I have lived my life since my brain injury with a healthy dose of no promised tomorrows. The days are easier for me to grab a-hold of. I am more grateful than I ever knew how to be pre-TBI. The other day I was listening to a woman talk about going for walks with birders, how it will change your life because they will point out so many things you’d never notice going on walks on your own. This is true also if you go for hikes and walks with children, you’ll see so many things you would have walked right by without their perspective. The woman called these walks “Walks of Awe”. My life post brain injury has, for the most part, been a walk of awe, a life of awe. My own brain has often times irritated me with its ability to bright-side and be full of gratitude. We received some life altering news out in the desert. Megan’s doctors, due to bullshit bureaucracy, are unable to continue seeing her via telehealth. So our days of freedom were numbered. We will have to go home and settle-down.
I seethed with impotent rage at the machine. I mourned the loss of the person I had the freedom to be, the peacefulness inside of me as if mourning a death. My soul laments. My soul keens. I tried to stuff all the days we had left with as much walking, living awe as could possible fit in my soul. I tried to stuff it into my soul and my memories as a well from which to draw wonder to sustain me when I was again under the thumb of a boss, a job, a landlord of some kind, societal expectations. I tried to find every wonder in every blade of grass that grows in strange patterns down from the aqueduct behind our camp. I tried to know every hardy desert birds’ name and song. I put the way clouds make patterns of shadows on the mountains in a picture frame in my brain. I watched the sunsets, a riot of colors dissipating to black. I studied the stars. I packed the sunsets, the colors, the fading of color, the black, the stars, the lone coyote’s howl as balm on my bleeding angry heart. There is nothing as angering as the realization that society hates freedom. It wants you to mold yourself into little clones of everyone else. It despises outliers, the exotic, the unconventional, the unboxed, the awe-walkers. Capitalism thrives on people who have little hope and there must be enough striving that people forget they could free themselves of the cages. It wants a majority of people too busy trying to make enough money to eat and be warm without rain on their heads to have time to think about a different kind of society. Capitalism needs us to be materialistic and empty. It wants us to try to stuff the holes in our souls with one fad after another, always more to buy, all things designed for obsolescence so we have to buy more. It will try to kill a soul that is made peaceful by small birds, blades of buffalo grass, the way shadows and light open one’s eyes to different crags and shapes in mountains. Capitalism hates peace most of all.
We packed up our camp. We drove east through Phoenix. We stopped and did our laundry in Mesa, Arizona. We headed north on Route 87. The surrounding landscape was stunning. Megan and I discussed what a fun road it would be to ride on a motorcycle.
I texted one of my older brothers who used to live in this area to see if he had ever taken his bike up 87. He had, and he confirmed it was a fun road to ride. We climbed through the mountains, then took 188 south down through Tonto Basin, eventually to Theodore Roosevelt Lake. We had thought we could drive a dirt road to north of the lake from the west, but it was closed at the west end to replace a bridge. We drove the pavement around the lake. We checked out some camp spots. The sun set. We decided to drive the dirt road from the east. The wind kicked up. In one section I just had to stop Henry and wait until the dust storm cleared because I couldn’t see beyond the hood. We felt bad vibes. We turned around about 12 miles down the 25 mile road. We drove back to a camp spot on a forest road in the Tonto National forest. The wind howled. We slept in the front seats. We were awake with the sun. We decided the whole area gave us the creeps so we’d just head out of there.
On the way out, I stopped at every place where there was access to the Salt River. At one boat launch, river grasses and reeds grew to unbelievable heights, towering above my head. In the wind they rustled and spoke to each other and maybe to me. My soul danced to their whispering murmur. My brain could not translate exactly what those river grasses whispered to me, but my atoms understood. Sometimes we hear the words, know their meaning- these words were for me- for me, The Salt River, and the wind alone. I picked up a river rock, turned it over and over in my palm. I ran my thumb over the velvet-y smoothness. It felt soft. I thought about the rocks in the basement of time and the words that are written there. I pocketed the rock to give to Megan. She stayed in the truck while I roamed the riverbank listening to a wild world. I eventually returned to Megan and Henry. I drove us into the rising sun, up through the mountains, down the long grades until we found a town with a gas station. We got some terrible coffee for which we were grateful. I drove on. We checked out some camp spots in a wild canyon. They also gave us the creeps. Cow shit all over and abandoned camping gear. We drove north again, then east, ending up in the San Simon Valley.
We found a spectacular place to set up camp. It was a mile or so down a wild and eroded two track. On a few stretches, if I looked over Megan out the passenger side window I could see the ground. Our spot was big and sat on the edge of a cliff. Someone who had stayed there before had made little rock fences around all the bushes and little path ways lined with rocks. We set up the Springbar tent, but slept in the Roofnest for a few nights. Two nights had a low of five degrees.
Cold enough to freeze the dawn.
The Roofnest is warmer, less space to heat up and being off the ground helps as well. We used the diesel heater for those nights. We slept soundly. Every direction our eyes can turn, there is beauty. We know this valley well.
Camp zoomed in from three miles away.
We sit at the confluence of two big washes. It’s one of the biggest washes I have ever seen. The two track continues passed our camp, down into the wash and then disappears into the mountains. We set out one day to see where it goes on foot. The two track follows the bottom of the wash for about a mile. The sand is deep and fine. It’s like hiking in beach sand. Eventually it heads out of the wash. We hike up and down, up and down numerous small hills. We find pretty rocks.
Wild Geodes
We fill our pockets. Eventually the two track ends on a plateau like hilltop. We strike out cross country, because I’m pretty sure we can get up the mountain that’s next in line. We angle up, side-hilling the loose scree field. We pick our way around prickly bushes and cacti. We find our way to the summit. We look out across the valley below and finally to the Pinaleno Mountains. I wonder if I’ll ever see this valley, those mountains again in my life. My soul rebels at the thoughts of never. I force my mind to contemplate other things.
A rock wren befriends us. She investigates Henry’s tailpipe. She walks over our boots. She hops on top of small rocks and sings. I long to know where she lives. Rock wrens make patios and pathways out of rocks and things to their nests. I want to see one. I googled what their nests look like to see if I would even know if I did see one? Or would it just look like natural rocks? But from what I could see, I would definitely know if I found one. I stalk her, but she never shows me her nest and her fancy stone work. But she hangs out with us in the morning and the evening. A flock of about 40 or more house finches flit among the trees in the wash. Their chorus of songs comes rising up out of the wash, flowing over us, fortifying us for the years to come (we hope).
We go soak in the hot springs that are about 12 miles from camp. We luck out and get to enjoy them completely alone. It’s not luck exactly. It’s timing. It’s dreamy, even though I still have my petri dish thoughts I have to keep at bay. One evening, I use the camp oven to make chicken and potatoes. Bees descend upon us by the thousands. I don’t mind bees. I don’t mind if they fly about me or land on me. But thousands of bees are a horror story. Who knew chicken would call in the bees? The world is a wall of buzzing. It’s not a relaxing meal. I don’t want to cook again. But I do, and I am guessing because everything I cook after that is able to be cooked quickly, the smell doesn’t have time to call all the bees to dinner.
One day it rains, not much. We can see it raining around us. We see rainbows. We see Mount Graham get a slight blanket of snow. The sunset is glorious. A ranger comes to camp. We visit for so long with him, his dispatcher calls to make sure no evil befell him. He comments about how cold it has been. Then he sees we are from New Hampshire and guesses we are used to the cold. He tells us about the heat of the summer in the valley. He says one time someone took him to the cold and he just got back in the truck and told them to take him home. We talked about how dry it has been. He worried mightily for fire season. We talked about hunting. We talked about hiking. We talked about beach sand and he had no reference for what we meant. He talked about flour sand, and then we all came to an understanding about the structure of the sand. He thanked us for our clean camp site. He told us we wouldn’t believe how a lot of people leave things...oh, but we would. We’ve experienced that for ourselves.
The snow melted quickly off the high peaks in the following days. One day, after riding around, seeing what there was to see, I noticed one of our tires looked low. We checked it and it was. We have an air compressor with us. We put a little air in and checked it again, later. It was low again. We made an appointment for the next day at a tire shop. The next morning we got our spare out and jacked up Henry. I could not get three of the lug nuts to break free. I jumped on the lug wrench and they would not break. I actually warped the lug wrench and they would not break. The leak was pretty slow so I tightened the lugs I had been able to loosen. And we decided to see how far we could get and hope for the best, at least hoping to get to pavement. We did spray some WD-40 on the lugs. We got to pavement and then the screw or nail must have slipped out of the tire and we heard all the air hissing out. I pulled over to the side. I tried again to loosen the lugs. They wouldn’t budge. Megan called around for a tow, all which said we were too far out or we’d have to wait at least 4 hours. We do have a tire plugging kit. I found the hole and attempted to plug it. It would not seal all the way. I didn’t really have enough room between tire and wheel well to pull it out fast enough once I got to the plug stage. As luck would have it, an ancient couple came down this little traveled road. Me and the ancient old man finally got the lugs to break. I think it must have been that the WD-40 finally worked because this man was a wisp of a fellow and I definitely outweighed him. We used his lug wrench and when he stepped on it, they finally moved. We mounted the spare while Megan and his wife chatted about rocks. The man’s name was Stacy. Which my parents named me after a male nature writer named Stacey Cole, but I have never met a man Stacy before. They were originally from Vermont. They had long since retired to Franklin, North Carolina. They were out looking for rocks. They were hunting specifically for Saffordite, a rock that is only found around Safford, Arizona. Saffordite was formed by an ancient impact crater. They had found one. It looks just like any old volcanic rock, except when you shine a light through it, it turns translucent. Super cool. They were down in Tuscon for the annual rock show. They have an Etsy shop where they sell jewelry and such made from rocks they have found all around the country. We were so happy to meet them and that we got rescued by the ancients. I’ll put a link to their Etsy shop. You should check it out. We’ll buy something from them as a thank you. They looked at all our rocks. They taught us so much about what kind of rocks we had found and where and how to look for more. After we got our new tire on and were back to camp we spent the afternoon shining lights at rocks. We had no luck, but we found other cool rocks.
We got rid of some old gear. Stuff that had been with us since the beginning of our journey. Stuff we might never need again. My soul laments. My soul keens. I have moments of salvation, moments of gratitude, moments of awe in between.
My soul laments. My soul keens. I can’t waste the moments. They’re hard to catch while I am dreading the moments to come.
We pack up camp one last time. We drink our coffee. We wander down into the wash and up onto the ridge lines. The sun beats down. We stop. We stoop over. We crouch. We pick up black rocks. We shine our flashlights on them. I find other cool rocks. I put them in my pocket. Sometimes I stand up and can’t find Megan as she crouches among the bushes and rolling hills. Sometimes I call out to her. She answers. My heart leaps up when I find her there, looking at rocks. At about 11:30 we call off our search for Saffordite. We meander back the mile or two we’ve wandered. We check rocks as we go. We hop into Henry and drive out of the wilds. We go into town. We get rid of some trash. We fill up on gas. We head east on 70, then north on 191. Megan is driving. It’s hot in the San Simon valley. 85 degrees, the sun blazes. We drive with the windows down. I try to notice everything. I wonder if I’ll ever be here again. I try to see everything. I can’t bear to never be here again. We stay straight onto route 78 instead following 191. Megan pulls over because we know this road. We drive it whenever we can, probably a handful of times now. Route 78 winds out of the valley.
There’s delightful switchbacks as it makes its way towards the New Mexican border and The Mule Mountains. Megan doesn’t like to drive mountain roads even if they are paved. I stop at all the pull offs. I look back on the winding road behind us, beautiful as it fades away. I had prayed for a picture of a Roadrunner. As we go slowly around one tight turn, Megan is making a video.
A Roadrunner ambles across the road. My heart beats in gratitude. My soul leaps when I behold a roadrunner on the road. Way up high in the mountains the road straightens out, in a high valley. Giant, stately cottonwoods stand guard over the washes and streams.
Every time we reach this section of 78, my heart thinks “we could stay here. We could live here, tucked away in this high valley, with the mountains surrounding us, with the cottonwood, with the grass. We could stay here.” The temperatures have dropped with the elevation. It’s 69 degrees. I have my flannel on, unsnapped. The wind coming in Henry’s windows, makes the snaps jangle like little wind chimes. My ears focus on this little beautiful song as my eyes feast on the views. I feel grounded, centered, completely in this moment. May it never end. We take a left on to route 180. Snow clings to life in the shadows of the tall pine. My heart soars. My snaps jangle. The sun beats down. I hold Megan’s hand. I am Detroit leaning. I have my sunglasses on. I feel my own heart beating. I feel the blood circulating in my fingers, in my toes. I watch a raven surf the updrafts. I see a hawk circle over a meadow. My snaps jangle. I come up behind a van with New Hampshire Moose Plates. The first person we’ve ever seen from New Hampshire outside of Florida and New England. At the first passing zone, I fly on by them. Megan waves as we do. We move north. My snaps jingle their singular tune. My ears pop as we lose elevation. The sun now beats on my face through the driver’s window. We switch drivers when we get out of the mountains. We drive north. We drive through El Malpais National Monument.
The sun is setting as we make our way through The Narrows. It turns the towering cliffs to gold. A blue bird flies up off the road, flying in front of Henry for a spell, a brilliant turquoise blue. Megan and I gasp at its magnificent color. My snaps jangle in the breeze. I think its a mountain bluebird, which I was also hoping to someday see. I think God is still blessing me with roadrunners and bluebirds. I think these are signs from God, even in my lamenting soul, I cannot ignore. I think God sends a roadrunner, a mountain bluebird, too, so I might think somehow I will be all right. We get on I-40 East.
Albuquerque spreads out before us in the dark, a sea of lights. It looks enormous in the dark. But we have spent time in this city before. We stayed for a weekend once. We went to see a concert by Dar Williams. Once we drove down into the city to get on Route 66 because there is a part of it in the city that will play a song if you go the proper speed. We take I-25 north. We follow the Rio Grande river up through the mountains to Taos. We sleep. We get up early. I drive us out of town to look at the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge.
It’s windy. It’s cold. We walk along the gorge, the river seeming so small below. There’s ice on the river. I walk across the bridge. I stop in the middle. I look down, down, down to the river below. The wind pushes me. And I actually fear it might push me off the sidewalk and into traffic. It’s cold. We drive into town. We park at a grocery store and walk over to Taos Square.
We go in the stores. I buy Megan a necklace with turquoise to match her earrings that I bought her last year in Tombstone. We buy a sticker for Henry. We admire the snow capped mountains. We drive over to the San Francisco de Asis Mission Church. It was built in the 1770s. Even to this day, the congregation gets together once a year and makes adobe and reapplies it to the church. It’s beautiful. And I don’t like organized religion, but as I walk into the courtyard, I feel quiet in my soul. I feel that inside keening, lamenting still. I feel comfort. I feel peace. I feel beloved.
if you feel moved to support my writing by buying me a coffee or whatever, you can use this link to venmo me. It's so very much appreciated. But I am just pleased beyond measure that you read my words. Thank you for your time.
The ancients’ Etsy rock shop:
https://www.etsy.com/shop/RocksToRadiance
With special thanks to William Wordsworth “my heart leaps up when I behold a rainbow in the sky. “
I love you. There is so much awe to be found in the world that I'm certain we will find even more. Even in the middle of the bullshit.