TALES FROM UNDER THE PALAPA #5: Just When You Think You've Arrived . . . [By Deirdre Dempsey-Rush]

(Editor's note: This is the fifth in a series about the Todos Santos Writers Workshop, a new under-the-radar program that flourishes in Todos Santos, Mexico. Find previous posts, by co-founder Rex Weiner, here, by Bianca Juarez, here, by Joy Wright Abbot here, and by Nicholas Triolo here. sdl)

Just when you think you’ve arrived, you have a little further to go.

The customs line at the Cabo airport is crawling, and the drive to Todos Santos will add another hour or two to an already long coast-to- coast day. The landscape grows stranger: scrubby, prickly desert rises to soft, rounded brown-green ridges. Above the range, majestic clouds morph and roil but never wander far; the mists and mountains seem symbiotic.

You’ve been driving for over an hour, but there always seems to be another dirt road, another sharp turn, another dip down. In another context you’d at least consider turning tail and heading back to the security of the Manhattan grid. But here you go forward—willingly, almost—deeper into the wilds of Baja.

In Jeanne McCulloch’s memoir workshop, each prompt sent me down a path I thought I recognized. Then the story would confound me, veering off, twisting, and bouncing around before miraculously settling into strange but true terrain. I was able to write about real agonies and ecstasies, to let the chaos of my memory find peace on the page.

One afternoon, after an early class under the palapa, I set out to find the beach closest to my hotel. Walking west, the impatient New Yorker in me expected to find the glorious Pacific any minute. But the dusty road went on and on, past farmland, horses, children—life being lived. Finally, the path rose to an endless expanse of soft sand, a glittery but unforgiving ocean pounding its edge. A blowfish, so shiny and perfect it should have been alive, lay alone on the shore. There was not another human being in sight. I could keep going-- running into the furious waves or seeking out the sea turtle hatchlings. Instead I stood still, closed my eyes, listened. I was there; even if I had further to go.

Deirdre Dempsey-Rush has been writing since she can remember, now crafting stories from life with an eye toward a memoir. She is a madwoman by day, supervising copywriters at a large Manhattan agency.