Perhaps the closest we can come to stepping outside the bounds of our planet is the Mojave Desert. Here, the world parses itself down to just the essentials — stone, sand, and sun. The Joshua tree, with its twisted limbs, reaches skyward in defiance. In this place, where life should not exist, it insists on doing so anyway.

In many ways, I felt connected to this idea as I chose to spend my most recent birthday here. A milestone of its own, I was reminded of the parallels between myself and the Joshua tree. Its gnarled branches appear to mirror the arc of resilience: growing where it can, bending where it must, and persisting despite the odds. I, too, have felt the sting of adversity and the hardship of survival.

The Mojave carries with it a summons of mortality. Creatures here survive scarcity. The people, too, adapt in quiet resilience, traveling far for water, for food, for connection. The desert asks for everything and promises nothing in return.

And so, I did the one thing I knew to honor it — I photographed it. Living with a rare genetic condition, I am never far from the thought of my own temporality. Yet here, amid the endless sky and the silence of stone, I felt something enduring. My hope is that my photos, in their small way, give shape to that feeling — that I have done this vast and unyielding place justice.