The Flight From Deep Springs and the Cult of Starbucks

So. Was the lightening Turkey Day descent upon Deep Springs worth it?

I'm still not sure.

Ben made the interesting observation as we began our postprandial climb back over that lonesome mountain road that the place seemed – well –dilettantish.

"What do you mean?" I asked nervously.

"Well, take that milking barn for example. Now I grew up around dairy farms. I know milking barns. That place was set up for milking machines and a herd. Did you see those pumps on the ceiling? Did you see those troughs on the floor? Those pumps are designed to fit into machines to move milk out. Those troughs are for the cows to shit in –"

"Dad!" said Robin self-righteously. "You owe me a quarter."

"Ooops. Here, I'll offer you a buck prophylactically to cover all the things I'm going to say over the next eight hours driving."

"What if you say 'shit' more than three more times?"

"Robin!" I protest weakly.

"Well, you got to weigh the odds," said Ben. "You got to figure out your priorities. Is a sure buck now worth the possibility of more later?"

"Duh!" said Robin. "That's a no-brainer. You'll probably say 'fuck' too about twenty times. Unless Mom drives –"

"Mom does not drive over the Sierras at night," I said. I turned back to Ben. "Anyway, you were saying –"

"Well, they have four cows and they milk them by hand. And Max told us – that doesn't even begin to meet their consumption needs. It's as though at some recent point they got into this Rousseauean thing – let us be one with the milking! – and forgot they were supposed to be running a working ranch."

Huh. Ben was exactly right there. I also noticed that despite the embargo on girls and sex, many of the LA-based Springers had girlfriends up for the holiday and kept disappearing into dorm rooms with them – no doubt for an invigorating debate on the educational philosophies of founder L.L. Nunn. This, I take it, was fallout from last year's Vanity Fair piece which made Deep Springs sound like a homoerotic paradise.

Anyway, I was so sunk into deep, intractable melancholy as we began the ascent that I could barely keep up my end of the conversation even though it interested me. Maybe it was the desert. Maybe it was the Mark Twain bio. (Underneath the ego and the caustic sensibilities, Clemens was just another one of those sad romantics, forever grasping for martyrdom truly worthy of him.) Maybe it was a profound sense of loss – being a mother is such an odd relationship to have with someone, it's not as though you've exactly chosen to hang out with them, and Max and I are so different that maybe he would never have chosen to hang out with me. Had we ever really connected? I mean, I was a good mother to him, I gave him all the opportunities that nobody ever gave me. But let's say we were cast in Survivor together. Am I someone he would pick to make an alliance with? Probably not.

The other parents didn't worry about connecting, I noticed. They just hung out. Watched the football game. Ate the food that was delicious and could have supported an Eritrean village for a month. Bickered, joked, relaxed together. Let it be.

"Well, it's a good place for Max," I said. "He's seems to be thriving."

"That he does," Ben agreed.

Max and I had had one chance to talk, on the half mile walk down to the solar farm he'd set up, his pet project for the fall along with bee keeping, animal insemination and his two classes – a composition class he hated and a social history of poetry he loved.

"What classes are you going to take next semester?" I asked.

"I want to study Greek," he said. "And world mythologies. Anyway, here's the solar farm." And he spent about ten minutes explaining his set-up to me but being a mother, not an engineer, I didn't listen to a word.

"Is it odd having us here?" I asked.

He stopped and cocked his head. "It's odd having anyone here," he said finally. "It's not you in particular. It's just – so much energy goes into building the community. It's like the community is so strong that it's even hard to form one-on-one friendships. It's not weird leaving Deep Springs and seeing other people. But within the context of Deep Springs, it's strange to have people who aren't really in the community. Disruptive almost. I'm not explaining this right."

"Well, we don't live in the desert with you, Max," I said softly. "But we are a part of this community."

Back in the car, Ben was saying, "I'm trying to figure out what it is about Deep Springs that led directly to the Iraq war."

Paul Wolfowitz's name is one of many alumni names on a plaque alongside the mess hall. He had given generously; Deep Springs was grateful.

William Vollman's was not. But he was coming back to Deep Springs next fall to do a scholar in residency. I liked the thought that Max would get to hang out with William Vollman. Rescuing fourteen-year-old girls from Bangkok brothels – always cool.

The rest of the drive home was nightmarish. We cut off 395 on to a road that winded around Lake Isabella, aiming towards Bakersfield – but just outside Dust Bowl Central, a big flashing sign on the road informed us: Road Closed. So then we had to snake towards the central valley on a tiny little scratch on the map, Highway 155, which skirted the edge of Sequoia National forest in a series of hairpin turns and rollercoaster thousand foot climbs and plunges. Pitch black sky. No artificial lighting of any kind. We drove past an accident where a car had flipped on to its roof. Our brakes began burning asbestos. Eight hours turned into twelve. Finally, 155 deposited us in Delano where the smell of manure was putrid and thick. We lurched onward to Tulare and grabbed a motel room for the night.

Woke up the next morning and could still smell the manure. How do people live with that smell everywhere? Do you finally get to a point where you're able to filter it out if you live there long enough? I'll always remember Tulare as place where I finally converted to the cult of Starbucks because when you're up at 6 the next morning and the whole world smells like cow shit and you've got to get the hell out, you need strong, strong coffee. And if they're playing Charles Aznavour in the background while they're pouring it for you, that's a plus.