Chisos Christ Part 1

It's been awhile..It's been an insanely busy month here in the old Vortex. And many events have taken place. Much change, much shifting, much all around. March has been sweeping by faster than I can keep up with it. I was lucky enough to have visitors and share this place with them in a whirlwind driving force manner. I have become closer to my odd community of Parkies, and i switched jobs, from the front desk at the Chisos Basin Lodge, to a line cook for the restaurant. (The only place to eat a cooked meal in the entire park). I also survived the Texas Spring Break, which was an easy reminder to me of why tourists and Americans for that matter have to ability to drive me completely and utterly insane. I've hiked most of the month, I camped out in the back country, I've cooked an ungodly amount of food for visitors, I've seen ghosts, I've sat in the hot springs under the carpet of stars in the milky way, I've watched the sun come up many times out here, was swept away on many adventures, and have been brought to tears (literally) by the sheer beauty that surrounds me on a daily basis. Life still doesn't make much sense here. It's hard to grasp. And it's even easier to be taken each day, to a new place, mentally, physically, metaphorically.

I have been meeting new people often, finding myself falling easily in love with the personalities that swirl around me. I seem to have a variety of intensely intimate relationships with so many of these passing lives. I have had the symbiotic relation of transfer with most of these folks, we push and pull, give and take, breathe in and out, share the personification of ourselves and who we perceive ourselves to be, and become ever changing in the process. It's often a lot to handle, to collect so many lives like baseball cards, keeping images, statistics and facts about each person here in this bizarre capsule in West Texas. I find myself wavering into the morning often, still awake or barely rested from my partaking of the previous night, and each new dawn brings another new experience, another landscape, another body, another story, another intense lesson. This life is vigorous. It is often hard to take care of myself to remind myself to sleep, to spend time alone, to just listen to all of the thoughts that seem to move frantically inside of my brain with no hope of direction. I'm only driven by the constant insatiable curiosity and the opportunity to have adventures. It never ends.

To really attempt to write about these experiences would take a very long time. So I will attempt to simply let things come out as they need to. Right now the wind is whipping violently through the Basin. It's spring here and so the air is not cold, but it is howling and pushing, and although it sounds angry, it's comforting to me. This is the first time I have been alone in a long time. And i feel lucky, and spent, and overwhelmed, but calm. I feel like I'm floating in ghostly world, with many new experiences that have now become memories casting shadows on my wall like a flashlight puppet show. I feel like I'm dreaming and navigating through the new places I've paved within myself. Maybe I'm really getting swallowed by the vortex. Or maybe I am adhering to "park life".

There is a balance when living in the park that must be met. It is a personal balance. For most it varies. You have to take into consideration many factors to create the balance. They range, from living in a remote place, to living in un-reality, to living with and accepting all of the people who become your dysfunctional and very strange "family" and community, to the intense alcohol abuse, to the lack of things to do as the sun goes down, to your "job" and how that puts you on the social chain within the park, to the actual park and all of the things you may want to explore, to the fact that you actually have to face yourself without the distractions of city life, to realizing that you may actually find comfort in this unreality and the odd social world of acceptance created in this bubble of seasonal work, to remembering to be productive and coherent and not just get swept away in the ether of the beauty and the community around you, to obscene living conditions, no privacy, no money to be made (unless you are a server), no rhyme or reason, no permanence, to the relationships you may have with people (park relationships range, and quite a few partake in the promiscuous sort, and these physical relationships are readily available here, everyone screws), to the seriousness of falling in love in the park and how that changes paths, to not seeing your friends or loved ones for long periods of time and then even attempting to explain this life to anyone in the outside world, to well...cabin fever, and the delay of what (if you want it) you may be trying to achieve in the "actual" world. In short, living in the Park can make you or break you. Or it can simply be comforting, or it really just may be a way of life. Either way, it makes a change. And anyway, it will change you. In some way or another, usually in a drastic way. Few of us ever come out even remotely the same as we were, and some of us stay within the park system for seasons, or even years, and some, a lifetime.

The park draws all sorts of folks. It has a magnetic pull to it, and at times it even seems to "choose" some people. It brings in the adventurers (people who genuinely want to live in the park, explore every aspect of the park, your hikers, your cyclists, your kayakers, your fisherman, your science and biology nerds, your campers and backpackers, people who really sincerely make the park their home, utilize as much recreation in the park as possible. Those in recovery (many former drug addicts work the parks to stay away from their vices...and those vices are varying..but here in the park it's extremely hard to get heroin, crack or meth..and besides, there's always the threat of federal prison, border patrol here in Texas, and random drug tests..so it's a good place to stay clean unless...), Alcoholics ( a very large portion of the folks in the park drink..and they drink heavily..and why not? Alcohol is legal, and people get away with their alcoholism within the park system easier than most anywhere else...in some parks there are employee pubs and alcohol is encouraged...if you are in fact an alcoholic, this place is heaven. It's easy to get by, you most likely will not get fired...and everyone drinks...so drink up), Military (Park life is similar to Military life I'm told, you get housing, three squares a day, you have a job, you sign a contract, you are thrown into the pot with any and every type of person, there is "structure" and a chain of command..all of this and you don't have to risk your life or live in the outside world.), People who lack social skills (in the park, no one cares if you are socially awkward, or have mental illness, or you can't function in so called "normal" life. People here just live in the community that is created...and a good handful of these folks would most certainly be ostracized from the outside world, they might not be able to have the opportunities they have here, and frankly, they wouldn't be accepted in the outside world. Some people are truly inappropriate in "normal" terms here, but no one really gives a fuck one way or the other as long as you do your job.), People who are running away from something (it's a great break here, you get to live in a beautiful place, you are in suspended reality, you have food and housing and a paycheck, you have a chance to start over and have a whole new life and figure things out. You have to opportunity to put things behind you here.) People who are running towards something (there are endless opportunities within the park system...an ungodly amount. There a new people to meet, a variety of jobs you can be trained for without going to school, people to fall in love with, towns to explore, tourists to present some strange opportunity to you, and well, freedom, lot's and lot's of freedom that does not exist in the outside world because here, you have constant constant change, and you have the ability to move around wherever you want to go, season to season, to do it all over again, hit the restart button, find more things in the world, take advantage of all of the million things presented to you and have the comfort and the closeness of your "park family/community"). Retirees (of course...what a better way to spend your life after a career than in an extremely beautiful place, where you can transfer season to season and live in your RV.) Internationals (They want to see America and make money, they are one of the perks about working in the parks, it really is something to have the opportunity to exchange culture. And only in the park system can a Chzech boy fall in love with a girl from Singapore, whilst both do not speak each other's language and might i add they are from varying degrees of class and educational backround. Of course, making friends in other countries always works out well for both parties.) and Settlers (these are usually self proclaimed folks who enjoy the perks of working in the park system fully and will explain why the "outside" world is not for them. They seem to be the most content Parkies. They usually contain that balance I was talking about. They also know the ropes and help newbies come into the circle. Some of them tend to gossip more and like to let everyone know what's going on with everyone and so fourth. The settlers will often stay loyal to a seasonal park, or, if a park has no season, will spend their years within a park.) Obviously there are many more "types" but you get the jist. Either way, the parks draw us all in. We have decided to spend our time here however long it may be, doing whatever it is we find or whatever finds us. It's a life like none other. And you, a visitor has no idea just how nuts it is, but you as a visitor may not understand how we see you, in our home. Because you are in fact, in our home. And you are a visitor. But of course, our life here in the park requires you to be here, and so our relationship begins. Most tourists are really curious about our lives here, they have funny preconceived notions about life in the park system. All of us parkies joke that we should have our own reality tv show, because it really sincerely would make a million bucks. But Park Service, the Interior, well, they'd never ever allow that, and with good reason. They have a hard time tolerating us non government working concession and tourism idiots as it is, but to show the ACTUAL life within the sacred land of America, well, jeez, it would more than likely be a blemish to the pristine face of the National Park System. And of course there is the positive aspect of it...maybe I am just sensationalizing the craziness of it. But I assure you, it is crazy. any parkie will tell you, it's unlike any other lifestyle. And I hate to stop it there for now, but I'm really really exhausted. I just wanted to reconnect to the electronic world. I promise I'll finish the "who the f works here, why it's so nutso, man it's so beautiful here" tomorrow. But for now I need sleep. My body and brain are wiped out, and i think I'm hallucinating a bit. From the ether in the vortex...I'm signing off....trying to figure out which one of those "types" of parkies I am....adios for now

KG