When you think Palm Springs, you think sunny weather, drinks poolside, and those mysterious “White Parties” the gays go to where, idk what happens? Is it an orgy? A KKK meeting? A stylish mix of both?
there’s a straight version
What you don’t expect is thinking you’re going to die in the mountains like The Revenant, which I nearly did.
The boyfriend told me his aunt and uncle were coming to visit California – Palm Springs specifically, and it would be nice to go out and see them.
That seemed like a fine idea. It’s a bit of a drive, but the weather’s nice and there’s outlets on the way.
don’t forget morongo!
It was also a compromise because I fumbled the invite a few months earlier to Meet The Parents for a week across the country at The Outer Banks. At the time, it was both a money and time crunch for me (a week, off work, plus paying to get there and back).
I was also fucking terrified of meeting his parents. We’d been dating 4-5 months now, and from all accounts his parents were aggressively normal people. Both had jobs – one as a judge, one with a church. Two other also-normal children. A minivan at some point during the 90s. A regular Norman Rockwell painting.
Meanwhile, I was directly descended from apes. An only child from older parents, who’d just lost one, with a cast of characters that make The Royal Tenenbaums look Hallmark. A cousin named Sparkle. A great aunt who fervently believes in aliens. A grandmother who I’m convinced is Mussolini, escaped. And those are the normal ones.
Thanksgiving was lit!
Needless to say, the beach trip didn’t happen, and it was probably the first ever “fight” we had in our relationship (to be continued in another story). So after missing out on that, and a 6-hour drive to see some of his other family members a month later that he threatened to take alone without me, I really had to not fuck this one up if I wanted him to stay with me.
We got up early on a Saturday, motivated and caffeinated, and headed towards the desert. We packed some winter gear in the Jeep just in case – it always surprises people when the desert gets a chill.
We met his aunt and uncle at the visitor’s center, and they couldn’t be nicer people. Smiling, cheerful, upbeat, and enjoying this California weather.
And that was terrifying.
I felt like a ferret dressed up in a canine costume at the dog park.
What if they noticed that I’m a horrible person? What if I let a “FUCK” slip? What if I accidentally told a racist joke about pollacks and then someone says “oh you know my grandfather was Polish?”
I survived this interaction, but this was just the appetizer. I was spending the entire day with these people, the chances of me accidentally slipping into a defense of why “OJ was innocent” or a diatribe on cabernet vs merlot loomed like thunderstorms in the distance.
I pocketed one of the Palm Springs Gay & Lesbian Yellow Pages as a souvenir and hustled back into the Jeep after exchanging pleasantries.
“this isn’t the kind of plumber i was looking for”
The main event was supposed to be a nice hike around the national park, which seemed like a gentle enough afternoon activity. We were to take a small tram to the top of the hill and then what sounded like would be a decent stroll around some woodsiness.
Nobody told me we’d be getting on the world’s largest rotating aerial tramway and scaling to 8500ft.
Nobody told me, someone who’s so afraid of heights I’ve cried atop a ladder more than once in the past five years.
His aunt and uncle bought our lift tickets which was also very nice. What was not nice was that at each junction, the tram sways back and forth while rotating, giving you all the fun of being trapped inside a chandelier during an earthquake without the glamour.
sheer horror
What was also not nice is that my boyfriend had been ON THIS TRAM BEFORE and didn’t tell me that we would be SCALING A GIANT ROCKY CLIFF. He showed me the obligatory picture from his first time that they take before you get on (I won’t share it here, the photographer took it too quick and I look like I have profound disabilities) and he was in a tanktop and shorts with a goofy “Ted Cruz grin” (as he said). Not looking at all like someone who was going to be clinging to a metal bar and slowly spinning towards steep oblivion.
We got to the top of the hill and descended along our walk. Seemed so easy – the trail was something like 1.8 miles and then we’d get to a pretty outlook.
1.8 miles.
Vertical.
Up a rocky, narrow path.
In the cold.
I summoned my inner Brawny paper towels man and off we went.
Every moment of that hike is emblazoned on my memory because my body was convinced I was going to die on the side of a mountain and embarrass myself and my boyfriend in front of his aunt and uncle and I needed to keep a final record that I “tried my best” in case posterity found a way to download memories from my sweated, freezing carcass.
This was how it was gonna end.
Didn’t even get to meet his parents.
Didn’t even make it to that level of the game.
Eventually I couldn’t even crack jokes and just wheezed through the trail, which flattened out for a bit. Little snowflakes fell, and for a moment, all seemed idyllic.
Everything went white, and all I felt was a crunch and searing pain.
I’d rolled one of my bastard ankles, which were stringy and damaged from a childhood of playing tennis (the whitest sentence ever written).
we love our lexus!
His aunt and uncle rushed to my side. “Are you okay?!” they implored, my obvious wincing activating paternal instincts.
I limped along and smiled, even as tears popped out of my eyes and I was trying so desperately to not scream “CUNT” in front of these nice, normal folk.
They offered me some OTC painkillers which, I realized when you’re traveling with anyone over the age of 50, are always on hand.
Did I mention that his aunt and uncle are extremely fit and do these kinds of trips and travels all the time?
My gymgoing boyfriend and I looked like we were on our last legs (myself quite literally) and these people more than twice our vintage were wondering why we were so slow.
Somehow I summoned the will and we made it to the clearing, just in time to take photos.
The painkillers had kicked in, the air was thinner than coke-era Kate Moss, and I was deliriously happy.
I really, really tried to not focus on the fact that we’d have to take the same route back to the lodge and instead just pumped myself up with the false confidence that it would all be downhill from here and there was chili waiting for me at the bottom.
steep!
That chili we ate when we returned was the best chili I’ve ever had in my life.
Probably not on its own merit, but because at 8500ft and covered in 8 layers of sweat, anything would’ve tasted good.
As the endorphins died down and after a still-harrowing return journey upon which I was convinced an earthquake would happen, sending out gondola whizzing into a cliff face, we departed for the aunt and uncle’s suite to enjoy some downtime before dinner.
A couple glasses of wine with the aunt and uncle (now by default, my favorite aunt and uncle!) later and we were fast friends, sharing family stories and making my boyfriend uncomfortable with the occasional gentle deprecating joke (I had to spread the discomfort around somewhere).
We proceeded to eat a gigantic Mexican meal in downtown Palm Springs. They didn’t judge me for having a margarita! (I think I had two?) And then with a drive ahead of us, we said our goodbyes.
I held my boyfriend’s hand as we walked through the Palm Springs Walk of Stars, making sure to take snaps of the Z-listers and Mamie van Doren.
I was buzzed. I was happy.
My heart was full of love for him and this wonderful family of his. I felt like we were the most attractive couple in downtown Palm Springs that Saturday night, and not just because we were the only ones without AARP cards.
I could live a life like this, a life with someone I loved, who made me feel warm and fuzzy inside even after the margaritas subsided.
I felt like I’d passed some kind of test.
And on the drive back, we received a surprise call from my boyfriend’s brother and sister-in-law, and chatted about Christmas gifts like we were, again, old friends.
I was practically family now!
Well, not quite.
I’d lived a childhood around adults and was comfortable with them, but his parents would be really important adults.
These could be my in-laws someday.
Even though I’m the ginger, this was the Royal Family, and I was Meghan Markle (not just because I look gorgeous in white and my mom would be the only well-dressed and normal representative of ours in the ceremony).
true queen
The aunt and uncle would give a good report, and maybe his brother and sister-in-law too. But the most important river had yet to be crossed.
The thought hung like a storm cloud in the back of my mind, through the drive back and the weeks after. It rumbled inside, the anxiety gnawing at my concentration.
It felt like coming out all over again.
I just wanted these people to accept me.
I just wanted them to think I was good enough for their “baby boy”.
I’d gone through such a steep climb for my boyfriend to accept me. I told him I’d loved him before he did. I wanted him to see that my beliefs, though wildly different from his, did not dictate the kind of person I was. That I was capable of being kind, accepting, supportive, empathetic.
I’d spent months wanting my boyfriend to see that I was not alien, that I was worthy of his love.
I knew I’d meet the parents someday (again, to be continued) but I just wasn’t ready. I’d finished one level in Super Mario, but the final boss was further away, like the endless expanse of desert we crossed to reach the lights of home.
While I pined for their acceptance, it made me realize that the person that I most needed to accept me was myself.
In so many ways, I still haven’t. Another step on the ladder. Another test. Another discomfort.
The trip didn’t kill me. My impending desert death was greatly exaggerated.
After all, I ventured into the unknown, up the side of a mountain and back, and the worst thing that happened to me was a swollen ankle and a faint sense of ennui. If I made it through this metaphorical hill that lied ahead in the same condition, I’d be okay.
To think – I could’ve just been bear food in the San Jacinto Mountains before understanding the journey of acceptance I needed to make.
He’d end up meeting my family next.