Desert View Tower

Sometimes I'm amazed at how beautifully things turn out without any real effort on my part. Verse 48 in Stephen Mitchell's translation of the Tao Te Ching reads this way:

In pursuit of knowledge, every day something is added. In the practice of the Tao, every day something is dropped. Less and less do you need to force things, until finally you arrive at non-action. When nothing is done, nothing is left undone. True mastery can be gained by letting things go their own way. It can't be gained by interfering.

Today I realized how much I've been trying to force things lately according to how I believe they should be. When I quit interfering, I was amazed at what happened.


Today my friend Lou and I drove out Interstate 8 to the Desert View Tower near Jacumba, California, one of our favorite spots. As we've done on visits in the past, we spent a lot of time talking with the owner, a fascinating person. We talked about how he wanted to hire more teenagers to work there part-time and he mentioned he'd hired workampers in the past.

It was getting pretty cold up there and we needed to get back, so we left and drove back toward San Diego. When we stopped at the Golden Acorn Casino for snacks, I all of a sudden realized a possibility: I needed a place to live in my RV during the month of January but didn't want to drive all the way out to Blythe or Yuma or pay $600 or more for a site. Why couldn't I workamp there at the tower for that month? I mentioned the idea to Lou and he was all in favor of it. So, I told him I'd call the owner when we got back.

We left the Casino and instead of taking the freeway toward San Diego, Lou headed the car in the opposite direction. "Where are we going"" I asked. "I figured we'd go back to the tower." Oh, he knows me entirely too well, realizing I'd most likely forget to call once we got back. So, I talked to the owner and we arranged for me to park my RV there with electricity and water hookups and work five hours a week. He also has a piano in the gift shop and told me I was welcome to play it anytime I wanted.

So, from letting things pretty much take their own course, I've now got a free site for January that's fairly close to my mother and friends, a piano to play, and a part-time job welcoming and visiting with tourists to the tower.

Another lesson learned.