Sea Desert Cottage
Creative Non Fiction by Alexis L. Ragan
L.B. Apartment (Circa 2020-2022)
A Sante-Fe wall texture mirrors that of an uneven mountain ridge, or a stack of forehead wrinkles, a patch of dried oatmeal, a pitted scar; such are the walls of my apartment on Granada. At first, I was afraid to touch them. Something about their bareness made me wary of decorating them at all. But then I looked closer and saw the covered holes and spotty patches. The putty knife marks. Aggressive spackling— And I realized they’ve been touched before. I wondered, do all rented walls carry wounds this hidden?
Similar to these walls was my very texture of my heart before Jesus came in and smoothed over the rough surfaces I kept in secret, before He assured me that He would, without ceasing, "remove the heart of stone from [my] flesh and give [me] a heart of flesh" Ezekiel 11:19. This is, however, no pain-free process.
I slowly trace my fingers over the historical mounds of cream-white plaster, purposely flawed for the eye and jagged to the touch, searching for places my art could claim during my stay here. When my father heard I was looking to animate my walls, he gave me a painting of an unnamed desert that has been in the family for years. He told me he used to look at the painting as a child and think that the flowered shrub in the corner was a pack of mice with pink ears. I squint my eyes and see what he meant.
A winter scene in the rural crisp of dawn— mint bushes splayed out across the frosted ground of snow, or was it salt? Orange crust carved the edge of the bank behind them. Hills, the shade of violet, mauve and orchid, traced the powdery sky.
I hung the painting in my living room, directly across from the Spanish style arched hallway of my kitchen, so that every time I turned the corner, it would be the first thing I saw. I stared at it often while curled up on my blue sleeper sofa and well, I just couldn’t figure it out. Each night it looked like a completely different picture. When the colorful light from my balcony seeped in from the glass block window, I wanted to melt right in.
Words from Jesus emerge when looking at this painting, the time He said, "I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert" and though I know this picture holds no visible evidence of water, if this were a reflection of reality, I am confident it would soon come running clear down the middle of frosted landscape, alive, a saved stream, only because I am attached to the lake of my Savior.
And what about the cactus in the corner? Even though they feel prickly on the outside, they hold an abundance of water to drink from the inside in order to survive. Am I like this plant? The water of the Spirit is my internal lifeline. Life may feel coarse from the outside some days, the holy river is still bubbling strong within me. Even in my driest state, I can rest assured that when I look for the living water, it will be there, waiting to refresh my soul.
Yes, Christ is the deepest sea in my driest desert!
Maybe it was the air so close to sea? Or the cracked coral shower tiles? The feel of the cold turquoise tablets under my feet on the bathroom floor? Or the montage of bouquets and butterflies resting above my headboard? The oval embellished mirror in the hallway? What about the empty hooks on the ceiling waiting for a low maintenance plant to drape down and just swing? The occasional spiderweb? No, the dusty guitar? Fermenting fragrance from gram in glass bottles? The string attached to the lightbulb in my closet?
Maybe these things made where I lived, a place to live—with every dent in the wall, every painting to ponder at, each memory attached to the beach, while I lived here alone and worked to find God in me. I put my hand on the Bible beside my bed stand and say a prayer of thanks. For as long as I’m here, I’ll make it home.
Picture by ChasingHorizonPhotography
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