Big Bend is all a dream. My last month working in the Wild West was full of much adventure, much work and many emotions and changes. Like the ever metamorphing nature of my surrounds, my life kept changing rapidly and intensely. There came a point when I felt as though I had no control over all that seemed to be happening. I’ve written it fairly often, if not always, my life is overwhelming to me, and at times it is hard to ride the runaway train that is my existence.
I am literally on the road as I write. My headphones plugged in, the beauty that is Utah sliding past me easily; the mountains entrenched in giant foreboding storm clouds. The expanse….endless and welcoming. I am on the last leg of the trip with Sarah Sanders. This is however, only the first leg of my own journey. We have spent 10 ridiculous days on the road. We began in Big Bend National Park, our shared home for the past few months and will end together in Grand Teton National Park, where Sarah will work as a backcountry permit ranger for the park service. We have been to 7 national forests, 6 National Monuments, 4 National Parks and countless towns along the way. When our trip is all said and done this evening, we will have traveled through 5 states together. This has been one of the most intensive road trips I have ever been on, and I have been on a hefty amount of trips over the past ten years. I have felt physically and mentally exhausted because of all that I’ve witnessed. The landscape did not and would not stop or slow down. The road pulled us ever onward, and at times, I felt as though, if I had to endure any more “experiencing” I would simply fall over and stay to the ground, eyes closed, ears covered, in a ball, to just REST. The majestic beauty of the west has never been a stranger to me. It has served as my closest confidant, my earnest, passionate lover, my mentor, my relief, my spiritual leader, my comfort. The mountains, the forest, the red rock, the gushing and rushing rivers have always welcomed me and whispered to me, and pulled me in. HARD. This part of the country fills my chest and brain with a vital excitement. It is a reminder always, when I am here, that I am home.
Home is a funny word for me. I am nomadic in nature and so home is where I rest my head at the end of the night, or in the early morn. Home is where my body is at the moment. There are varying levels and meaning of the literal word home in my existence. The “home” that I feel in the west, is a home that renders closer to “normal” folks definition of the word I suppose. Oh the pines, the towering tectonic masterpieces, the glacial aftermath, the cold cold lakes, the intimacy of the enclosing forest enveloping me in comfort and age and love. The jagged peaks of snow covered mountains, unforgiving and demanding, the randomness of weather created by high elevation landmasses and water masses. The feeling of exploration and ruggedness, the adaption to survival forced by nature. The lack of easy comfort. All of it. The sheer monumental hugeness of this particular part of the country makes my heart beat faster. It makes me breathe harder. Literally, the elevation gain makes the body work harder. The higher altitude, when mixed with physical exertion leads to something that resembles a runner’s high, and a fairly false sense of elation takes hold. That, mixed with all of the obvious beauty, well, right there is a nice little cocktail of pure, wonderful existence on this planet earth.
We have ventured this way, to my “home” over the course of a week and a half and I have had the pleasure of seeing some of the most breath taking and wonderous places. I’ve had real adventures, sometimes experiencing things I still cannot wrap my brain around. The land that I have seen has been mind-boggling enough to make the most dedicated atheist question the existence of a higher being, and I am a seasoned traveler. So what makes this trip different? Why am I so freaking overwhelmed by all that is around me? Because it is non-fucking-stop. That’s why. Every single day, almost every minute, I have seen beauty around me. I have traversed in a week places that most people take years to visit. And nothing has been consistent except the severe, dramatic beauty of my ever-changing surroundings. Sarah, at one point on route 12 in Utah, leaving Escalante and heading toward Capitol Reef said “I need this to stop, it’s too much to look at, to experience, I need to see something plain for a minute, I need my eyes to stop seeing this”. And I felt the same. Standing on top of a mountain, snow all around us, the landscape red and orange and hellishly striking on one side, the forest on the other, the sky opening up, clouds pregnant with storm and snow, slick rock down below, rivers rushing through, carving the earth, the sky on the other side with the sun shining in few penetrating rays to pull fourth a sunset. So many worlds and climates and everything intermingling all around me. So many smells and sounds. I wept easily for a few moments, and I felt as though the beauty of all of it hurt my heart. It was too much to bear. And I felt ashamed at the damage we’ve done as people. This is a feeling that we should feel every day. This is something so pure and so integral to our subsidence, and yet, in our current situation, this is a foreign feeling, one so foreign it feigns overwhelming intensity and a lack of physical understanding. I felt backwards, knowing that I recognize more the complex homogenized make-up and systematic re-creation of organic living of a developed city than I do the diverse ecosystem that has been around me my entire life. This is a painful realization. It feels better to be surrounded by nature, to not have the distractions we have created for ourselves. People are more often friendly in the country. Anxiety occurs less, stress occurs less, that unending “want and need” that seems to never be met in the city has no bearing any which way out in the middle of nowhere because it doesn’t fucking matter. You can hear your own voice. You can hear your breathing and feel your heart beating. The sun feels glorious and the cold feels a necessary reminder. To see your breath, clouding in the air in the frigid atmosphere of the snowy mountain is PROOF that you are there, alive, existing. Life is just life. It is simple. And who the hell cares if you meet some goals that really, don’t mean a goddamn thing because well…you’re just going to die some day anyway. We’ve created this life, to make ourselves have a purpose, and really…that purpose for the most part, has no purpose. And on that note, I’ll just keep looking around me for now. Taking in the last long bit of tar that takes me to the mountains I’ve longed to be near for two years now. Ever changing, ever winding, unpredictable road to nowhere. Or somewhere. Or everywhere. -KG
Can you send this to the BP executives?
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