The sun is warm on my face and I can’t deny how nice it feels. I swear I can feel it seeping directly into my skin, as some missing vitamin grabs hold inside. The dirt and gravel crunch under us as we tumble out of the truck. Each of us strapping various bags to shoulders, adjusting water bottles, extending hiking poles, and applying uv protection for the sun.

My mother leads, eager to walk, and we follow. She’s such a sunshiny flower. She carts little bits of trail mix in her pockets so that a bag doesn’t rustle. I get my sensitive ears from both my parents, the wind irritation from hers — my ears screaming in pain under the pull of even a slight breeze, and the uncomfortableness with repetitive or intrusive sounds from my father.

I smile to myself as she has cleverly found a way to make no sound at all and still have her snacks. My father grumbles next to me, “She never stops eating.” I change the subject, as I move behind him on the winding trail and call out: “Look it!” —a familiar family phrase from long ago that will take him back. He stops and looks around wildly, to see what I might be pointing at. “Straight in front of me, be quiet! The bird!” His eyes are looking down for a “road runner,” whereas mine are looking up at this little bird atop a saguaro.

I wonder how it survives here. What it searches for… Arizona looks to be one thing but, the feeling I have, doesn’t match most of what I’m seeing. Yes, this landscape has its own beauty. The green is striking, with little hints of yellow on the ground and blue in the sky, it looks like a movie set. But the more I study it, I find an uneasy feeling welling up inside. Somewhere deep in the back of my thoughts, a voice urges, “Run.”

On the second day, a blue lake appeared, surrounded by rocky, sandy mountain trails spotted with more saguaros. The blue water glistens in the sun and creates the beautiful bokeh I fell in love with years ago. And even though I know I’ve taken a thousand pictures like this, I have to stop and take just one more. People behind me continue their hike and my father waits for me, talking to each and every one. The blue ripples continue to move, the sun is so warm now, I don’t want to get up. I want to just sit here and squint at the water as it glitters. It feels like it doesn’t belong, nestled inside this cluster of mountains.

That feeling stayed with me, following along the dusty wind to “The Compound.” A name I started to use for where we were staying. It was comprised of similarly looking sun-bleached trailers. Each one roughly the same shade, each with a little deck, stairs, and each with a small patch of gravel raked just the same way. There was an order and neatness to it all. A quiet community of the 55 and older crowd.

When I first arrived, the sun had already slipped below the horizon, and I could only see it by light of the street lamps. I felt a quiet unease immediately and marveled at how everything belonged a bit too well. Once inside, there was no horizon line, only trailer after trailer, road after road, golf cart after golf cart. Where the desert had some semblance of life, with the cactus and wildflowers, roadrunners, and ducks on the lake, The Compound felt preserved, like time stopped, like the world stopped. Closed off, seculeded, gated inside. All your needs met, never wanting for anything else, never needing to leave. It felt odd to me, that this was what people would choose. To surrender to the seclusion. That voice deep in my head said again, "Run," more urging this time.

I stand somewhere between the two. Not rooted like the saguaro, always balancing itself, not preserved like the trailers, each one identical, waiting. Just passing through, like I was made of the same dusty wind that carries everything else. My family moved around me, my mother reaching for her silent snacks, my father talking to strangers, and I watched them the way you watch something through glass. Close enough to touch, but with something between us I can’t name.

I am a photographer through and through. I frame and capture, looking for the whole picture. But I look through a small rectangular viewfinder. Suspended in a small window, present enough to see what lies ahead but one step removed from actually being there. I keep coming back to that little bird, perched atop the saguaro. What are we searching for, little bird? And how will we know when we find it?