Finding Higher Ground

When I sent the draft of my first blog out to friends, one of them responded, “dude you don’t need an editor, you need a therapist, hahaha!” But seriously folks, I could use some feedback & guidance on this whole blogging thing. So far my process… I dictate random thoughts and observations to my phone, then email it to myself where I try to make some sense of it on the laptop. If you want to guide me at any stage of the process let me know. Lets get started.

If there’s to be a mystical thread running through these days of travel It begins here east of Amarillo. The strangest thing just happened. I passed over the state line into Texas on I-40. I’ve been thinking about how much I like the landscape around here. It’s interesting with rolling hills, agricultural grasslands, scrubby bushes on fence rows, and abandoned lots beside wet woodlands. The grain of the matrix here is much finer. Its more interesting than the plains up in Iowa and South Dakota with their mindlessly long, flat, fields of corn. As I crossed into Texas I felt a lightening within me, relaxing accompanied by a deep appreciation of this place. I find a beautiful lake to camp beside. It seems like I’m the only person here, out on the western edge of this country’s rugged belt buckle.

Albuquerque

I admit, I was spoiled growing up. I lived in a region with three premiere botanical gardens. A private garden is different but public gardens should be free, especially in a town with this amount of poverty. Its like a library. This garden is well maintained but it lacks basic plant labels. Instead a gaudy display of novelty brings in tourists and their dollars. There are neon dinosaur robots tucked in the willows by the pond, and an elaborate model railroad with working trains to haul coal from miniature mining towns. Next I’m in the Halloween themed bug house looking for a bathroom so I can shave and clean up a bit. OMG, this should be an interesting photo!

I’m in the healing garden now, smelling mint. Ah. I remember the beautiful walled gardens of Suzhou, China. Their ancient lay out and superb design create mysterious paths in a small space. But my critical side was disappointed with the plant selection of english ivy, privet, and nandina. This garden in Albuquerque has selections of my favorite plants like anemones, peonies, viburnums, and plumbago.

I’m in the zen garden to sit and get some zen. Why do I feel so jaded? Hmmm. A man my age walks by with a kink in his gait. What discomforts and pain does he suffer daily within his aging body, I wonder? A thorny, dead gooseberry branch dropped in the path by the gardeners. A worm is dying in the dry dust. I can tell we’re near the river by an over story of cottonwood, a natural relic in this contrived landscape. I’m sitting by a man-made waterfall feeling put off by this fabrication. I tell myself I prefer the grit and imperfection, the raw realness of the world outside these walls. However, I’m really just a snob. The birds and pollinators seem to love this oasis, they don’t mind that its fake. I imagine they prefer it to the urban desert out there.

Into the Mountains

I’m sitting by my tent making a pour over coffee in the morning’s twilight at 8,000 ft. A long meadow stretches out before me. Last night was my coldest yet, close to freezing. After reckoning with my malicious spirits yesterday at the garden, I found a decent burrito at a locally owned cocina. I hit the dispensary and head up through a beautiful canyon towards the Valles Caldera National Preserve. Getting out of town, the scenery and the solitude, make me feel happy again. Halfway up there’s a fishing access. The Jemez river is steep and narrow enough to leap across, with little rock weirs built in like a staircase. The pools formed were perfect for a dip. I got my soap, stripped naked, and took a bath peaking occasionally over the bushes to make sure no cars entered my parking lot.

The landscape changes to pine and spruce forests in these high mountains. The white oak and currant under-story looks like it get burnt and grazed regularly. The herbs are familiar, mullein, pussy-toes, evening primrose, and bottle brush grass. I’m wondering about this caldera. I’m camped near the edge but cant see it. There’s something mysterious about a high, remote, and dormant crater. My imagination thinks of a world government managing the alien colony there. The area is adjacent to Los Alamos National Laboratory. Hmmm. Please don’t look it up, the squirrels are listening. I’ll pack up camp and get a peek briefly.

Up the Rio Grande

Santa Fe is a bourgeois town. No parking, no bathrooms, all the museums cost money, it sucked. The mix of affluent tourists and poor locals divided along race, and ethnicity gets me down. I’m halfway to Taos now, sitting by the Rio Grande river letting my head unwind. There’s a pretty sedge here along the banks. It has lush, upright, clumping, deep green foliage with bronze yellow tips, flexible and blowing in waves on the wind. I’m driving along this grande river on highway 68, deeper into the canyon for a bit, then all the sudden, Wham, I come up and over the rim! There’s a vast plain a hundred miles across, with big mountains all around. To the right, my destination nestled at the base of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.

Taos is already different. Walking into Noula’s coffee shop felt like I was stepping off a boat onto firm ground. This place is funky. I’m sitting at a two top in the corner squeezed between a gem shop and a door that I will soon realize is the main entrance to a hotel. The hotel is out of a Tom Waits song. Random Southwestern folk art and cow hide sofa adorn the lobby. A curly haired, teenage, stoner receptionist greets baffled seniors trying not to step on me as they ascertain their lodging. Decent coffee shops are hard to find. Perhaps I just need to stay away from large towns.

Here Comes the Sun King

I’m strolling up a canyon trail to the Simon ruins at Navajo lake State Park. I have to say this scenery is some of my favorite terrain. It’s open chaparral with junipers, Mormon tea, and God’s brightest yellow cottonwood trees down in the washes. Giant boulders and rock outcrops everywhere, the sandstone making beautiful curved sculptures, overhangs, and layers of blocks. This terrain is made for exploring, for getting into at the human scale. From a distance it’s mundane no huge cliffs or scenic mountain gorges, just an endless matrix of rock and brush and canyons that gets deeper and more detailed as we go further into it.

Slow down look around take in the context. Hello little chipmunk. Little pine. Gnarled old juniper, you’re clearly related to our eastern red cedar. This exposed sandstone rock forms beautiful alcoves and curves where the stream channel cuts under. The same forms appear up on the canyon walls carved by an ancient stream. Family sized grottoes high above call me to climb but I find they’re only accessible from the rim above. The ruins here were a defensive position used by natives. Up in Spencer canyon, I got lost in the sand and the swirly shadows of an eclipse. It demonstrated a basic premise, to love myself, slow down and take stock of the surroundings.

I’m leaving New Mexico this evening, for now. It’s been beautiful and trying. I see how the cities get me down. I need supplies and wifi so finding a co-op or cafe in the smaller towns is a lifesaver. Taos was good. There’s a little tension between the tourists and the locals but that’s understandable. I can imagine tending a sheltered fruit orchard on the arroyo. The mountains coming across on 64 were outstanding. The Indian land, reservations and pueblos, restrained me. I want to be respectful, passing through quickly, but I’m curious. So much of the state is in tribal lands. I feel awkward, and reticent in those places but I want to connect. At McDonald’s, I sit in the corner. There’s a group of Indian teens, my students age. They’re normal, raucous, kids with phones, horsing around. One of the boys, laughing realizes, “I’m native American, I cant be saying stupid, racist shit in public.” Later, I ask if its just me or does the wifi suck here? They smile and say “it sucks here”. Ahead lies the Aztec Ruins National Monument. It’s the remains of a planed village. The central gathering Kiva, used for rituals , has the imprssive scale of a large theater or church. This ancient pueblo held about 1000 people. It was one of many.

Colorado

Sitting high on a ridge at around 11,000 ft in the San Juan mountains surrounded by higher peaks frosted with a light snow. Fall is ended and it’s entering early winter. I just ecountered my first snow of the season. This is a summertime place for multi-day backpack trips through exquisite meadows. Wondrous herbs of the lilly and the umbel families greet asteraceous seeds that blow in the wind.  Where there’s moisture, I can imagine a raucous, lush, and jubilant meadow that bursts with fruit and seed in August. I like it here, in this ecological zone at the sub alpine edge of the forest. Like Maine, high Appalachian balds, and Cascadian meadows, it a stunted conifer garden mixed with deciduous shrubs, represented by the birch family and the rose.

I’m thinking more about issues of scale and they infiltrate my budding philosophy. These rugged distant peaks, standing like gods, they are untouchable ideas we can probe but too unwieldy to know intimately. These long grand vistas are for dreaming and longing. They drive my motivation and higher impractical thoughts. Back here in the foreground is where I love. With its grasses, flowers, seeds, and little furry creatures, this is where I connect with the land. I want to get into it, nestled in a sheltered grove of spruce, or drenched in a cool stream.

This 15^th night of travel in Durango, I’m in my first hotel room. I’m slowing down. Getting the brakes done tomorrow. Camping twice last night was nice, peaceful, and I got some writing done. I seem to have slipped into a routine. I roll into a remote campsite before dark, get up early, have coffee and have breakfast on the trail. On a longer hike, I’ll lounge and snack till afternoon. Then I head to town to find coffee and wifi. I drive for a few hours, grab a burrito, “rinse and repeat”.

I’m gonna sign off for now to catch up on a troubled world.
I love this Blessing for the Brokenhearted.
Let’s leave this world a better place.

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