My Ridge
16/11/06 14:32
When I
was a child, there was a sort of freedom that I found
by myself, far away from everything. You touch
reality out there, away from language and money and
all the things that people need to live in community.
I remember exploring streams in the woods. I’d find
creatures and see things that even my parents
couldn’t explain, and to me that meant that those
things were unknowable. How do those bugs stand on
top of the water? What makes the water push out of
the spring and bubble the sand like that? Where do
the fish sleep? I remember asking questions that
produced no answers, and that meant that in this
place, we were equals. If I didn’t know, no one did.
When you grow up, you forget mystery.
For a long time I lamented killing mystery. I had learned about surface tension, aquifers, and “states of lesser consciousness”. I read the field guides and knew what animals I could expect to find and where to find them. And when I went to those places that once held so much mystery I found out that it was true; it was all written down and understood. When you bring something into understanding and you lay it down and draw it out, you kill the mystery; and when the mystery goes, there’s not much value left. Mystery is what makes the difference between something wonderful and something mundane.
I have a place that is mine alone, where no one else ever goes. I went their yesterday because I like the silence.
From a distance it looks like a wrinkle in the mountains, but from inside it is a series of ridges, sharp drops and canyons that break all the way through the mountain chain. My car will take me almost to the foothills, and from there I go on foot. The moment my engine stops and I open the door, I am enveloped in quiet. There are no trees to give voice to the breeze, and the scratchy bushes are all low and tough. They are thin and tight like messes of rusty barbed-wire, and quite nearly as prickly. My trail starts down into a little canyon that probably fills with water when the rains pour down on the mountains. The bottom is made of gray rocks that sound like pool balls clacking together when I kick them. I follow a little goat-trail out of the canyon and continue along the far side side where the ground begins to slope towards the ravine. There are plants that resemble aloes that have points so sharp, they will go through my jeans and leather boots at the slightest touch. The ground is covered with these and little tufts of brown grass that can hold a footprint for days. The round grasses will stay crushed or bent long enough for me to find my own path again for as long as a week. Little thorny bushes are scattered around, often housing grasshoppers and marking jackrabbit hide-outs. Two Joshua trees stand side-by-side in the distance and I use these as markers. From where I begin, I can draw a straight line through those Joshua trees to the top of the first significant hill.
Before I get to the Joshua trees, I have to cross several deeper gullies. Low areas hold thickets of head-high thorn bushes that tore my t-shirt apart the first time I came here, so now I wear my denim jacket. After this series of ravines and thickets and flat land, I come to the Joshua trees. They stand on the base of the hill the turns into a ridge running the entire length of the “wrinkle” through the mountains. This ridge cuts what would be a single valley through the mountain chain into two smaller valleys which fall off sharply on both sides. The first time I came here, I went into the valley on the east side of the ridge, and tried to make my way up the side of the ridge but it was impossible. It was just too steep.
The slope up to the top of the ridge is long and tiring. The grade is gradual enough to allow me to ascend without any climbing, but it is wearing. It is about a mile from the Joshua trees to the top, or maybe a little more. When I had just about got to the top, I sat down on a flat rock to eat the strawberries and sandwich that I had brought. The loudest, most audacious flies I have ever known buzzed in circles around me, landing every once in a while on my food or on my face. I slapped myself pretty severely several times. I tossed a piece of bread to the side and piled the strawberry tops on it and the flies found that and left me alone. From where I sat, I could identify a large building within a block of my house. I could see my entire town, and I could follow the highway from my town all the way into Saltillo, past San Isidro and then where it connected with the highway that runs out to Monterrey. Near my feet a highway of ants ran from a clump of moss that puffed out a hole in my rock to another crack several inches away. It occurred to me that right now, that line of ants is more relevant to me than the highway. I gave them a bruised strawberry and got up. I was almost to the top of the ridge. At my first step, a brown bird that looked like a whippoorwill exploded out from the base of a barrel cactus in a frenzy of flapping and beating wings, startling me considerably. It whirred as it beat its wings and dropped over the side of the ridge, into the canyon. I walked to the cactus and found a little nest of dirt dug against the leeward side. The floor was littered with yellow butterfly wings.
I reached the top of the ridge, and was greeted by the freezing wind from the other side of the mountain. I found a place where I could put my back against a rock wall, and a short tree with green leaves made a roof. The ground was a single, solid piece of rock, and the tree was growing straight out of it. I collected the half-leaves of dead Joshua trees for fire starters, and made a little fire to stay warm. The sun was going down in a display of dark clouds set over a red orange glow, and I collected more fuel for my fire. The air was getting colder as quickly as it was getting darker. I listened to coyotes make their wild cries in the valleys as the orange lights in the city began to come on.
Before long, darkness had covered the valley in which the city sat, and the thousands of points of light shone piercingly and sharp. From up here, it is a whole sea of lights that flows and moves. White stars above me were reflected in the sea of lights below me. The moon began to rise and cast the whole scene in a pale light. It lit a halo of clouds on the east horizon, proving that they had not left with the sun.
But I could not bring myself to take a picture of any of it. If I did, I would have killed something; if I had documented it, I would have killed the mystery.
For a long time I lamented killing mystery. I had learned about surface tension, aquifers, and “states of lesser consciousness”. I read the field guides and knew what animals I could expect to find and where to find them. And when I went to those places that once held so much mystery I found out that it was true; it was all written down and understood. When you bring something into understanding and you lay it down and draw it out, you kill the mystery; and when the mystery goes, there’s not much value left. Mystery is what makes the difference between something wonderful and something mundane.
I have a place that is mine alone, where no one else ever goes. I went their yesterday because I like the silence.
From a distance it looks like a wrinkle in the mountains, but from inside it is a series of ridges, sharp drops and canyons that break all the way through the mountain chain. My car will take me almost to the foothills, and from there I go on foot. The moment my engine stops and I open the door, I am enveloped in quiet. There are no trees to give voice to the breeze, and the scratchy bushes are all low and tough. They are thin and tight like messes of rusty barbed-wire, and quite nearly as prickly. My trail starts down into a little canyon that probably fills with water when the rains pour down on the mountains. The bottom is made of gray rocks that sound like pool balls clacking together when I kick them. I follow a little goat-trail out of the canyon and continue along the far side side where the ground begins to slope towards the ravine. There are plants that resemble aloes that have points so sharp, they will go through my jeans and leather boots at the slightest touch. The ground is covered with these and little tufts of brown grass that can hold a footprint for days. The round grasses will stay crushed or bent long enough for me to find my own path again for as long as a week. Little thorny bushes are scattered around, often housing grasshoppers and marking jackrabbit hide-outs. Two Joshua trees stand side-by-side in the distance and I use these as markers. From where I begin, I can draw a straight line through those Joshua trees to the top of the first significant hill.
Before I get to the Joshua trees, I have to cross several deeper gullies. Low areas hold thickets of head-high thorn bushes that tore my t-shirt apart the first time I came here, so now I wear my denim jacket. After this series of ravines and thickets and flat land, I come to the Joshua trees. They stand on the base of the hill the turns into a ridge running the entire length of the “wrinkle” through the mountains. This ridge cuts what would be a single valley through the mountain chain into two smaller valleys which fall off sharply on both sides. The first time I came here, I went into the valley on the east side of the ridge, and tried to make my way up the side of the ridge but it was impossible. It was just too steep.
The slope up to the top of the ridge is long and tiring. The grade is gradual enough to allow me to ascend without any climbing, but it is wearing. It is about a mile from the Joshua trees to the top, or maybe a little more. When I had just about got to the top, I sat down on a flat rock to eat the strawberries and sandwich that I had brought. The loudest, most audacious flies I have ever known buzzed in circles around me, landing every once in a while on my food or on my face. I slapped myself pretty severely several times. I tossed a piece of bread to the side and piled the strawberry tops on it and the flies found that and left me alone. From where I sat, I could identify a large building within a block of my house. I could see my entire town, and I could follow the highway from my town all the way into Saltillo, past San Isidro and then where it connected with the highway that runs out to Monterrey. Near my feet a highway of ants ran from a clump of moss that puffed out a hole in my rock to another crack several inches away. It occurred to me that right now, that line of ants is more relevant to me than the highway. I gave them a bruised strawberry and got up. I was almost to the top of the ridge. At my first step, a brown bird that looked like a whippoorwill exploded out from the base of a barrel cactus in a frenzy of flapping and beating wings, startling me considerably. It whirred as it beat its wings and dropped over the side of the ridge, into the canyon. I walked to the cactus and found a little nest of dirt dug against the leeward side. The floor was littered with yellow butterfly wings.
I reached the top of the ridge, and was greeted by the freezing wind from the other side of the mountain. I found a place where I could put my back against a rock wall, and a short tree with green leaves made a roof. The ground was a single, solid piece of rock, and the tree was growing straight out of it. I collected the half-leaves of dead Joshua trees for fire starters, and made a little fire to stay warm. The sun was going down in a display of dark clouds set over a red orange glow, and I collected more fuel for my fire. The air was getting colder as quickly as it was getting darker. I listened to coyotes make their wild cries in the valleys as the orange lights in the city began to come on.
Before long, darkness had covered the valley in which the city sat, and the thousands of points of light shone piercingly and sharp. From up here, it is a whole sea of lights that flows and moves. White stars above me were reflected in the sea of lights below me. The moon began to rise and cast the whole scene in a pale light. It lit a halo of clouds on the east horizon, proving that they had not left with the sun.
But I could not bring myself to take a picture of any of it. If I did, I would have killed something; if I had documented it, I would have killed the mystery.
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