I don’t have much quiet in my life. I am a full-time, short-order cook of part-time, half-eaten meals, an avant-garde art project director using only common household materials, a disaster mitigation specialist and an outdoors adventure guide.
I can slay a monster with one hand while simultaneously fixing an iPad with the other. Basically, I can pull a rabbit from a hat on command. I am a slapstick comedian, a professional laundress and a walking encyclopedia of why everything in the universe happens at any given moment, because Goose’s inquiring little mind wants to know and then know again.
So, when the opportunity presented itself to head to Petroglyph National Monument this past weekend, I washed the finger-paint out of Goose’s hair, packed our bags and ventured into the heart of New Mexico for a lovely day in search of some quiet and some sacred landscape.
Standing at the trailhead of Rinconada Canyon, the winter sun warm on our cheeks, the Sandia Mountains standing at reverent attention in the background, honoring the sacredness that comes with the history of a place once alive and important enough for a civilization to record meaningful events, silence abounds.
I considered lying down in the warm sand and letting the ancient earth envelope my soul to absorb the quiet like the rocks absorb the art. But then Goose took off down the trail with her hiking compatriots and we were off.
It wasn’t five minutes before the first petroglyph appeared on the rocky escarpment to our right. According to tradition, Pueblo elders believe that the petroglyphs themselves choose when and to whom they reveal themselves.
“Look mommy, I see one already,” Goose shouted, pointing up to two stick figures, not unlike her and myself, surveying the landscape.
Walking through and amongst the ancient rock art, it is easy to let your imagination run wild, contemplating what ancient mothers and daughters’ lives were like, walking the same trails and experiencing the same sacred landscape.
Briefly, I wonder if stick mama up there on the rocks had to stop 500 times in 10 feet to remove sand from stick baby’s shoes because it is too dramatic to walk with a grain of sand in one’s shoe? But then the cool breeze brings me back to the bigger picture, and I dust off her toes once again and switch my thought process to wondering what petroglyphs I would leave behind for generations in the future to see when they eventually walk by with their families?
I’d leave an image of stick mama, arms encompassing stick baby with just one heart in the middle because our love is too big and alike to be illustrated with two separate hearts.
It wasn’t long before the next petroglyph was revealed to me, a bird perched up high, a goose perhaps, centered in an incomplete circle. The circle originating from the little bird’s mouth, and my day suddenly becomes strikingly meaningful, reminding me that sacred moments in life and memories I can give Goose are etched into my soul like the images clinging to the ancient landscape.
I look down at Goose’s little footprint in the sandy wash and know that just as the wind blows to cover them, no one will know that we were here but us, and I etch the memory of the moment in to the landscape of my mind.
I love that I can call upon the memories we have made, and I love that each memory that I’ve have crafted and gathered took time and dedication and a deliberate decision to both create and then mark as a memory. Days like this are made from moments, seconds really, that I gather. Each one becomes a brush stroke that ultimately comes together to paint the image that crates a memory, a petroglyph of a moment in time, that I want to preserve for eternity on the walls of my soul.
As we near the completion of the loop back to the trailhead and I think of the images revealed to me, I know that I will leave the quiet behind in the sandy canyon floor, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Stick mama and baby and the beautiful noisy bird revealed to me that memories aren’t made from silence. It’s the ability to recall them, the petroglyphs I’ve preserved in my soul, which ultimately give the gift of silence and reflection. It’s Goose, in all of her inquisitive wonder, which ultimately creates these moments. Without them, in their entire noisy splendor, I would not find the quiet value in reflection and in preserving the sacred landscape emblazoned in my soul.
Jenny can be reached at jennyandgooseoutdoors@outlook.com
