On Agriculture, Sustainability Of Cities, And Monocrops.

On agriculture, sustainability of cities, and monocrops.

So if you've lived in the countryside, or even seen a rural village on a map, you know how it's set up. There's a road, the area around the road is peppered with houses, and then behind every house, there's several fields growing grains, beans and potatoes. Most often, there's also a little vegetable garden in the back yard, and sometimes a few chickens, goats, or a sheep. Around the fields, there are forests, and every clearing in the forest is growing something, even if it's just grass that is set to be cut into hay.

It's clear where these people's food comes from, and how big of an area it takes to grow it. It's visible just by monitoring, that for one family it takes a field of wheat, potatoes, smaller area for beans, a vegetable garden, and corn or a similar grain for their animals. It makes sense, these people have inherited the land that can feed them, and they do it. The forests are used for firewood, but also replanted, there are new trees constantly planted, and only old, dangerous and rotten trees are felled.

And then you look at a city, and it doesn't make sense. The area is more densely populated, but there are no fields, no grains, no vegetable gardens, no chickens. So how do they eat?

The answer is – the fields are elsewhere. They're planted far from view. And the food is brought to the people, instead of grown where they live. Isn't that a bit inconvenient? The people in the city don't think so. They make a lot of money, and they can have food delivered to them. But what does it take to produce the food for a densely populated city? That's where we meet agriculture.

In order to produce massive amounts of food, enough to feed an entire city, you'll need a big amount of agricultural land. And, you'll need that food produced cheaply enough, so that when people buy it, there is some profit for you as well. So, you'll want to own a big area of land that is yours to do with as you please, and you'll need big machines, so you don't have to pay for human labour, and all of the profits go to you.

Now, the big machines that harvest food do not work like human hands do – they do not differentiate one plant from another. If you want a machine to harvest your field, your field has to grow 1 single type of crop. Otherwise, your harvest will be a mess, and it will take additional, expensive work to separate usable crops from waste. So, you create massive fields with only one type of plant growing on them.

I remember looking at big fields of wheat or corn, and thinking, neat! That's so much food growing! And it looks so clean and well grown! I don't have those thoughts anymore, sadly. The reality of a whole field growing only one type of plant, is now upsetting to me.

The thing with natural, wild fields is, they feed the wildlife. They have flowers that open even in the winter and early spring, and then continue to produce different types of flowers throughout the entire season, making sure bees have food all year long. They house different insects and good bacteria, they lure in birds, worms, ants, ladybugs, grasshoppers, butterflies, bumblebees, and all kinds of beneficial, lovely bugs. If there's a presence of water, you'll find frogs, dragonflies, and much more birds, who are there to feed on the insects and pick off the caterpillars. You might find a hedgehog, a snake, a turtle in there. All are coming because there are sources of life for them in that field, plants they can eat, or plants that bugs can eat, and bugs are then delicious resource to the animals. Bugs we consider pests, are also a great food resource for the birds and the animals, and their population is monitored and controlled by all of the other animals. Plants rarely get destroyed by pests, or they evolve to defend themselves, or to attract a predator who fends off of the pests.

Now, a field of let's say, only corn, doesn't do that. The corn is pollinated by wind, and the flowers of corn do not attract the bees. They do not serve as a home to many insects, and they do not make a good resource for the wildlife – until of course, they make the corn itself, which is then attractive to the birds. But they cannot sustain life for the entire year. There's only a short window when these crops can serve as source of food.

The area where corn will be planted, has to be tilled early in the winter or spring, making sure every life-giving plant in that area, is dead. Then, corn is planted, and then often weeded or sprayed with herbicide, if any other plant manages to grow inbetween. And they will grow, because no matter how hard you try to kill every weed, seeds are carried by the wind, by the birds, buried deep into the ground, some are capable of growing back from just one single piece of root. You cannot exterminate them, except, by herbicide. And that is what happens in monocultures – in order to fight nature to the point where you establish a monoculture, you have to distribute poison for plants.

After the monocrop is harvested, the field is left barren and void of life. There are no flowers, no food for bees, no hiding places for the insects to hibernate in. Some may hibernate deep in the soil, if they have not yet gotten poisoned, but most will not even bother, as there are no food sources in the area.

Have you noticed how wild fields do not get their soil depleted and  poor at any time? Year after year, the wild plants are growing anew, never losing nutrients, never lacking food. And there's a reason for this – the wild plants are left to wither, dry, lay flat on the ground, and then decompose. The bugs, worms, bacteria and insects in the ground use them as a food source, and after going thru their digestive systems, it decomposes and becomes soil again. This way, all of the nutrients, minerals and food they took from the soil while growing, comes back around, creating fertile ground for a new season.

But monocrops do not do that. Once harvested, the soil remains depleted, the waste products of grains are usually extremely low in nutrients, there are no bugs to aid composting, the space remains empty of minerals and nutrition the plants have absorbed. So what do you do to keep growing? You have to buy the nutrients and physically distribute them all over the field, in order for the next year's crop to grow again. This almost ensures that you will have to do this again and again, and that your crops will only be able to feed on whatever you put there, and will only have the minerals you yourself have put in the soil. The soil itself becomes void of life, because it's those worms and insects and bacteria that are keeping the soil alive and healthy, they're creating an ecosystem where plants love to grow, where a healthy balance of nutrients and air and water and compost and roots is kept. Your field cannot do it. You have given the soil nothing to live off of. There is only a single crop, and it doesn't support any life in the soil. It doesn't feed the beneficial bacteria, bugs, or animals.

But you know what it does feed? The pests. There will always be some types of bugs evolved specifically to feed on your crop, and once you plant your crop over several kilometers, you have given them a perfect food source, and they will not restrain from multiplying rapidly, enjoying what you provided. Your monocrop will start getting eaten at a rapid rate, unless, you spray it with pesticide. So you do, you have to, there are no birds, predatory bugs, animals, or any other kind of natural pest control that would do the work for you or stop the pests from multiplying uncontrollably. You have to poison your monocrop in order to protect it from getting eaten away.

Wild plants are usually good at fending off diseases, because they will cross-pollinate, and some will contain disease-resistant genes that ensure that the next generation of plants will grow stronger. Your monocrop, is carefully planted so only ever one type of plant is growing, same type of seed, protected from cross-pollination, same dna. So when a disease hits, there will be no resistance. Your plants will all get infected. If it's a bit too hot, or too cold, or a disaster hits, or a new type of bacteria attacks, your plants have no way of defending themselves, or evolving into a stronger, more disease-resistant versions of themselves. You'll have to develop a different type of plant on your own, and rely on chemicals again, to stop the disease, to save your plants. This is actually the reason why bananas as we know them, are soon to be extinct, and a new variety is being developed to replace them – they've all grown sick, and there's nothing that can be done to save them, except developing a different variety that will hopefully, be resistant to that disease (but not to a new one, repeating the cycle again and again.)

So, once you've secured your giant fields of monocrops, convenient for your big machines to work and harvest, you've started to notice that you have to spray the chemicals on your fields to fertilize the soil, then to kill of weeds, then to kill off pests, then to fend off disease, and you're in fact, spending a lot of money on all these chemicals that you are now completely dependent upon. And what happens next is, these chemicals start getting more and more expensive. Maybe the seeds prices are getting higher too. And now, you're in a situation where you don't have many options. You cannot grow the same volume of food without monocrops, and you can't sustain your practice with ever-higher prices it takes to grow in this unnatural, diversity-eliminating way. In the older times, people learned to rotate their crops, allowing the land to grow some wild plants and recover from the intense use of agriculture, but now you can't afford to own land that you are not actively using for profit.

This is why agriculture is getting less and less productive, and why we keep needing new agricultural land to grow on, the soil is getting depleted, and land unusable. This also caused by the wind erosion and sun erosion. While the crops are not growing, the land is barren, tilled, and left exposed to the sun, which dries the top layer, since there are no plants covering it, and then the wind dries it even more, dissipates it into tiny particles, and turns it into dust. Without constant and consistent rain – which is rarely available, the soil gets turned into dust. This is a hard lesson learned by the 'dust bowl' example, where the agriculture combined with drought created soil erosion so intense, the people couldn't see in the times of storms due to the dust, and would often get lost in their own fields.

Soil erosion and wind erosion can be mitigated by growing 'cover crops', meaning plants are allowed to grow, or are specifically sown in the times of year where the main crop isn't growing, so the sun and the wind could not deplete the top layer of soil. The plants also help keep the soil alive with insects, worms and bacteria, and keep moisture in, more effectively than the barren land could. Another solution for gardeners is mulching, covering the soil with a layer of organic matter, it can be leaves, hay, straw, pine needles, wood bark, wood chips, anything that will decompose and create food for insects, generate a protective layers from the sun and the wind, and keeps moisture inside. In combination with this, it's important to not till the soil. Tilling exposes several layers of soil to the elements and disrupts or completely destroys the established ecosystem inside. No-till and no-dig methods are protective of the health in soil, specifically for smaller areas.

For large areas, what helps the soil stay safe and properly structured is allowing wild plants to grow, which have deep, resilient roots. You know when you grow a plant in a pot, and you pull it out, it holds the entirety of the soil together, just with the roots? That is what the wild plants are doing as well. The deeper their roots, the better structure and stability of the soil will be. Deep roots can draw the water from deep inside of the soil and keep the moisture level even in a drought. Big trees are also a factor in keeping the soil structured and safe, for example, if you keep trees on the riverbank, their roots will protect the soil from being carried away and depleted by the water. If you were to remove the trees, the water would erode the soil of the riverbanks. They also protect the soil from getting blown away by the wind.

There is a problem of decreased availability of water. We have now extracted so much water from our planet, it's getting harder to find water sources for our crops. And there are thousands of kilometers of these monocrops, making sure that no wild life species can live in that huge area that was once wilderness. This resulted in many species being threatened into extinction, if not already extinct. Bees cannot live on agricultural land, because there is no food. And all of these areas are not being used to feed the people in the cities, no. The majority of agricultural land isn't even used to grow the crops for human consumption. The plant products that the people eat is about 20-30% of all of the crops we grow. The rest is growing crops that feed the animals meant for human consumption. And these fields need to grow crops sometimes for years, until the animal is heavy enough to be used as a source of food. Reducing animal products could easily reduce the amount of monocrops we need to sustain our food sources, by big percentages. But, we're not trying to do that. Instead, the demand is steadily rising up.

Thinking of this makes me wonder if big cities are ultimately, unsustainable. Growing food to be harvested by human hands enables incredible diversity, fertilizing with compost, manure, bone powder, fish meal, and rich organic fertilizers that can be distributed over smaller areas easily. No till gardens can preserve all of the healthy bacteria, insects, worms and ecosystems in the soil. Using mulch and cover crops to protect the land from sun and wind erosion, and to keep the moisture in, can stop soil depletion in those areas, and feed and protect the wildlife and life in the soil. Animals can be used as pest control and as a method of fertilizing – if you leave chickens, pigs, or cows to graze an area and leave manure behind, they will bring fertility to the land. But, you would not be able to grow the amount of food that would feed an entire city, not without it requiring a vast amount of human labour, which would make the food expensive, and unavailable to the poorest citizens.

But, we can't get rid of cities, so we have to keep developing healthier and more soil-protecting ways to grow big amounts of food, in order to create sustainable, resilient and secure sources of food for people living in all kinds of areas. Encouraging people to change their habits and eat less beef, lamb, poultry and animal products would help significantly, since the amount of food that needs to be grown would reduce by a lot. Encouraging people to grow their own food, in rich and diversity-preserving ways, also helps cut carbon emissions by a lot, since this food no longer needs to be shipped and transported. Having people understand how their food is grown, what it takes to produce, and what is lost in the process, might inspire them to change their habits, and put more effort into reducing waste. Because even after destroying all that wildlife and diverse ecosystems – 20 to 30% of that food is simply thrown away. Food that people grow themselves is most often, never thrown away, because then it is a prized produce, something they worked hard on, something they treasure. In case of a spoiled produce, it gets composted right back into the soil, making the waste non-existent.

Home grown food is often at least somewhat affected by bugs and pests, and that is normal. It's a sign of the food being healthy, unpoisoned, and obviously a great food source, since the bugs are all for it. I've noticed home-gardeners, who understand how pests work, feel skeptical about the store-bought food, just because it being so pest free is in fact, unnatural. 'What did you do to it, so the bugs didn't want it?' opens up the answers of how far one needs to go to make the produce undesirable and uninteresting to bugs. You need to go as far as convince them that this is not a good food source anymore. And the bugs acknowledge it, and go find food elsewhere. And we often have no choice, but to buy that exact same food.

Food grown for selling in stores has proved to be less nutritious, grown merely for the visual appeal, storage and transportation, rather than taste. This is why, after eating store-bought produce, homegrown will taste infinitely better, sweeter, with more intense flavour and noticeably better nutrition.

What we'll need to do is spread awareness, learn about the cost of our food, and change our habits to make it less damaging on the planet. We can also try growing food. Make barren areas into wildlife again. Build ponds to attract birds, animals and bugs. We can try making diverse no-till gardens where all of the different varieties grow on top of each other, together with flowers and weeds and mushrooms. Make it a place for birds, ladybugs and bees to gather. Make it friendly to little mice, frogs, lizards and butterflies. We might just help save some of the dying species on this planet.

I did two psych courses where the professors used me as an example for how they were wrong. The first was also about memory. The professor said he was going to list off a “few” things and we were to remember “last many as possible”. He lists off a lot of things then asks whoever thinks they remember them to repeat it back. I raise my hand and start repeating back a random sequence of numbers. I pause after a bit and say I can’t remember the next two. He nods knowingly until I return to listing off numbers. I pause again and apologize because i’m pretty sure I forgot the next two. I finish listing off the numbers I remember. There are 12 different numbers on the board and 4 question marks. Professor laughs. He asks “how did you do that, did you pair them?” I respond, “what? I just remembered them like you asked?” (I was feeling like a good student). He explains that working memory only allows someone to hold 3-4 sets of information. So the ‘only’ way to remember 12 things is to make them 4 sets of things. Fucking dates. 1852, 1904, etc. And like a fool I tried to remember them one by one. We kind of blink at each other for a bit. I point out that I got 4 wrong, I couldn’t remember them. He says, “no, those ones didn’t exist. You got all 12 right.”

movies where someone hears an important message only once and retains all the details….

girl if that were me, we’d be fucked. I have to reread emails like 4 times.

Ava: *grinning as she starts undressing* It’s a dirty job but I promise I’ll see it through to the end.

Beatrice: *starring in shock at Ava* What? That’s not-

Ava: *starts undressing Beatrice* I’ll see it through to the ‘end’ as many times as you want. *winks*

*Beatrice messes up for the first time*

Beatrice: My calculations are wrong?!…OHHHH FUCK ME-

Ava: Sure

Also really depends on how I ‘knew’. Did you tell me and I thought you were joking? Did I see it personally? Did some dude wander by and say “holy crap, there’s a corpse around the corner, I shit you not!”

That Lilith Voice Inside My Head

Avatrice Week Day 2: Injury/Sick

Beatrice isn’t quite sure what she’s doing, standing outside of Ava’s apartment at 2pm on a Tuesday. Well. She knows what she’s doing, but she’s not certain why. 

You know exactly why, Beatrice. For six months now, you have been engaging in the most protracted and gauche courtship ritual I have ever had the misfortune to witness. One or both of you need to either do something about it or resign in shame. For everyone’s sake.

Disconcertingly, it’s Lilith’s voice that she hears. She’s not certain what that says about the state of her conscience but she doubts it’s anything very good. She shifts the brown paper bag in her arms slightly and retrieves her phone from her pocket to make sure she has the correct address. She does. She did the last three times she checked as well. If she doesn’t make a decision soon, she’ll be bringing Ava cold soup. 

She straightens her back, pockets her phone again, and stares at the door. Right. This is ridiculous. Ava is a friend. Ava is a friend who isn’t feeling well. Beatrice is bringing her friend, Ava, pho from the place where they often eat lunch together, because she knows Ava’s order, because they are friends. 

Say friend one more time, Beatrice. You are aware that our clients pay you to use language effectively? That you allegedly graduated magna cum laude from a passable law school?

“You’ve seen the diploma. And that’s not how most people refer to Harvard, Lilith.” 

Middling, then. It’s certainly no Yale.

Beatrice opens her mouth to answer, but snaps it closed as a woman approaches and passes on her right. Beatrice takes stock of the situation. She’s a grown woman. She’s an objectively accomplished grown woman. She’s an objectively accomplished grown woman engaging in a very petty argument with herself on the street in front of a brownstone in Brooklyn while holding a bag of rapidly cooling soup. 

Depressing, isn’t it?

It’s enough. Her inner Lilith isn’t wrong. Although she has a history of being entirely oblivious when women are pursuing her, she has never been this hesitant about pursuing someone else. Well, since she got away from her family and their ghosts, anyway. She likes Ava, in more than a passing way, and she has wanted to be careful. But she can acknowledge that there’s careful and then there’s avoidance so extreme it results in a part of your subconscious taking the form of your harshest, oldest, and most honest friend. She needs to do something.

She takes a deep breath and hits the button for Ava’s apartment. Ava buzzes Beatrice up without even asking who it is, the door clicking open immediately, and Beatrice makes a note to discuss the importance of basic safety practices as she hoists the bag a little higher and climbs the stairs to the third floor. The 

Ava must be waiting by the door because it’s open essentially the moment Beatrice’s fist makes contact. 

“Hi, Bea.” 

She’s smiling at Beatrice like she’s exactly who Ava had been hoping for, and Beatrice feels suddenly incoherent, moving her face into something that she hopes very much at least approximates a smile. Ava is wearing blue sweat pants and a tank top, a green robe with sloths engaging in various sloth-appropriate activities closed loosely around her waist. Her hair is up in a messy ponytail, and she looks a little bleary from sleep and sickness. Beatrice has never seen her like this. She is…adorable. 

Beatrice swallows, opens her mouth to say hello, instead says, “I could have been a murderer.” 

My god. Did you learn to flirt from a true crime thread on Reddit?

Beatrice’s shame burns through her; her face is on fire, her stomach a pit of self-loathing. She lifts the bag and says, “I brought you soup.” She is irrationally proud of herself for that recovery. 

That is not what I would call a recovery but the bar here is obviously in hell, so well done, I suppose.

Ava blinks at her, clearly not expecting Beatrice to forgo a hello in favor of a violent hypothetical. That is, Beatrice thinks, reasonable. She grimaces and then Ava is laughing, “Camila told me you were coming. I promise I don’t usually buzz people up without checking.” Beatrice briefly considers calling Camila later to discuss the apparent immediate chain of information from her to Ava and to request that Beatrice be consulted before information is passed through it. She dismisses the idea. She has no doubt that the conversation would end with Camila nodding very solemnly and proceeding to change absolutely nothing at all about her behavior. 

Ava is still smiling at Beatrice. Beatrice feels this is incredibly generous of her. “Thank you. Come in?”

She pulls the door open wider and Beatrice steps inside, walks the bag toward the the kitchen counter where Ava points. Ava is behind her, moving toward the island, and she puts one hand on the small of Bea’s back to guide her, moving it to Beatrice’s bicep and squeezing gently when she passes. Beatrice nearly destroys the bag, somewhat miraculously manages to get it safely to the counter.

Ava falls into one of the chairs at the island separating her kitchen from the living room and kicks gently at another, which Beatrice prays is an invitation to sit. She takes the hand that Ava places on her knee when she settles in the chair as confirmation. Beatrice expects a brief touch. Instead, Ava’s hand stays. Beatrice is still staring at it when Ava starts speaking, blinks up at the sound. 

“Full disclosure, I did watch you stand outside for minimum eight minutes before buzzing my apartment. It looked at one point like you were talking to yourself?” 

Ava is smirking, hand still warm on Beatrice’s leg. 

“I was. Well, I was also talking to Lilith, but the Lilith inside of my head.” Beatrice pauses, sighs. “Please disregard that.” 

“No can do. I’ll absolutely be returning to that later, because so many questions, but for now, I’m more interested in why you stood outside my house for so long being all frowny and cute.” 

She moves her leg out slightly to press against Beatrice’s. Beatrice can feel the soft cotton of her sweatpants on the small strip of skin between the hem of her pants and her brogues, the warmth of her up to her calf. 

Ava is flirting with her. Beatrice should not be surprised. At this point, only the most conservative and risk-averse part of herself can still posit the theory that Ava may not be interested. Beatrice can be oblivious, but every single one of their mutual friends has expressed to her privately that she’s an idiot for not having done something about this sooner. They’ve also stopped being particularly subtle in shared spaces. Two weeks ago, during board game night, Camila poked Lilith quite aggressively in the ribs when she handed Beatrice a pink figurine to marry in The Game of Life with a droll, “Look, it’s Ava.” While Mary was busy choking on her beer in laughter, Ava had locked eyes with Beatrice and said, in her incredibly earnest way, “Lucky woman, whoever it is.” 

So Beatrice should not be surprised. Unfortunately, the conservative and risk-averse part of herself is the part that makes her a better-than-average attorney, and she pays it considerable deference, so she is in fact continuously surprised and rendered speechless or stupid by Ava’s proximity and any demonstrated interest in Beatrice. Currently, she’s fascinated by the blue of Ava’s sweatpants against the black of her slacks. 

“Bea.” 

She looks up again. Ava has leaned closer, pressed some of her weight into the hand on Beatrice’s leg, which has now migrated to a still socially acceptable, but definitely more distracting, position on her thigh. Her eyes are searching. Beatrice clears her throat, glances away. “Yes. Sorry.” 

Look at her, you absolute moron.

“Bea.” Ava’s other hand has come to her jaw, turns Beatrice back to face her. “Just to be totally clear about what’s happening here—I’m flirting with you. I’ve been flirting with you for months. This,” she takes her hand from Beatrice’s jaw and gestures up and down at herself, “Is not exactly how I wanted to have this conversation, but I just watched you lurk on a sidewalk for almost 10 minutes talking yourself up to come see me and it was stupidly cute and it made me want to kiss you. Lots of things make me want to kiss you, and I thought I should probably just tell you that and confirm that you’d want to kiss me back. Because I’m almost totally sure you would.” Beatrice nods and Ava wiggles just slightly in her chair, grinning big. “Awesome. Unfortunately, I can’t actually kiss you right now because I’m currently still like 30% disgusting, which is better enough for me to have told Cam not to stop you from coming here but which is like the absolute maximum you’re allowed to see before we’ve been dating for at least six months.” Ava’s mouth snaps shut and her cheeks bloom red and Beatrice feels something stir in her stomach. 

Ah. The elusive backbone. Glad to see it still exists.

Fuck off, Lilith, she thinks and, in a show of real progress, does not say out loud. Channeling all of the determination that got her through her middling law school education, Beatrice manages to get it together enough to tangle her fingers in the ones on her thigh and say, “Three points. Or, two points and a question. First, I take issue with your use of the word disgusting.” She tucks an escaped strand of Ava’s hair behind her ear, “You’re beautiful. Second, I respect your boundaries entirely but just so you’re aware, I would kiss you right now without hesitation. Finally, would you like to go to dinner with me on Saturday?”

The smile Ava gives her is perfect and bright and Beatrice feels like she’s done something right in this, which, given how she began their interaction today, is quite the relief. 

“Yes. I really, really would.” 

okay, so, 30 (tourist/knowledgeable local au) go go go

this turned into tourist/park ranger au and is heavily/entirely based on a hike i went on in arches national park years and years ago. slot canyons my beloved. please reblog if ya like it!

“Alright?”

“Great,” Ava says, trying not to look down into the canyon between her feet and the rest of the hiking trail. It’s maybe two feet wide and a long way down. Beatrice holds her hand out over the gap, and Ava takes it. She doesn’t even try not to enjoy the warmth of Beatrice’s hand or the callouses on her palm. Thirsting after her park ranger guide on a group hike definitely isn’t the highest point of Ava’s life, but it’s not the lowest, either, and she’s refusing to feel shame about it. It’s not her fault that Beatrice somehow makes a park ranger uniform look good. It should be impossible, between the pleated trousers and the baggy grey shirt and the stupid, stupid, stupid hat, but Ranger Beatrice is doing it. Ava has been at the front of the pack through the whole hike, throwing in an occasional glance at the shape of Beatrice’s arms beneath the short sleeves of her shirt amongst the views of slot canyons and rocky vistas.

“Ma’am?”

Ava blinks. She’s still holding onto Beatrice’s hand, and has yet to take the step over the canyon before her.

“Ava,” Ava says. “Ma’am was my mother.” She makes a face. What did she just say?

“Ava,” Beatrice says. Oh, Ava likes that. She really likes that, the way Beatrice’s accent turns over the second a in her name. “Just one step. The more you look down the worse it seems.”

“For sure.” Ava decides to let Beatrice think she’s afraid of heights. At least for now. She’s getting, like, major gay vibes, so maybe she can correct that misunderstanding at a later date.

Ava takes the step.

“One small step for Ava, right?” Ava says, looking up from her hiking boots to grin at Beatrice. Beatrice smiles back at her, which is just—devastating. Ava will never be the same.

“One giant leap for Ava-kind,” Beatrice agrees. She squeezes Ava’s hand before she lets it go, and Ava has to clench her jaw shut to keep from doing something embarrassing like asking her to do it again. Or moaning.

They follow the trail as a group as it narrows between two rock walls, then widens again, letting them out into a sort of split in the side of the solid rock hill, rock faces soaring a dozen feet high on either side of them. It affords them an incredible view of the desert out beneath them, sand and rocks and hills. Beatrice stops near the far end of the open space, turning and waiting as the hiking tour group files in behind her.

“Everyone doing alright?” Beatrice says. Ava watches as she does a quick headcount, following along with the numbers Beatrice mouths. If that involves staring at her lips, well, Beatrice probably can’t tell. Beatrice nods a moment later, apparently satisfied with the number of hikers gathered before her.

“This is my favorite spot in the entire park,” Beatrice says. “If you’ll all entertain it a moment, I’d like to tell you why.”

“Go for it,” Ava says. She’s the only person in the group to speak aloud. Beatrice glances at her, and Ava refuses to be embarrassed, offering an encouraging grin.

“Well, if Ava approves,” Beatrice says with a smile. She reaches up and takes off her hat. Several strands of brown hair have escaped their neat bun, and she brushes them back with one hand while the other holds her hat against her side. “My first summer in the park, I was cleaning cabins. I graduated college and lost contact with my entire family not long afterwards. It was a very difficult and confusing time in my life. I thought that I had made a mistake in coming to the US. I thought that I had made a mistake by coming here. I thought that I was in the wrong, that it was my fault somehow that my parents weren’t accepting of me. That it was my fault I was different.”

Gay, gay, super gay, totally gay. Ava agrees with the voice in her head and then tells it to shut up. There’s a rehearsed quality to Beatrice’s voice—Ava suspects she gives this speech on every one of these hikes—but there’s something genuine in it, too, and Ava wants to listen.

“One day towards the end of July—the hottest day I’d ever experienced up til then, being from England,” Beatrice says, “a friend I’d made, a ranger, took me up here. She sat me down and told me to talk to the desert, and ask it if I’d made a mistake. And then she went back up the canyon to give me some privacy. I sat here for ten minutes before I finally did it. The desert did not answer.” A ripple of quiet laughter goes around the group. Ava doesn’t join in. She’s transfixed by the look on Beatrice’s face, a little half-smile that Ava wants to stare at forever. “But on the hike back out I found a tarantula on my backpack.”

“And that made you want to stay?” Ava says. Beatrice glances at her.

“The tarantulas are a very important part of the ecosystem, Ava,” Beatrice says. Ava shuts her mouth and busies herself with the lid of her water bottle. “But yes, it did. It felt like…the desert was calling me stupid for even asking. What does a bunch of sand and rock care if I’m here or not? Have a spider for your troubles, you idiot.” More laughter, and Beatrice laughs quietly at herself this time. “But the people do care. My friend cared to take me here and show me all that sand and rock. And I care to show it to all of you. It’s my job, yes, but it’s only my job because it matters to me. And I hope that it matters to all of you.” She takes a deep breath and puts her hat back on.

“So,” she says. “On the way down the hill, if you want to, I hope that you’ll all ask the desert a question. Doesn’t have to be out loud, don’t worry. The sand won’t hear you either way. And I can’t promise you a tarantula, although some of you may be grateful for that”—no fucking kidding—“but I can promise that the desert won’t answer. And I can promise that that will be more comforting than it sounds.” Beatrice pauses for a moment. Ava might be in love with her. “Are we all ready to start?” There’s a general murmur of assent, and Beatrice turns away from the group, leading them towards the trail out of the split in the rock and down the hill. Ava hurries to catch up to her.

“So,” she says as she draws up shoulder-to-shoulder to Beatrice. Beatrice looks over at her. “Quite the story.”

“I suppose.”

“All true?”

“Of course.” Beatrice shakes her head slightly, amused and scandalized by the idea of lying.

“Got any more stories you’d like to share?” Ava says. “Maybe over a beer or something?” Beatrice is silent for long enough that Ava’s rapid, anticipatory heartbeat turns worried and even faster. “That can be my question for the desert,” Ava says. “If you want. Don’t want. Whatever.”

“Asking the desert to have a drink with you,” Beatrice says. “How unconventional.” Ava shrugs.

“I’m not really the conventional type.”

“No?” Ava shakes her head. Beatrice looks down the trail. “I’m done for the day after this tour,” she says. “There’s not many bars worth visiting around here, but if you’d like to come by my cabin, I make an acceptable gin and tonic.”

“High praise,” Ava says. “There’s literally two things in that drink.”

“Three,” Beatrice says. “There’s lime.” She pauses. “Four. And ice.”

“Sold on the ice,” Ava says. “How the fuck do you do this hike in July?” Beatrice laughs, a sharp, abrupt noise, like it’s been startled out of her. Ava’s hands clench into fists at her sides, trying to catch it in her fingertips.

“You get used to it,” Beatrice says. “Now watch where you’re going. You’ve been missing all the views staring at me.” Ava flushes pink at being caught, but she obeys, turning her head and watching the desert stretch out before her.