Come Hell or High Water
Monsoons, floods and living on the edge.
Story and photos by Jesse Wolf Hardin
The smell was unmistakable—not unlike a farmer's fertilized fields immediately after irrigating. It was carried on the attendant winds to the noses of anyone and everyone awakened to life, even in the valleys where the river ran wide and well away from businesses and homes. It was the wafting smell of decomposition, of mud mixed with organic matter in the process of being broken down by bacteria and mold, of rotting grass and willows dislodged by anxious currents—the suggestive odor of plant sex and procreation, of the deaths that birth new life. And it seemed all the stronger within the narrow confines of my canyon, this murky, scandalous scent splashing against the sides of the cliffs, rising up and washing over the benches and mesas like heady invisible waves.
 |
It was not the smell, however, that woke me from my sleep in the dead of night. It was that sound, that terribly loud rushing of water like a rumbling train shaking the bedrooms of farmhouse boarders. In a city one learns to sleep comfortably under the blanketing whoosh and hum of highways, and it's said that over time the New York State Parks volunteers get used to the deafening roar of voluminous Niagara Falls. What was disturbing was the abrupt contrast, with the Rio Frisco normally running so slowly that it can barely be heard. If every river has its song, the Frisco could be said to perform a soft ballad, a gentle tune hummed by cowboys to calm a herd made nervous by distant flashes of lightning, or else an amorous Spanish corrido sung outside some señorita's window while her father sleeps. In June, you have to put your ear down close to the ground to hear the languid passage of water through the tickled cattails and reeds, or search out the sudden turns where it tumbles and gurgles over moss-covered rock. Then in August, I found myself throwing off the covers at the sound, standing shirtless under racing clouds and motionless stars, trying to judge the width and speed of the river in the scant light they provided.
I knew that roiling in that water would be precious New Mexico soil, eroded from hillsides denuded by civilized man and wildfire and now catching a ride to Arizona. And there would be other cargo as well, other evidence of riverine caprice—like beautiful alder trees wrenched from their red-rooted hold, and displaced willows that I myself had long ago planted. I recalled an event twice as large in October 1983, when the Frisco ran a hundred yards wide and I watched as it absconded with giant century-old cottonwood trees, my camouflaged International Scout and a fellow named Pete Daniel's mobile home. I pictured the way the currents would be washing away the primitive jeep trail leading into our wildlands sanctuary, carving impassable banks, churning the bottom into a jeep-sinking slush that could take two months to firm back up.
I could be sure that our fence, the four-strand barbed boundary that protects our restored wildlands sanctuary from roaming cattle, had already been laid flat or torn from its securing posts. I thought about the beaver dams that must already be breached, and computed how many weeks we'd be walking out via a different route. On those rare occasions when the Frisco gets high like this, I'm one of several county residents who find it impossible to drive into or out of their land. A trip to town for those of us here usually involves either a quick drive in the truck or leisurely stroll through calf-deep crossings, but at times it becomes more of a challenge. If the water is waist-high or less, we pass through with our clothes and mail held in a plastic bag above our heads. When it proves fast and deep enough to require swimming, we inflate a vinyl raft for the first crossing, then walk up a steep and narrow elk trail to a nearby mountaintop where our vehicles are alternately parked.
My partners and I were in no way alone in our predicament. Since the beginnings of human kind, people have settled near rivers for the potable water, increased forage or irrigable fields they provide. And for just as long they have suffered the effects of periodic flooding. The Mogollon and Anasazi Indians spent a lot of their time re-digging destroyed irrigation channels, after each successive overflow took them out. In Europe and Asia as well as the Americas, entire fields of much needed food were all too often washed away, and sometimes the houses and barns of those who had planted them. Each event seemed worse than the last due to the decreasing amount of streamside trees, such as in Denver in the 1800s when entire streets and even the Rocky Mountain News newspaper building were carted off, board and brick, by an intemperate Cherry Creek.
The next morning I walked down to the river's edge, and watched as chunks of wood rushed by on its sepia currents. Though it had dropped and slowed during the night, it continued to roar, but more like shamanic Tuvan throat singers than some red-eyed beast. The waters do not "rage," as some might describe them, for whatever they carry off, they bear no anger. Such a river is more like a headstrong child, running full speed with a big smile on her face, howling too loudly to register a mother's pleas to stop.
It seemed like a one-two punch, with the unusual storms and floods coming so soon after New Mexico's hellish midsummer forest fires. But when you live next to a body of running water, you get accustomed to it setting the mood, establishing conditions and calling the shots. For those who truly love this region, any dangers or inconveniences are taken in stride.
I waited, as close to patient as I am capable of, until I could drive in with our truck, "Blacky," with its mud-slinging 34-inch-tall tires. Then, as soon as the level dropped enough, ranchers and land owners alike would be out stretching new wire across the rivers and streams and weighting them down with dexterously wrapped and suspended rocks. The mud would dry soon enough, and the river crossings firm up. We'd stick it out even if they didn't. Like most local residents, we'll be here come hell or high water.
The monsoons are a weather pattern the
Southwest depends upon for a large part of its annual precipitation. May,
June and part or all of July are often so dry that the few plants that
come up shrink and wither. Rivers and streams are reduced to a fraction
of their normal size, while the parched land awaits the usual arrival of
late-summer rains. The patterns are generally predictable, with the days
sunny and hot until early afternoon, when the winds suddenly kick up, sending
great black thunderclouds rolling in. They release their load in a sudden
deluge, triggered and stirred by amorous lightning thrusts. Unlike the
slow steady drizzles of December, the rain flies to the earth in large
boisterous drops, quickly turning every depression into a puddle, filling
every channel and sending walls of water down normally dry washes. Usually
by dark the clouds have cleared out like guests after a party, the winds
have subsided and the stars reappeared. Sometimes the total inches dropped
are insufficient and m
any seeds remain dormant until the following year. Other times the moisture
is plentiful—but seldom do we see them start as early as June 26, as they
did in 2006. Nor do we see them linger so long.
From West Texas to Arizona, the monsoons proceeded at a record pace. Streets in Amarillo ran deep enough to stall cars and provide kids with a place to float their toy boats. President Bush declared El Paso a disaster area after it got seven inches in a single day, resulting in $100 million in damages and the destruction of over 300 houses. North of Tucson, Sabino Canyon Recreation Area suffered huge rockslides that wiped out large portions of the highway, while 12 inches in less than 30 hours leveled roads and campgrounds at the Coronado National Memorial just above the Mexican border. Hatch was flooded. Parts of Silver City suffered serious damage.
According to the National Weather Service, unusually high barometric pressure in the east and low pressure along the West Coast worked together to suck in a steady plume of moisture, most of which pooled in the skies above New Mexico. As I write this, three to four times as much rain has fallen as in an average season—and the most since the summer of 1955—in what the weather service has labeled a "Thousand-Year Event."
Standing on the banks of the Rio Frisco, I sensed the degree to which we have chosen to live on the edge, not just between land and water but also the known and the unknown, the expected and the surprising, the habitual and the magical. It is the edge, I realize, between full-on living and the state of being anything less than fully alive. It is not danger that has me wide-eyed or prompts the wide-stretched smile on my face, but rather, the disruption of my schedules and the unexpected rearrangement of my world.
This edge is the milieu of evolution itself. For us hominids it is the place of conscious choice and change, the exceeding of imagined limitations, the stretch in yoga, the dancer or gymnast's leap into excellence, the moment of inspiration and the field of accomplishment. It is where we, like life itself, dare to take chances, to try something new, to envision and explore. It is a state of deepened presence, heightened awareness and awakened senses—of fascination and enchantment, creativity and revelation, passion and engagement, purpose and commitment—and thus of manifestation and satisfaction, realization and reward. It is there that life presents all its colors and flavors, that opportunities are revealed and nest-bound baby birds dare a leap of faith into the imposing but beckoning sky.
Certainly, some people more than others seek out and thrive on the experience of the edge. These include not only people like ourselves who have to pass through a flood-prone canyon to get to the grocery store, but also warrior women and men who enlist for more than one stretch in elite military units—and peace activists bravely protesting a US-waged or -funded war in spite of public pressure and government surveillance. Philanthropists who spend their inheritance on revolutionary ideas or deeds, and master burglars who don't need the money they steal. Children undergoing rites of passage, and adults signing up for four days of solitude and fasting on what is often called a Vision Quest. And then there are the possibly more mundane examples of hot-air balloonists, mountain climbers and downhill skiers. Of struggling artists and musicians. Of women working so-called "men's jobs," and men who make an art of being sensitive. Empathic and motivated teachers in sometimes-unresponsive public-school systems. Single working mothers who could have had it easy by staying in a compromising marriage.
As individuals, we may be furthest out on the edge when we quit a soul-deadening job with no certainty of finding a more meaningful one. Or when we stay with a low-paying position as a gardener or preschool teacher because it is our greatest gift to the world and best use of our lives. When we move to a different city or out into the country to fulfill our hopes and dreams. The edge is the shore from which we embark onto new ways of thinking, being and doing. It is always from there that we extend ourselves, exceed and excel.
It seems important to remember that walking the edge is not the same as being addicted to risky behavior, or as being "edgy," nervous or apprehensive. Nor does it mean always pushing hard without rest or relaxation. Instead, it is to make every thought, word and action deliberate, and therefore consciously intentional and meaningful. We can do that in a hammock, with extreme awareness of how much it nourishes us and how wonderful it feels to swing. We can become intimate with the edge through the ways we interact with our parents or children, by making all conversation meaningful and truly focusing on the person we're communicating with. Through noticing the sensation of rain as it kisses our upturned faces. And through the whole-body awareness of a lover's embrace.
The river running across our teaching center is generally pleasantly low, all but for a couple of weeks in an average year. Seldom does anyone get knees wet, and we can almost always drive someone in who has trouble walking. With such glad comfort and relative ease, we and our guests have to be all the more careful not to lose sight of the edge, or of the vista of possibilities beyond. It is even harder to maintain our edge in air-conditioned or heated buildings with rote assignments, with city crews to clear the streets. Without attention the edge recedes, even for a devoted adventurer. The world is forever moving, not just spinning but swelling and tumbling, shifting, growing, evolving, advancing. The edge is where we keep pace, where we are sentient participants rather than after-the-fact observers of objectified phenomena tossed about in passing time's spreading wake, an echo some song left behind.
It seems that we commit to a destination or goal whenever we inhabit the edge, even when that destination is simply a greater realized self, or family, or home. It is from the edge of the expected that we each depart, and from which platform our glad return is launched.
After each rain, every mountain and indeed every rock glints and shines as though dressed with bits of the proverbial "silver lining" that the passing clouds left behind. And in keeping with this metaphor of hope, after every heedless flood there follows a flurry of new growth. Similarly, in our lives a crystalline clarity trails each obfuscating emotional storm, and personal devastation becomes a growing process with revealing insights on how and what we should do next. Once the source of a trauma has left, we likely find that we have gained more than we lost.
Due to the paltry winter snowfalls since 1999, at the end of August New Mexico was still 30 percent below its annual precipitation norm, but the substantial flow helped to ease the short-term drought. Underground aquifers that had long done nothing but drop were at least fractionally replenished. The threat of more forest fires was extinguished until summer 2007, and new pools and seeps provided wildlife with additional places to drink.
Here in this canyon, the rain barrels are full of delicious drinking water, with extra for outdoor heated baths. It turned out that the overflowing river actually deposited more soil than it removed. The trees I had planted over the previous quarter-century actually collected rather than surrendered the valuable loam, functioning like a colander or seine. I could see it banked up against the sylvan trunks, darker and richer than ever before, and containing new seeds for the coming spring. And much of the bounty was immediate, not delayed. The wild grapevines draping over nearby trees produced more and larger leaves than ever before, enticing us to gather and preserve as much of this flavorful food as possible. Like the river in flood stage, amaranth and sweet four o'clocks that usually don't top the knee grew to chest and even chin height. Purple crested bee-weed waved its hellos from over our heads.
Thanks to the storms, everywhere the landscape was dressed up in an untypical green. Brown hills and even deserts turned a bright lime. Even the evergreens—the foliage of the region's piñons, junipers, firs and pines—appeared more deeply tinted, more saturated with vital and verdant hues. But other colors clamored for attention, too. Multi-toned flowers that hadn't been seen in years seemed to crop up in the most unexpected places, in near-endless variety and great profusion: purple morning glories, lavender snapdragons, white and pink evening primrose, blue asters, orange butterfly-weed blossoms, blazing yellow sunflowers, green hops, pink mallow, golden Mexican poppies and royal blue salvias. Wild mint, skullcap, steep willow, yarrow and trellising virgin's bower. Attending this explosion of plant life are a rarely equaled number of birds in the greater Gila region, their songs joining the rivers' as the soundtrack of flourishing magical life.
The smell was back to its most familiar, light and sweet, as I walked along the river, taking in the scents, sights and sounds after its waters had dropped. My plan was to wrap the bases of some of the larger streamside alders and cottonwoods, having spotted the beavers sizing up their dam for repairs. Instead, the sound of the river captured my focus—not a roar this time, but a quiet and gentle ringing of notes like raindrops hitting glass bells. I lay down in the thick grass, staring up at the cloudless sky, waiting patiently for the rising waves of elation to subside.
Frequent contributor Jesse Wolf Hardin is a prolific essayist, offering restorative retreats and vision quests 100 miles north of Silver City and seven usually low river crossings from the nearest road. His new full-color book is Old Guns & Whispering Ghosts: Tales & Twists of the Old West, featuring historic tales of Southwest New Mexico (www.oldgunsbook.com, mail@oldgunsbook.com). For a signed copy send $39.95 plus $4 shipping and handling to: J. L. Hardin, Box 688, Reserve, NM 87830.