One of the childhood experiences I most treasure was when my father took me to walk in the green and blue mountains of northern New Mexico. I would walk quickly out ahead of him, piñon shells and pine
needles cracking under my shoes.
Seeking untrod ground, I reckoned myself the youngest explorer,
dispatched alone on quests both scientific and spiritual. I lacked
words at that time to describe the feeling these walks created in me. It was a sense of being in a holy place, a place of worship. Cathedrals made of towering firs and ponderosas, me the nine-year-old acolyte within them, hushed and curious. Every few steps I stopped to observe my
surroundings. This practice seemed of
great importance, as if my explorations on those bright, cool days was part of
some grand assignment to ensure that the smallest pebbles and rabbit tracks
would not be forgotten or overlooked, but recorded in some indiscernible cosmic
catalog.
I scrutinized the ancient rocks. Fossils, specks of quartz, bizarre
colorations. I would bring them close to my eyes and strain to comprehend the
mystery of a thing so ancient and unexplainable in the hand of one so young, fragile,
and inconsequential. I remember being amazed at seeing such an old, hard thing
resting in my palm. The flesh of a boy, not even a man. So easily cut, scratched, bruised, made cold,
or subject to pain. I remember thinking that I should pause to take in these
moments, because that particular rock, or twig, or whatever it was, had never
before been held by a human hand. Much less a boy’s hand. But perhaps it had, by an Indian boy long
ago. Not unlike me in age and
temperament, he walked through these woods with his own father nearby.
Specimens would accumulate in my
pockets and make scraping sounds as they rubbed together. I hiked higher up in
search of new finds, unexplored quarries and groves. Roots were woven and twisted through boulders
over countless years, lichens hung dry and delicate from tips of grey branches.
I touched a tree trunk, gently moving my hand between bark and moss. I breathed
in the scent. I closed my eyes and then opened them. I listened to a silence so ancient that I became at once nothing in the midst of it and at the same time
completely a part of it. Every grain of
my body dispersed and settled in its rightful place in that vastness.
I might come upon a small mountain stream, etched between steep
slopes. With great care and relish,
I sidled down towards the water, angling my body slightly diagonally to achieve
more solid footing. In early spring, bright green grass sprouts grew near the edges of the stream, pressed down
in the sandy mud in places where deer or raccoons had stood to drink. Any water I encountered on these walks was a
precious treasure, and had to be approached with reverence. Somehow I knew this. Somehow my father had
taught me this without ever actually saying it.
I would stand on the sandy banks and squat down. The water trickled gently and I listened.
Where did this water come from? What hole in the earth was up beyond, and how
long had it been there? I would put my hand into the stream, and the water was
always very cold. I stirred up sand and
small pebbles from the bed below, sometimes taking up the largest ones and
examining them for traces and veins of gold or silver. A brisk gust of wind blew through the trees,
making leaves swish high up and wrapping me in cold air down below.
After some time I would stand up and dry my hand on the leg of my
jeans. I always wanted to go further, to see what was beyond the next rise or
meadow. This desire was independent of my small self, larger and older than
me. It was as if I was but a vessel for
its will.
But equally strong was the force that compelled me to turn and face
back toward my father, back toward life as I knew it. Our truck, the highway,
the cities and homes and schools I was destined to spend the rest of my life
in. I
clutched the mountain’s keepsakes I had gathered in my pocket. With a long breath I filled my lungs with pine and musk of mountain mud and
started back the way I had come.
High above my head a hawk glided on the wind, its wings still and
outstretched.
