area and knock off a state I had never been to and wasn’t on the itinerary for this road trip: Colorado. The Four Corners region includes a shared border between Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona. It’s a remote corner of our country and requires an intentional desire to go there. The Navajo Nation also covers a large portion of this area and I was interested to interact with the Navajo’s on their land. I knew there was no alcohol allowed anywhere on the reservation and that there were laws and regulations specific to the their way of life. I had read about the rules of behavior expected on their land and the level of respect necessary in engaging with the Navajo people. It would be interesting to enter into a space where I was the minority, where the color of my skin recalled a checkered and racist past, where I would need to consciously honor and defer to a different set of rules and parameters. I was not worried that I would unintentionally insult our hosts, though I was hyper aware of the white mans history of cultural offenses against the Native American people and I was hoping that I would not be looked upon with negative notions.
Our first stop was Monument Valley, the drive here on Hwy 89 skirted the multi-hued Painted Desert, a high desert of badland rocks striated with an artist’s palette of brilliant hues: red, lavender, orange, pink and gray. Once again, the road was empty so we drove slowly with the windows down and the podcasts off, attempting to absorb the radiant landscape rushing by. We wanted to camp in the Cricket that evening even though it was supposed to be a cold night. When we arrived, the first place we saw had tipi’s available to stay in. We looked at each other, neither of us had slept in a tipi before, we decided to check it out. Pulling up the driveway, kicking up a cloud of red dust, we parked on a wide dirt lawn strewn with children’s toys and car parts. A few cars on blocks were scattered about in various stages of disrepair. The office appeared closed and no one answered the phone number listed on the door. An ancient old pit bull limped over to us, nudging his head forcefully against my knee, happy to be scratched behind the ears. We could see the tipi’s behind a tall fence so we went to check them out. They were in good shape. Stepping inside the first one, I found two neatly made cots covered with Indian blankets. A large rug covered the spacious floor. A small folding table held a ceramic lamp. A large trunk held extra blankets. Outside, there were fire pits and picnic tables overlooking the red spires of the Monument Valley. There were four tipi’s total and an arbor covered outdoor gathering space. The entire setting appealed to me. A young female Navajo girl approached us and we asked to rent a tipi for the night. No problem. We paid and moved our stuff out of the cricket into the tipi and made our way over to the Visitor’s center to tour the valley before the sunset. Little did we know that this overnight would we our most unsettling night on the road.
Monument Valley, like many of the sights we have seen on this trip, was initially hard to grasp. To make it more surreal, this valley had been the background for many a famous film. John Ford had set the majority of his western films against the magnificent backdrop of the intricate rock formations of the Valley. So the mind at first wants to process the sight before you as a 3-dimensional film set. At any moment you expect a posse of cowboys led by John Wayne to come thundering down the valley in a haze of red dust. The fact that I had seen some of these films when I was a child compounded my inability to process the panoramic scene as real. We decided we needed to make the arduous, bumpy 17-mile drive through the valley before the sun went down. It was prime time as the setting sun lights a fire on the face of the rocks making them appear even more brilliant then they already are. I was hoping a drive up close and personal through the valley would enable me to experience these rocks more intimately. It took us an hour and a half to drive the deeply rutted road, each pullout offering an opportunity to get out of the car and bask in the ethereal glow and the wholly spiritual aura of this sacred place. Hiking was strictly forbidden by the Navajo code and I imagined how frustrating this was for the curious tourist who felt the need to climb everything in sight.
It was getting dark and we wanted to grab a bite to eat before retiring to the tipi for the night. The pickings were few so we drove a short way down the road and dined at Goulding’s Lodge, an old trading post turned museum/restaurant/motel. Here, I had one of the better meals on the trip. Like an classic American diner, there was plenty of typical fare, burgers and tacos. I decided to get something authentic and I ordered homemade Navajo beef stew with Indian Fry Bread. I felt like I was eating a meal my Grandma made, it had that long simmering taste, a stew with age old secret ingredients. I oohed and aahed my way through the meal, making the nice lady who waited on us smile with satisfaction. We headed back to the tipi where it was pitch black. When we pulled in we saw a fire going in one of the pits, someone else had arrived! I felt a sense of relief, the tipi tent doors close with a series of loose ties, no locks. It felt better to have others around. The new arrivals were a young couple from Australia who were traveling the US in a camper before landing in Toronto for a job. We had a lot to talk about as we shared s’mores over the fire, sharing favorite places and stories. The sky that night was startling in its intensity. The four of us sat with our heads back, listening to dogs bark across the reservation as shooting stars seared like mini fireworks above our heads.
It was time to retire. The temperature dropped and the wind picked up. I was crazy cold inside our tipi, more so then I’d felt on much colder nights in the Cricket. I was shivering and my teeth were chattering but Mark and I could not even snuggle for body warmth because we were in twin cots. I tried to fall asleep but at some point I noticed a faraway light shining in the tent, the door to the tipi was wide open!! How did it become untied?? This freaked me out. I was concerned coyotes, dogs or some bad humans were messing with us and I crept over, heart pounding and re-tied the flimsy ties. Now I lay there, one eye fixed on the door flap. I thought all kinds of horrible thoughts. WHAT were we thinking? Sleeping in a tipi with no locks or security? The dogs howled from somewhere outside and I shivered and shrunk further down into my sleeping bag. Sleep would not come. I got up and rummaged in my bag for the emergency pill, the thing I had not needed to use even once on this trip. Xanax. This would do the trick. I was desperate. Within minutes, I fell into a hazy pseudo-slumber. I remember occasionally waking to eyeball the door flap, noticing it was undone again and flopping back down, not caring (or unable to get up). Sometime before dawn, I heard Mark loud whispering my name. I was aware that I was whimpering and moaning in a high pitched voice, Help Me. Help ME. I kid you not. I was awake dreaming. I felt someone in the tent and they had wrapped their arms around me and were attempting to pick me up and remove me from my cot. I remember the feeling of being tugged from my covers and I was trying so hard to speak, yell for help. Apparently, I had. I scared the shit out of Mark. It’s pitch black in the tipi and he’s whispering, What the hell? Are you ok? I grabbed my phone and turned on the flashlight, scanning the room. Nothing. No One. It was like something out of Paranormal Activity. There was no sleep for either of us the rest of the night. Dawn couldn’t come soon enough. At first light we packed up quickly. When we emerged from the tent, our friends from the night before were outside. They pointed to their picnic table and said, Is that yours? One of Mark’s shoes was perched there, all by itself. A strange sight, as he had left them at the entrance to our tipi. Something had entered our abode that night.
Later, driving out of the valley with the bright light of day cleansing the cobwebs from our eyes, we laughed about the sleepless night and my harrowing nightmare. But I’ve thought a lot about it since. I believe that my discomfort of being a guest in a culture that was and continues to be marginalized and persecuted by our society embedded a deep anxiety in my psyche that manifested itself in a waking dream. We were on the cusp of Thanksgiving, a holiday neither celebrated nor revered in the Indian culture. My sensitivities to the atrocities of the past was obviously making me feel complicit and guilty. I feel like there is a deeper meaning then just the surface interpretation that my anxieties of otherness entail. Maybe those phantom arms were not trying to snatch me away, maybe they were enveloping me in some kind of understanding and my fear was preventing me from opening my heart. Either way, my mood has shifted and I’m settling into uncertainty. Being uncomfortable is ok, I’m ready to accept that tension and see what comes next. That could be a mantra for the rest of my life. 
