Reflecting on Two Years of Desert Living

Over the weekend we celebrated two years of full-time desert living. We moved for a variety of reasons—a lower cost of living (though coming from San Francisco most places are), a desire to be more connected to nature, to work remotely as freelance designers, and simply because every time we came to Joshua Tree it broke our hearts to leave. Our expectations of the move from city to rural were copious. We dreamt that every day we’d do yoga, hike, and read books. It would be like an extended yoga retreat of sorts. But we forgot one important thing: no matter the location, our lives in fact remain our lives. We still work, we still sleep, eat, create, and play. Contrary to what we expected, we don’t do less because we live in the desert—what has changed is how we do things, and of course the insane landscape and view between point A and point B.

Desert life has offered us the opportunity to slow ordinary moments of each day down—to spend time with a morning ritual, to host our friends with a home cooked meal. We feel so at home here, and so at peace… yet we’re doing more than we ever have. It’s amazing how such a quiet and remote place has been able to creatively fill us up.

On Loneliness

We’re often asked if we find ourselves to be lonely living out here. It’s a common and valid question, but the answer is not at all. We’ve found an intimate and creative community to be inspired by, and have loved creating our own entertainment together. Instead of nights out at bars (unless it’s Pappy’s), we find ourselves at campfires looking up at the stars, or on evening hikes with a beer. While the places we gather have definitely shifted, our social lives remain intact. 😉 If anything, we’ve become closer to friends that we moved further away from. Spending weekends together has been so much more meaningful than a once a month dinner catch up.

Community

We’ve been fortunate to have Instagram as a tool to meet other people around our age living in the desert as well. We have a tight knit community here of artists, designers, and creators that we’re incredibly inspired and motivated by. If you’re curious about who actually lives here, scroll through who we follow on Instagram—lots of JT folks in there!

The Transition

These first two years have been a transition to say the least. On top of learning to renovate and maintain property, we’ve created our own work, learned about the plants and animals surrounding us, and how vulnerable we are to the weather’s extremes. We’re infinitely more connected to nature now—our days have shifted forward in time to catch sunrise and sunset most days. By the way, we don’t feel one bit of guilt when we practice desert midnight hours (aka 9pm bedtime).

Practicality

To be perfectly honest, we didn’t fully consider the move from city to rural before we moved. During the actual move, we turned to each other and wondered if we would be able to get internet at our new home (luckily, we did). Though, we knew that no move is permanent, and viewed this life as a trial. If we didn’t like life in the desert, we could leave. Two years later, we can’t imagine living anywhere else. But don’t get us wrong—life here is not the magical yoga retreat we envisioned. While many come here for retreats, vacations, and life celebrations, this is where we work, and experiences all of life’s ups and downs. Living in a vacation land can be a tricky balance—tempting as it is to take days off when friends come into town, we feel set back in our work when we do.

Groceries in the Desert

We’re also often asked about food here, specifically where we get our groceries. While it may sometimes look like we live in the middle of nowhere, we do live between two larger towns (Yucca Valley and Twentynine Palms) which both have tons of grocery stores, and just about every chain store you could imagine. We love living in Joshua Tree where most shops are locally owned and run, but admit that the convenience of everything else we would need just 15 mins away makes life much easier. In town, we love heading to the weekend Farmer’s market (every Saturday), and the health food market in the same parking lot for loose leaf teas, the tastiest hummus, and local kombucha.

Wildlife

The plants and animals that live in our garden and surrounding landscape are our new neighbors. On a daily basis we see cottontail rabbits, jackrabbits, antelope squirrels, lizards, hummingbirds, and doves. On special days we see coyotes, desert tortoises, roadrunners, owls, snakes, bighorn sheep, chuckwallas, and an occasional tarantula or scorpion. We’ve learned that most of the creatures that came with preconceived ideas of being ‘scary’, think we’re just as scary. We give the wildlife here their space, but have so enjoyed watching them from afar and learning their ways in our new home. We’ve found a deep appreciation particularly for the animals that previously made us feel uncomfortable (like snakes).

The Hacienda

Through our Instagram feed, we love to share bits of our daily life, as well as the two homes that we rent on a regular basis (the House and the Casita). We’re often asked about renting the Hacienda. At the moment, this is the house that we live in full-time, so we only rent it when we travel. Other than that, it’s available for photoshoots year round.

Our Takeaway

We still have so much to learn, but feel stronger than ever. Every obstacle through the last couple of years (and there have been many), have each taught us invaluable lessons on awareness, growth, and adaptability. Filled with both the toughest and sweetest moments of our lives, we can’t imagine calling any place else home.