“When you’re alone in the desert, you’re ageless, timeless. You start to lose a sense of being contained in your body.” – Nancy Holt

I was saddened to hear of Nancy Holt’s passing yesterday.

Although I never knew her, I thought of her when I visited the Sun Tunnels, deep in the stark landscape of Utah’s West Desert. I felt that we had something in common, perhaps. At least in the solace that I imagined her finding, when she was out in this quiet, strange landscape.

The West Desert is a place that will make you feel small, insignificant, and fragile, especially when the temperature verges on 100 degrees Fahrenheit and mirages appear.

Or when it is incredibly cold and windy, as I discovered on a solo road trip I once took on a lonely Christmas, mourning a lover who had unexpectedly left my life.

I came out to explore the Sun Tunnels with two friends, on one of the hottest days of July. We knew we wouldn’t be privy to the most spectacular display made by these huge concrete structures – the passing of the seasons marked by the rising and setting of the sun within them. But we were excited, perhaps, to find them on a day when we could explore them by ourselves.

We drove Interstate 80, stopping to admire other memorable artworks found in this odd landscape, such as the Tree of Life.

Eventually, after crossing into Nevada and back again, we found the road to take. It was a bumpy ride over gravel in our sedan, and it was a very long time before we were close.

We struck what sounded like an enormous rock. I held my breath for a moment, as each of us had a short moment of terror and panic imagining that we might be left out here for days waiting for help if we’d just cracked the oil pan.

Still feeling vulnerable, I wandering off by myself at the tunnels. I discovered that each was dark and cool inside. Dark lines traced the interior.

The only sounds were the occasional whine of a plane’s engines, thousands of feet above me. Even the car, and my friends, now seemed very far away.

I lay back and thought that this was part of Nancy Holt’s gift to us: a place of healing where it isn’t expected.

I imagined her coming here and working hard, laboring to create these odd and incredible structures, after having lost her partner, Robert Smithson.

I appreciate that she came here after such a loss, and left us with something of such beauty.