Pretending to be old

This entry is part of my journal from Semester in the West. For all SITW journal entries, click here. For all SITW posts, including blog posts I wrote while on the program, click here. To learn more about the program, click here.

camp: Back of Beyond, the Known Universe, Utah

context: Our writing assignment for the day was to pretend we were ten thousand years old and wander around the canyonlands by ourselves.

I find home. A cave, open to sky, to rock, to mountain lion. Closed to rain, offset from wind. I see out, see everything. I am conspicuous, not curled inside a canyon. I have to fight to stay here. I keep inside, keep watch. I sleep. I eat. I wake.

Today, the sun doesn’t penetrate through my skin, doesn’t burn me alive, doesn’t dry me out until every pore in my body cries out for water. I am grateful for days like today.

I need to eat. There are deer tracks in all the washes, fresh, young. I know how to catch mice. I know how to make the bitter juniper berries edible. I follow tracks and trails in the sand. I can feed myself.

It rains and I do not want to get wet. I shelter myself under a ledge and watch the clouds move. I nestle my body between the rough sandstone and the soft earth below it. I face down, look out, see the falling drops of water an inch past the tip of my nose. It rains. I wait.

I move. I walk and the drops hit me infrequently, seemingly willing to let me through without a fight. I scramble up, careful to avoid slipping, deliberate in all of my movements. I can’t fall. I am alone. If I hurt myself, I will lie in the sand until I freeze to death or something finds me and eats me.

There are so many ways to go inside here, so many places to wedge yourself into, squeeze, squish, turn yourself into a rock and hide.

I wonder what is over those mountains. I’ve heard stories from the bottoms of canyons and the distant hills. I know where I am and my whole world looks like this. I have never been over the mountains.

I have too many clothes and they rustle. They make me visible, so I take them off. Boots, rain jacket, socks, shirt, pants fall softly to the ground. I stand naked and barefoot in wet sand and try to step quietly.

The wet ground is sympathetic to bare feet. The soil gives way slowly without the crunching that defines each bootstep on dry ground. I place my feet deliberately, carefully, feeling the soil and rock beneath them. They do not hurt. I am quieter. I feel the land like a rhythm, like a mantra as I walk, climb, run. I can go anywhere.