Vasquez Rocks

We were headed toward a distant cluster of cottonwood trees, which in the desert signifies permanent water, a lush pocket of congregating life. I had pointed it out to my cousin, Cheyenne, a hiking partner non paraleil, for her interest in going off trail, wading into the geology, discovering the raw, untouched places no path leads to. We were improvising our way there, along the spines of fractured ridges, eroded boulders, wind burnt caves. Rosa was too, and she and I were carrying our babies in our arms.

Now, we had meandered to a bad spot, which I had just noted to Rosa, who carried our 8 month old daughter, Bella, a few yards ahead of me. She worked her way eagerly, almost blindly, to a spot where one could edge down a shelf- a shelf strewn with chips of granite, like loose tile, on a hard, slippery rock, to a level spot beneath.

Rosa had no fear carrying the 8 month old on the lip of granite, and silently passed the Bellita from her pair of hands to my cousin's, Cheyenne's, who had already clambered down, needing both hands and feet to do so.

There was an elusive, diffuse point to being on the edge of a cliff carrying one's progeny;  improv. That is, the joyful sensation of following one's instincts. There's nature and art that promotes true freedom, true creativity, true, in-the moment-ness, and after that, for me, it's degrees of illusion. This meander through the ruptured and distended tectonic plates of Vasquez Rocks was long views toward distant destinations, and thousands of snap judgements about how to get there, with potential diversions at every turn. It was this creative whim which lead Rosa to this point.

I approached less whimsically, though certain of a routine, careful descent, when a cliff edge crumbled under my foot, my 2 year old daughter tucked under one arm. 

Time stopped, I tumbled toward the edge in a small cloud of falling granite. In front of me, I could see a massive rock spinning edgewise down, toward Rosa and the baby, and I reached for it, slapping it as hard as I could with the ends of three fingers of my right hand, trying to re-route it. At the same time, I was falling onto my left rib cage, against which my two year old daughter was held, tightly, like a football in my left arm. My elbow caught the ground, hard.

I imagined righting myself, so that no matter how far the fall, I'd land feet first, and be able to collapse, maybe breaking ankles and hips, maybe a bone in my arm, instead of landing sideways, crushing my ribs, internal organs, smashing my head on rock. I imagined making sure that my body was between the earth and Ariana's, so that i would cushion her fall with my body..

A woman screamed..

 The flush of granite rock and gravel travelled silently through thirty feet of air, and its clatter on solid ground echoed up the walls of the small ravine below.

Two seconds bloated into an eternity, and I found myself on my back, stopped, my feet and butt holding everything into place, a crying baby in my arms, a torn, aching left elbow, a woman, Rosa, screaming that she could not get down, that she was scared, and, strangely, tattered fingertips.

At the moment, I shrugged off my good fortune, relieved that my daughter wasn't even scratched, but as we continued our walk through the recently wet ravines and cliff faces, she said, "Daddy, you fell down a mountain! I fell down a mountain! I'm scared!"and the moment came back to me in its adrenalized delerium, where the bleary details were unclear.

Above is the best description I could muster.

I asked Rosa what she saw, and she said, there was a look, a startled look on my face, like I was thinking I would die, and that I was holding a huge rock in one hand, and Ariana in the other. And she asked me why I was trying to carry that rock.

Her description made me laugh...how could it look like I was carrying a huge rock, much bigger than I could actually carry, while sliding down the edge of the cliff?

From the safe, conjectural world of hind sight, (and my cousin agreed,) I looked like I was holding the rock in my hand because everything, the rocks, the humans,  moved down the hill at the same speed. What I remember thinking was a slap, was probably an extended shove, which deliberately moved the rock from its original trajectory. My hand did look like it was holding the rock in that split second.

In the end, it was probably the rock which saved my, and Ariana's, ass.

Reaching out to knock the small boulder from hitting Rosa and Bellita gave me something heavy to push against- that even though the rock was in motion, it absorbed my fall, and my shove pushed me backward just enough to land cleanly on the edge.

Miraculous, that an instinct to protect others before oneself could lead to self-preservation.

Still in one piece...

JP