"Watch out for the damn horny toads!" I wanted to shout at the pick up trucks driving across the sage brush prairie of my Wyoming home. I didn't even know there was such a thing as a horny toad (officially called the horned lizard). But then my paleontologist friend Kelly mentioned the night before, as we camped in the Shirley Basin, that they inhabited the land, along with rattlesnakes, pronghorn, prairie dogs, and mule deer. I felt protective of them, and resentful we were being invaded by outsiders.
By 8:30 in the morning there was a steady line of cars driving down Highway 77 towards the Bureau of Land Management land where we had pitched our tent the afternoon before. They were coming to watch the solar eclipse. Tens of thousands of people were descending on my state, famed for its clear skies and vast horizon. I didn't care the event of the century was upon us. I was too pissed off about the off-roading cars, SUVs, and trucks, plowing across the plain, squashing horny toads, sage brush, and Lord only knows what else, underneath their out-of-state tires. "It's public land," said Micah, suggesting it's a legitimate thing for all people to have access to it. I spouted off about how they'd probably bring their litter, too. "And you just watch, they'll start a camp fire and burn us all down," I added, for good measure.
On my way back from a walk to see our friend Koreen and her son Marshall at their campsite, I passed a young family. They were tailgating from their black Dodge SUV with Colorado plates. They'd come back from a hike down into the ravine to get a better look at the badlands in the distance. The four of them paraded this way and that like they owned the place. I cursed them under my breath.
"Isn't the weather just AMAZING! It's an absolutely perfect day!" exclaimed the young father. It was part public announcement, part greeting. He was tan and wearing a Denver Broncos t-shirt. He extended his arms wide when he said it, as if to offer me a hug. I could see a small gap between his two front teeth. His smile was almost endearing. Almost. "Yeah...perfect...absolutely," I said, with a snarky tone in my voice. I kept my eyes on the ground and kept on walking. It was then that I felt it...a pang of remorse.
As I walked closer to our campsite I realized that I wasn't angry on behalf of Wyoming horny toads. I was afraid. What if we hadn't made it to BLM land because thousands of people beat us to it? I had an image in my mind, a nightmare really, that we'd end up stuck in traffic just minutes from the path of totality. But then we made it to our intended spot and still I stewed because what if the invading throngs crowded us out and ruined this once in a lifetime experience? None of it made any sense. None of it.
Scarcity does that, it crowds out all that is good and true. It convinces a perfectly reasonable adult that in a state as vast as Wyoming there couldn't possibly be enough land, or sky, for her to pitch a tent and watch the eclipse. It's this same scarcity that routinely convinces me I can't possibly get my book published because countless other people are all trying to get published too. And they're all probably social media rock stars who never struggle with self-doubt or procrastination. So, to hell with the whole creative process. The world is a competitive and hostile place. A horny toad can camouflage himself and squirt blood out of the corner of his eyes as a defense, but what does any of that matter when an enormous white Ford pick-up truck comes barreling over him? You see how this scarcity thing works. It's deadly.
Here's the good and the truth of it: The night before the solar eclipse I climbed out of our tent to behold the Milky Way. I spotted a shooting star. It was an unusually quiet night. The wind, as Willa Cather said, never sleeps on this prairie. But on the night before the eclipse the whole land fell silent and asleep. I wished in that moment I had someone, anyone, walking by so I could throw open my arms and proclaim, "Isn't the Milky Way just amazing! It's an absolutely perfect night."
And he would say, without fear of what isn't and aware only of what is, "Yes, absolutely perfect."
In the end it was perfect: from the Milky Way, to the shooting star, to the way the sky grew dark at 11:43 in the morning and a pink band spanned the horizon. Children to the east of us screamed as they danced about. I saw their arms waving in the air and I knew: there’s sky enough for all of us. The world is made more expansive by our many and varied voices- both yours and mine.