So I'm 46 years old and mostly inert, hauling my bulk down this series of tarred switchbacks designed to make the hike less stressful on a body. As if walruses were ever capable of a two mile sojourn at ten thousand feet above their watery world. The path is well traveled this afternoon. I exchange pleasant nods between gasps for air with family groups and couples all the while telling myself - as far as you travel downward, you will return upward. I stop for a moment under the shade of jutting sandstone and scrappy pinon while a mother flanked by three small children gives a nature lesson on a crawling caterpillar. Two mezmerized girls recoil as thier younger sibling dispatches the furry creature with a well placed stomp.
"Oh my God. You are so getting a time out."
I took a long swallow of bottled water to stop the giggles as I continued down the trail that soon widened out at the base of the ruins. The sloping cliff side echoed with the quiet conversations of tourists. Forest green clad rangers stood sentinel in strategic spots along the ruins - chasing the more adventurous from the "no visitors beyond this point" and "please stay off the walls' signs. A steady stream of people popped in and out of one of the working kivas and I found that familiar ache rising from within. That cry for solace amongst the chattering humanity. The drone of life oblivious to the pain and joy of people thousands of years gone. Standing where we pose for pictures...I took a breath and turned away from Spruce House...and there it was. That place where earth and air and spirit meet. The sloping cuesta melted soft and verdant into the tourmaline horizon. Two ravens danced on thermals overhead, pinioned wings gliding a breath away from each other. The air itself was cool and clean and laced with spruce and yucca flower. I ran my hand along the weathered stones at my back and sent a single word prayer skyward.....perfection.....