I Made a Pilgrimage to a Phone Booth in the Desert

And I had people to call.
You have to be really determined to find an off grid phone booth in the middle of the

desert. And I was. I was determined to find the Joshua Tree Wind Phone last week. A wind phone is an altar. It's an art installation. It's a spiritual portal, a shrine and a

memorial.
But most importantly, a wind phone is an invitation.

A wind phone invites you to continue a conversation. To connect with your beloveds. To connect with your own heart and your grief. It invites you to straddle the liminal space between this world and the next. Definitely, not a common invitation.

Technically, a wind phone is a phone booth not connected to a phone line honoring the life of someone who is gone. The original wind phone was created in Japan by Itaru Sasaki who was grieving his cousin who'd died of cancer. According to mywindphone.com, Sasaki installed an old-fashioned phone booth in his garden, complete with rotary dial phone and not connected to phone lines or any "earthly system." Using it, he felt connected to his cousin. After the tsunami of 2011, Sasaki relocated his wind phone to a hill overlooking the Pacific. "He welcomed mourners to visit his phone booth to make calls to their friends and relatives lost in the great tsunami, hoping they would find a connection to help them cope with their grief as it did him."

I first heard about that wind phone years ago on The Moth podcast. The story moved me and intrigued me. Being passionate about grief and mourning and creative avenues for the expression of both, I love the wind phone concept, because it's so clearly an invitation to continue the conversation with the ones you've lost. But I also love that it straddles so many expressions. It's playful. It's spiritual. It's imaginative. And it's liminal and it's concrete.

According to mywindphone.com, which has an interactive map of wind phones all over the world, instructions on creating your own wind phone, and more, there are close to 400 wind phones around the world.

A couple years ago I heard a podcast interview with Colin Campbell, author of Finding the Words, in which he talked about the wind phone he built near Joshua

Tree National Park to honor his two kids whose lives were cut short in a horrific car accident caused by a drunk driver. His story was so powerful and his wind phone ended up on my must visit list.

So, last week, coordinates* in hand, we searched it out, and made a visit.

When you have a long list of people you haven't talked to in a while, how do you even decide who to call on the wind phone?

When it was my turn to "make a call" I sat down in the chair, full of anticipation. It's so hard not to have expectations, even though one of my foundational creativity/life mantras is "Let Go of Your Expectations." Haha. Why is it a mantra? Because it's so hard to do!

In the past year I've lost important and beloved beings. My friends Amy and Terri, both far too young. My first best art teacher, Ed Buttwinick, who owned and ran The Brentwood Art Center. My stepmom, Rita, the love of my dad's life. And my dear friend Ed, the love of my dear friend Madeleine's life. The last three were elderly, but it aches nonetheless.

And then there are the beloved people who left longer ago. My dad, my grandma, my great Aunt Violet, and more.

Who should I call on the wind phone? I asked myself. I couldn't decide.

So, I picked up the yellow phone assuming that rather than make the call myself, I'd just see who was waiting on the other end.

I expected to hear the wind. I expected that it'd sound like holding a conch shell to your ear. (Let go of your expectations, Susie, I kept saying to myself.)

But it was quiet on the other end of the line. I sat and stared out at the mysteriously desolate landscape. The sand and scrub, the strangely human trees, and the round rock outcroppings that filled my view through the booth.

I opened myself up to ... the nothingness. I listened finally, without hoping, without expecting to hear from anyone at all.

It's an interesting thing being a grief midwife. I'm super good at holding space for grief for others. I'm comfortable with all the tears, all the emotions, even the really really hard stories. Turns out, I'm not so great at letting it in myself.

I'd like to tell you I had chills or broke down in sobs. I'd like to tell you it hit me like a bolt of lightning. But, none of that occurred. Those were some of my elevated expectations.

What did occur was a softening. A growing awareness. A joyful reunion. A reassurance from my friends.

Keep going. Keep doing grief. We're fine.

Processing your grief is a constant opening up to the nothingness ... and sometimes the everythingness. Processing your grief is letting go of your expectations and allowing what is to just come. The more we expect the more we miss the mark.

If you ever have a chance to visit a wind phone, do. Accept the invitation to listen and to be with whatever is.

*You can find the Joshua Tree Wind Phone at 34' 07 22 4N, 116" 15 58.8W, 7135 Hollinger Rd, Joshua Tree, CA 92252, USA

I'm a grief and creativity coach, guiding folx to use the creative process to acknowledge, explore, process, honor, and release their grief. I work with my people in person in Northern California and online in 1:1 private coaching, small group deep dive, and immersive retreat programs.