The writer, in the parlor, with the leaky pen. I'm finally allowing the intense quiet of the back woods to feel comforting. I'm about an hour's drive north of Santa Fe, New Mexico, in the Pecos Wilderness, in a cabin, surrounded with snow-footed trees (mostly juniper and piños pine, along with some spruce and elm, our hosts tell us). Deer that are heavier than they appear munch on exposed grasses in the yard, and the ever-charismatic blue jays compete for the bird feeder all day long. Yesterday, upon our first morning waking up in this, the second largest wilderness area in the state, everything seemed a little off. The quiet seemed to boom in my ears, creating a vacuum of sound I've become accustomed to in Los Angeles. I never thought I'd say this, but the constant urban hum can become a part of a person, symbolizing activity that leads to productivity, and a level of security that there is someone out there, even if the occasional loneliness of anonymity hits.
Here, there is no one, except my travel companion and the inn keepers. When the inn keepers leave for an hour, I push away panicked thoughts of potential disastrous emergencies that might occur in their absence. And me without a cell phone signal! Have I become so dependent on the immediacy of living in a city? In these woods, even nearby cabins that are filled with fishermen and campers in the summer have been deserted now, left to stand covered in inches of fallen snow. Their porches are often insurmountable after a storm's hefty deposit that glistens in the sun. In the spring, these flakes will melt and become the drip on the corner of a deck, a drop in the creek, a roar of a river, a molecule in the cell of a tree's xylem pumping water through the trunk to the sky. I walk with a companion, having little to say, our feet crunching on slushy snow along a lane large enough for one car to pass. These seem like the forgotten places for now.
Except, here I am, learning to listen again, learning to hear soft things the way babies do after emerging from a womb that pulsates with the sounds blood rushing around. I am again learning to travel slowly along the path, to see that in the end, this place is more real than our concrete and lifeless structures. In this forest, life springs and falls to a quiet dormancy, and then springs again when the time is right.
After a time, we are surprised to see two men as we round a bend. They are holding cross-country skis. It seems natural to stop and chat, since it may be some time before we see anyone else. Indeed, it seems absurd - rude, even - to not stop and chat. "Any trails you recommend?" One well-groomed gentleman on the verge of old age asks, with a hint of a northern Eurpoean accent that I cannot place. "No, we're just visiting." I reply. "Are you staying around here?" He wonders. "Yup - we are staying down the road, in a bed and breakfast." We wish each other a good trip and move on in silence again.
Somewhere along the path, I am reminded of something I have read many times. Underneath the din of noise, lies the most vital source of life. "Be still and know that I am God." And suddenly, I am...and I do.
