I am from Las Vegas, Nevada. Las Vegas calls to all the outsiders to unite in this seemingly small city. Nothing surprises me anymore. From the time I was ten I could have named 20 strip clubs. My middle school English teacher was once a stripper. I‰’ve seen a drunk man masturbate to billboards of call girls. The lights and constant ebb and flow of dreamers and addicts makes me forget the natural red rocks that surround me.

The most surprising part of Las Vegas isn‰’t the addicts who constantly scratch their scabs but rather the area that surrounds us. The city is consuming but the sheer emptiness of the vast desert that lies at the city‰’s borders makes even the grandest of hotels look small.

In Las Vegas, I was raised by a single mother. I never knew specifics about my father but I know that he was raised in the deserts of Nevada. He loved the red sand, the cactuses, the billowing mountains. It was not until the beautiful singer and songwriter Joan Baez coerced me to retreat into the land that my father loves so dearly that it caused him to recoil from me.

Joan Baez captures the essence of the Southwest in the soulful song “In the Quiet Morning.‰” She speaks of a girl who is tormented by loneliness, much like the feeling one gets when they realize how epically minuscule they are in comparison to the vast Southwest landscape. She also remains true to the real essence of Las Vegas, a place before Jay-Z‰’s club openings and Criss Angel, but rather a place where the clothing on your back was enough to ensure a sense of content.

She embraces the natural in her song “In the Quiet Morning.‰” Her voice is not grandiose but rather sweet and simple alongside the noise of a lone guitar. The lack of fluff is central to this song‰’s dynamic and seems as though she is in the middle of the desert herself and happened to stumble upon a group of vagabonds with guitars. It is charmingly authentic.

The chorus is exceedingly cheerful and consists of the repetition of the words “la la la‰Û. There is a sense of jubilation. I can only compare the chorus to the way I feel when I look at the desert landscape I once detested because of its reminders of my father, only to realize the frailty of human life and its beauty. The rocks that surround me will last far beyond my time and my father‰’s relationship. They have endured much worse than I ever will. I look to the desert mountains and Joan Baez, the woman who loved them so much, to remind myself to forgive because I am just a temporary fixture in the desert landscape.