The time I drove to Coachella and talked to a 12 year old about vermiculture

Yes I know that Coachella is going to be awesome this year. I saw the line up. But sadly, I have to work the first weekend and I can't justify spending 300 bucks for a festival anyway. I realize how lame that makes me sound. But such is the life of a non-profit worker. I never want it to come down to music or food... mostly because I'm afraid of what I'll actually choose in that scenario.

With each trip out east, I am constantly reminded how much I adore the desert. Seriously adore. The mountains seem to break out of nowhere, and yet the horizon is still incredibly massive.

I arrived at a middle school a bit northeast of where we were staying, and was greeted by temperatures far below what I had anticipated. Yes I suppose it was the end of January, but I thought we were in a desert... I digress.

We gave a series of assemblies in the morning, focusing mostly on food waste and waste reduction, since that's was the initiative happening on their campus. While a little rowdy (who would expect 250 middle schoolers to sit quietly on the floor of the gym and watch some lady talk for an hour?!), the kids seemed interested, if not merely entertained.

A slightly pudgy boy sat next to me at lunch, his tray full of pre-packaged cafeteria food. Without even really looking at me, he started speaking.

"You know what's awesome? When I get home, my nana makes me a snack. Usually something Mexican, I'm Mexican. My parents' family still lives there and I see them sometimes. We will drive it isn't too far.  I'll eat everything on the plate. But if I don't, I take the scraps and dump them into the bin."

"OK, what?" I thought, staring at this kid.

"And then, in a few months, the worms-- they poop it out and i sprinkle the worm poop on my garden! I share it with my mom because it makes her flowers grow" He continued, his eyes getting wide with enthusiasm.

"He's worm composting!" I realized

"Hey, how long have you been doing that for? Feeding the worms with your scraps, I mean."

"Oh" he thought for a moment " for a while now. My mom doesn't mind it because it helps her flowers grow, and it doesn't smell and as long as I take care of the worms she's ok with it."

We spoke for almost an hour. Ok, he did most of the talking, without ever taking his eyes off of his food. It was very peculiar, and very awesome.

But then something even more awesome happened. When he finished with his food, he stacked everything on his tray into two categories: things that could be recycled and things that were trashed. And then he went around to everyone at the table and collected their used items, all the time sorting them. And he placed them into the correct bins, fist-bumping the teacher who was monitoring the process.  He came back to the table and sat down next to me, with a goofy smile.

"Do you always do that?" I asked. I knew that there was an environmental club on campus, but he wasn't wearing one of their shirts.

"No" he said, "But after today, after seeing you guys talk, I think I will start. They all know me anyway. You should start worm composting."

The time I woke up at 5:30 and drove for 2 hours to the high desert for coffee

OK. It wasn't just for coffee.

But that certainly sounds better than "I drove 2 hours to the high desert to give an assembly on climate change."

But, in typical Jess fashion, I researched a local coffeeshop before I left LA, and drove through the rain, up the mountain to this tiny little coffeeshop with blue couches and surprisingly delicious coffee, arriving 3 hours before my appointed time.

The drive to the high desert is striking. I've seen it in broad daylight, with clear skies and high winds. But this morning, I drove through a rain storm. There is only one road that goes through the mountains, and it's framed by foothills that rise out of nowhere, creating drastic valleys and canyons of light pink rock. The fog was heavy, and while the mountains loomed not far at all on the horizon, they were hidden through the thick shroud until I drove around a corner or down into a canyon and suddenly they would appear, massive and grey and endless. They seemed to be visual echoes of one another, dark blue, then paler and paler in the distance, until you only see a faded outline, thousands of feet in the sky.

For some reason, the scenery reminded me of the small village I visited outside of Naples 5 years ago, around this time. Perhaps it was the drama of the foothills. I spent the majority of my drive reflecting on the courage that was elicited while traveling alone for so long. It's interesting, the layers of ourselves that come out unexpectedly-- rising so quietly that you don't even realize who you're becoming until you're already there, or maybe (in my case) you're already past it, and you look back and realize how brave you actually were. I'm not sure if that makes any sense.

Back at the coffeeshop, I overhear a conversation between three mothers, talking about their children going off to college. One of them tells a story about creating a fake instagram account, posing as a hot blonde from San Diego, to keep tabs on her son while he's away. Genius. and Hilarious.  I'm so glad these things didn't exist while I was in school.  Kids beware.

Across from me sits a young man, and he's twirling his pen like I used to imagine all my favorite writers would before writing a novel or a poem. I wonder what it must be like, growing up in a town like this. It reminds me a lot of where I grew up, actually, except maybe more depressed. It could just be the rain though. And the lack of trees.

(UPDATE: He was writing a poem.)