Recently shared a story at Story Parlor in Asheville for Tom Chalmer's series, 'Listen To This.' His prompt was like rain in the desert. Here's what I said:
Here's what I had written:
Memory waits in the soil beneath out feet.
The year was 7 B.C. (Before Children) and we headed out on a road trip across the southwest. From St. Louis, across Kansas and the mind-numbingly flat plains of eastern Colorado, over the stunning peaks and nerve-wracking switch-backs of the rockies and down into the great American desert. We were heading for Mesa Verde, the ancient remains of a once thriving cliff-dwelling city of ancestral Puebloans. The name belies the history, for once the land was verdant, but little green remains.
As it happened, Mesa Verde was closed.
So we learned of another, lesser known, ruin in the desert, Hovenweep. The name is Paiute meaning “deserted place.” We set off on a dirt road into the desert of southwest Colorado, across the border of Utah, through an arid land pock-marked with stoney outcrops and clumps of pinyon pine and juniper. Dusty bunches of sagebrush scattered across the open flats, here and there the soil was blackened in charred, burn patches, and the sun burnished over all. As is often the case with arroyos and desert canyons, you do not see them until you are just approaching their edge. Chasms open suddenly before you, great cracks in the tortured landscape. One such canyon was Hovenweep. A National Monument established in 1923 and currently celebrating its centennial, but at the time, little known and little visited.
Trafficked by humans for over 10,000 years, settled about 1,000 years ago with stone and brick buildings carefully crafted onto the landscape and tucked into cliff faces, home to several thousand people who farmed, traded, crafted, played, and studied the brilliant stars from a high stone and brick tower that commanded one end of the canyon. Now it was ghostly quiet with rippling heat rising from the expectant soil. We learned the charred patches were actually a fragile, Cryptobiotic soil, filled with cyanobacteria, lichen, fungi, mosses, and a vast microbiome forming a brittle crust over the deeper earth; quiescent and desiccated, but ready to swiftly reconstitute in the presence of water.
We walked along a narrow dirt path from the canyon rim down into the arroyo where a fresh stream once flowed and many voices once echoed off the canyon walls. Here and there were shallow divots carved into the bare rock offering secure footing as we descended. Steps carved for ancient travelers we now used. The only sound was the scuffling of our hiking boots on crumbling sand and stones and an occasional “watch your step.” “Give me your hand.” “Look at that.” “Some place, huh?”
We tried to stay on a path along the base of the cliff in what little shade we could find as the sun bore down from high noon. We squinted in the light bouncing off the sand and stone. Everything had a hot golden luster. We came across some brick walls enclosing a depression into the canyon wall, a nice cool room out of the heat. We snacked and watered ourselves and took in the close comfort of this little shelter. As we sat there, the light shifted and the bright sunlight dimmed. A wind picked up and we peered out to see the sky blackening. The wind whipped up dust devils beyond the the canyon and suddenly thunder broke, lightening flashed and a heavy rain poured down.
We fell back into our dry recess and watched as the rain curtained the doorway. Thunderous booms echoed all around us, water gushed and splashed across the canyon. We cowered together feeling the tremendous force of the storm. After about 30 minutes, the booming moved past, the rain let up, and the storm was gone. Water continued to stream down the canyon walls and along the riverbed. The air was filled with the sound of running water. And then other sounds joined in. There was buzzing as some kind of fly or gnats were suddenly swarming, and bird trills - from a wren that was hopping in and out of the sodden rocks. The air was fresh with that ozone crackle of the storm mixed with the pungent smell of sage. Here and there splotches of color appeared. Tiny yellow and red flowers in rock crevices, Juniper trees glistened, a chipmunk scuttled beneath one, collecting berries. There were little potholes - morteros - holes formed from grinding grain - now filled with water. I bent over one for a drink and saw tiny bugs swimming about - those fairy shrimp they used to sell as “sea monkeys.” I stood in the center of the renewed stream and marveled at the suddenness of the storm and the suddenness of the life it revived. Cryptobiosis, hidden life, was emerging everywhere. The sun returned and brought a sparkle to the entire scene. I remember marveling at the braided ripple pattern in the water streaming past and wondering if that had inspired weavers and potters to replicate the patterns in their crafting.
The canyon echoed with life. I heard a child laughing and felt that the storm had revived the ghosts of the early Puebloans. It turned out to be a small family also visiting the site and hiking along the same trail. But for a moment, I could feel the rich, verdancy of the place, and appreciate the life that was at home in this now-deserted place.
The water flowed past, the sun warmed and then grew hot. Slowly the life receded to its hiding places. I stood there and felt the burning heat return. But I kept standing. Waiting. Expectant. Suffering the drought while hoping for the coming of another rain.
Still today, every rainfall wakens my cryptobiosis and every drought leaves me hoping.
