GRACK! 2/7/05: “River of Soul”

A GRACK! episode from February, 2005 is today’s Digital Potlatch freebie. This original Web column is a collection of short character studies sewn up inside a larger one and describes what happened at a birthday party out on the mesa that year. A Taos classic, if I do say so myself. Packed with manly emotion, this is of course accompanied by the original JPEGs I posted at the time. (They don’t have anything directly to do with the story, but work quite well as symbols. You could certainly do worse.)

Click to listen to the raven call. I used to code these so they came on automatically, you know, so be glad there’s a flash player!

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River of Soul

I stood there for the longest time, just listening.

I was at a birthday party for a friend. Two men, casual acquaintances of mine, were sharing impressions of a certain stretch of high country powder. One of them works up there, patrolling on skis, and the other had just skied through checking it out. “That 14-foot eyebrow is still there,” the first one said, shaking his head in awe. It took a moment for me to realize they were talking about snow formations, places where the wind had formed drifts into recognizable features. I could tell from their stories that they each skied alone in the wild empty places, enjoying the solitude only locals can know. They traded details about snowscapes and how to navigate them as intently as golfers talk greens — the difference was, it hit me when I turned away, was that these two loved something that could get them killed dead.

There was a quality here notably absent from my own pretender’s life, and I let it sink in. Later the first skier and a famous broke novelist sang a traditional northern New Mexico birthday song for the host — in Spanish, in harmony! — then grabbed him by the ears and kissed him on both cheeks. We ate, drank, played music, and hollered. Two people taught me the new cool guys’ handshake. Dammit, John (I told myself): five and half years, and you’re almost a real person here. Why had it taken so long?

I’d had a chance when we first showed up in ‘99, utterly freaked by the force of our changes. “Normal” was there for the taking, solid as gold, only wrapped in brown paper. When the man in the small village post office gave us our keys and said, “Welcome to the valley!” I knew that he meant it. At las posadas that Christmas, I sat in a crowded warm kitchen while other folks’ grandmothers stirred pots of posole and treated me like kin. In the spring I helped clean the camposanto, raking old finger bones back into graves. “Come visit us,” said Señor Medina, but I was too homesick and tense, middle-aged crazy inside, and I just never did.

In the tough times that followed, I’d frequently wonder if things had ever really been easier, like my wife said they had. What of my younger days in Maryland, those 30-something, calm-before-the-storm days? Was I purer in heart, or just not really tested?

After a few weeks of landing in the sleepy Eastern Shore college town in the summer of ‘75, I’d met most of the “right people.” Someone had taken me out to a beautiful mysterious bluff overlooking a tidal river and showed me where to gather English walnuts, and there was a trail leading down to the sandy beach where locals could go skinny-dipping. A sculptor lived in an empty country church. There were people living off the land or river, poor teachers happy in their garrets. It seemed that everyone I found was living on the edge but didn’t know it. Certainly no one my age had kids or houses or seemed to care. At least that’s how I remember it now, but there are things one forgets.

I forget being lonely, unhappy, and poor. I forget how I had nothing and wanted to die. When I first met the love of my life, I was one month’s rent away from leaving for good. Off to Montreal, was my thinking. There were bars and coffee houses where I’d play bad guitar, date dark-haired French girls, and somehow get fed. My honey and me happened, though, and I fell like a redwood. That first April dinner at her place, before we’d ever had sex, all innocence and thrills, sitting in the kitchen while she cooked in her bare feet — I never wanted to be anywhere else than by her side.

There were never any “calm before the storm” days, I’ve since decided. That’s not it at all. There’s never any plateau, either, no resting place for fools. But there is a quality of lessened interference. Whether by default or grace, sometimes everything is there.

I played a certain song of mine at the party. It has to do with how I felt one late fall day in Maryland, looking up at the first “V” formation of migrating swans coming back for the winter. Standing there at dusk in a shopping center parking lot, stunned with longing and awe, I suddenly realized I was alone: no one stopped or raised their eyes. The surroundings reflected the price of leaving the Garden, and I wrote the song to express the deep sadness I felt. I’ve sung this for years, you understand, but something happened this time, in the company of new friends.

“The swans they flew over, they were the first of the fall;
the swans they flew over, but nobody saw;
they were out shoppin’, all down at the mall;
the seasons were changin’, but that wasn’t all …

They’re tearin’ the heart out, of this beautiful land;
buildin’ a Wal-Mart, where corn fields should stand;
they’re pavin’ it over, and sellin’ its soul;
gonna move to the mountains, before I’m too old … “

To my great astonishment, when I got to the second verse, I suddenly choked up! I kept on singing, but the words came out in a sob. My voice cracked and stumbled, but onward I went. The amazing thing was, I wasn’t embarrassed. I can’t explain this at all, but I wasn’t uncomfortable having this happen. It just did. Repeating the first verse had the same suprising effect. When I finally finished, I said something like, “Oh man , I GOT myself!” And maybe I did. No one seemed to mind a bit, anyway, and the rest of the evening rolled along just fine.

I was the last one to leave. After gathering up my things, I walked out with my host, the birthday boy. Neither of us had a flashlight, and my truck was forty yards away, sitting in the mud. I couldn’t make out a thing at first. “I’ll bet if I stop and wait for a minute, I’ll be able to see in the dark,” I said. My friend thought the same, and we both stepped out of the circle of doorway light for a moment. Slowly the truck and driveway materialized, as obvious as anything, and there was more: all at once I heard coyotes everywhere, as if pausing had turned up the volume as well. There were LOUD howls and yips in every direction, and I thought there couldn’t be a cat asleep for miles.

Definitely in the groove, and sparks were flying! Fully awake now, me and the Ford followed them all the way home.

Related posts:

1. Soul Jail
2. GRACK! 1/16/06: “Twenty-five Years”
3. Sunday on the River
4. New FotoFeed Rio Grande River Series!
5. GRACK!, 9/4/05: “The Spring”