I promised to write this a well over a year ago. I am a decent writer and I think it comes from being a decent bullshitter (you know, convincing people you actually know what you are talking about when you don’t) which is a great skill for job interviews and cover letters but not useful when conjuring heartfelt reflections. You can’t fake that… Or at least I can’t. So every time I sat down in front of a blinking cursor I drew blank. What could I say? What was important to say? What was the story I was trying to tell? Why did it matter? All of those answers failed to solidify. So, I’d save any little tid-bits I managed to scrape out and leave it until next time. Some of those snippets might find their way into this piece but I don’t know yet… and that is where I found the power to write: the not knowing. You see this is a story of what I do know and the understanding that what I don’t know doesn’t totally matter because, well, that’s life.
You can physically go to East Jesus. You’ll pull up (hopefully on the right side of the driveway), step out of your air conditioning, and tentatively meander into the art garden. Typically you’ll get a tour and if you are feeling curious or social, hang around a bit afterward to talk to a handful of misfit residents and visitors. You’ll snap pictures of Cinnabar Charm and the TV wall and maybe even ride the time machine. Some stay a few hours, some stay the night, and that is going to East Jesus. But I’ve realized that it is one of the rare places in this world where you can actually meet it. It is a very live breathing thing (I almost have the audacity to compare it to a microcosm of life as a whole) and I believe that is why I have had such trouble describing it.
I arrived on a dusty Memorial Day afternoon in 2012. As I shyly stepped out of my car and into the sculpture garden one of the tallest gentlemen I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting emerged from behind a wall made entirely of recycled glass bottles. “Hi there! Welcome to East Jesus!” he hollered smiling and striding across the yard arms wide. His faded sleeveless t-shirt bore the name of the establishment and was accompanied by dusty shorts, flip flops, and one of those black top hats you get at a cheap Halloween store. There was a plastic sheriff badge affixed to the front of the hat. Clearly he meant business but had a sense of humor about it. He introduced himself as Frank and led me on a tour around the garden and eventually into the living quarters.
Immediately I felt an unexplainable connection with this place, not in the sense that I felt at home, but I knew I had stumbled unintentionally through the right door. Reflecting on it now I equate those first few hours to that dream phenomena when you find yourself in an entirely foreign place but somehow you know it is actually your mother’s living room. A twang vibrated at the back of my sternum and I felt I had walked into somewhere very important but I didn’t know why. I was reluctant to speculate. It was foreign and yet familiar, hostile but inviting. I found myself in the rare position of being properly in awe and I vividly remember being silent for most of the tour. Frank even said, “You know most people say things like, ‘This is amazing!’ or ‘Awesome!’” and while I could hardly disagree even articulating that presented a challenge. In that moment I was lost for words… and in fact I have been for some time. As I get to know East Jesus more and more, I find the need to express just how much more incredible it becomes each time we encounter each other. I seek to explain and rejoice this continual growth.
Like anything you cultivate a relationship with you leave your fingerprints on each other. East Jesus contains the fingerprints of so many and has left its fingerprint on so many more. It has the unique ability (as most art does) to reach across age, gender, politics, race, and creed and impact an individual in a very profound way, even if that means you are too freaked out to get out of your car. But what is so stunningly different, in comparison to say, Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, is that it changes often and sometimes drastically while maintaining a sense of continuity and self, a condition most of us are familiar with. . A blip on the website states “East Jesus is Charlie’s personal truth, and truth survives when the rest of us are all blown away…Please, help it to do so.” In that, it invites us into a form of relationship; to participate and celebrate as I believe we are asked to do with each individual we encounter.
Just this year I have watched (and enjoyed) the astounding explosion of edible produce from our gardens, seen the successful changing of the guard with the caretakers, and listened to tales of world travelers around the fire, whilst finding my own ways to contribute, support, and (most importantly) experience a relationship with this place. In my own life I am finally understanding the absolute importance of sharing (be it goods, stories, love), the massive power of the individual and the simultaneous need for community, and the gorgeously generous gift that is the present. East Jesus has been a keystone in these revelations. The fingerprints of others on the things leading to my personal discoveries alone are innumerable. This last year has been incredible, to be sure, but this last weekend I think perfectly sums up, in so many ways what it is to meet this place, and to know it.
Every trip out there is a form of a retreat, but last weekend was slightly special in that I invited my dear friend Gabrielle, out to experience our “experimental, habitable, artwork in progress” for the first time. In December of the past year she and her boyfriend of nearly 9 years ended their relationship abruptly and painfully. Over the last 5 months I’ve witnessed her cope with this event in many ways. It has been heartbreaking to watch and listen to knowing that there is only so much you can do as a friend to ease that pain. I know that being in East Jesus has helped me in some of my darker moments, allowing the space to think, collaborate, love, and just simply be me. I thought perhaps, maybe, just maybe, she could experience a little part of that too. Only she can tell you what this weekend left her with but from my prospective it was profound.
The car ride out was filled with some deep discussions, all of them somehow peppered with experiences of her recent ex. This has been the norm since their split, and understandably so, and I bring this up only to juxtapose those 3 hours with the following 2 days. When we arrived we were immediately welcomed by music streaming from the music room, an Australian offered us beers, and a boy was in the driveway with his mother waving sparklers while dancing. This is real life there. These are the fingerprints, the threads in the tapestry, “Charlie’s personal truth” living, breathing, hell dancing with sparklers! We listened to harrowing accounts of snake slaying, slipped off to the hot springs for a dip, sang along to the songs we knew, and eventually slunk into bed with very little expectation of what the next couple days would bring.
The next morning started slow. With our usual chefs out on the road again I took it upon myself to whip up some pancakes for the group. Guests and residents shuffled in with lovely variations of bed head. When Gabby woke up she offered her services in the kitchen. What was just going to be pancakes turned into 2 pancake variations and a mouthwatering spiced peach/apricot/apple topping. We assured the foreigners that the donkey show in TJ could wait, and that they should probably have some breakfast before hitting the road. A few stacks of flapjacks, a French press or two of coffee, and a pan of peach deliciousness later Gabby leaned over and said, “So you mean, I can just come here and cook for people?” “Yup!” I smiled. She then off handedly said her cooking was the one thing her ex did appreciate. This was the last time I heard him mentioned all weekend… and, in fact, since…
The day progressed. Dreamcatcher did the dishes, Julia gave her love to the local kitties, and Flip and Aaron bantered about their newest project: the game “Cards Against East Jesus”. I found myself giving some of my first tours of the art garden and exercising some of those excellent bullshitting skills afore mentioned. I lead 3 groups of people through that day. It wasn’t terribly hard. I’ve heard Frank, Sue, Flip, and Jenn give tours before so I knew all the punch lines (the time machine, the stripper pole, “’cause this is ‘merica”) but each tour as I rounded on the bottle wall the profound reality of the life in this place struck me. The bottle wall was Frank’s project, bestowed upon him by Charlie. These two men are integrally part of East Jesus, and both are, in different ways, now parted from it. Yet here they were, with us, presently touching these newcomers, and leading my own memory back to the moment I silently followed Frank on my own tour. I heard myself saying, “This is the bottle wall, our most recent caretaker, Frank Redford’s, project…” and explaining how he felt it was time to get back on the road. In that moment I saw my own facet in this place as well, something was shining out of me. All I could think was, “ How could I ever have known that day in May 2 years ago I would be standing here now as “resident” entertaining the guests?”. I was part of this life and this reality.
In between tours we found time to whip up some excellent watermelon sangria. Jenn worked on fancy government paperwork for our non profit application. Caddy, Gabby, and a wandering German (Peter I think his name was) did some major repairs on the art car/pirate ship The Dusty Junk. The sun sank down so Flip and Aaron started practicing for a night at The Range, the weekly Slab City live music venue. Jenn asked me if I would be interested in playing a song by Amanda Palmer called “In my Mind”. I haven’t sang in front of people since high school, and I’ve never played my ukulele in public setting. The prospect terrified me slightly, but I thought what the hell. After Caddy’s most excellent culinary fashioning (I think we will all talk about those mushrooms till the day we die) the lot of us boarded the new and improved Dusty Junk to make our way to The Range. As usual, Flip, Aaron, and Caddy SLAYED it. And I sat there simply thankful to know such amazing musicians. Jenn and I followed with our much less rehearsed but equally soulful number. It was well received. After the night wound down we made a jaunt to the hot springs and were tucked into bed at some unknown hour.
Morning came, and so did more pancakes. We started the day off with a phenomenal fieldtrip up to the International Banana Museum. We returned in time to chef up quesadillas and guacamole for lunch. There was a post lunch drone aerial photography session and then Julia, Gabby, and I drove to the canal for an afternoon dip. While basking in the glory that is the irrigation canal that flanks the northern border of Slab City, Gabby quietly thanked me for bringing her out for the weekend. She didn’t say much but it was one of those moments when “Thank you” suffices. What was unsaid spoke volumes. All weekend she smiled, laughed, and listened in a way I had not seen in a long time. I saw her take the time she needed away from the group. I saw her put a pinch of her love and a dash of her compassion into that peach apple breakfast concoction. More than anything, I saw her. Again I was moved by the incredible gift we had all given her that weekend.
Who’s to say if what we are doing out there is worthwhile. Is this thing Charlie created that we continue to feed meaningful? That’s for you to decide. From where I stand we, the community, have nurtured an entity that had the power to share some clarity and love with a grieving soul by living joyously in each moment of that weekend. This is what I stumbled upon 2 years ago: life. It is what I have experienced there and what I have brought back from there. The depth of it is absolutely unexplainable but stunningly tangible and real. With life comes the inevitable of the unknown. I don’t know what East Jesus will be tomorrow or next year, or how I will be a part of it. What I know now is that it is alive and thriving with the brilliance of ALL who have left a fingerprint there.
By B. Murphy