I saw the body flying through the air. I didn’t realize it was a body at first. I didn’t know what it was. It all happened so fast. But as it fell, I saw clearly it was a man. And I saw his back, then the head, hit pavement. Bodies aren’t supposed to make that sound. I knew immediately, even before I saw the pool of blood, he was dead.
That night, even before I went to sleep, I saw the man – I saw his clothes, the tattoos on his arms, his face. In my dreams it was there again. Who was he? Why was he there? Why didn’t the driver on the other side of the road stop before he hit him?
I had to drive south the next morning. The first hour was pouring rain. I clenched the steering wheel so hard my forearms hurt. I-35 in Texas felt like a nightmare. No shoulders. Construction everywhere. Electronic flashing signs every few miles: “Don’t be a statistic. Deaths on Texas roads this year: 2,871.” Thanks for the real time update Texas - Fuck you. Nothing makes people safer than reminding them to be fearful.
I called my friend who’d seen it too. She told me she’d wept that morning when she got into her car.
~~~
It’s been two weeks since I saw that unknown man die. In time, I stopped seeing the body. Often, I forget it happened. I wonder, is it because I never saw him alive? Is it because I only saw it all through my windshield? Or perhaps it’s because I’ve stayed so busy.
Since, I’ve spent a lot of time with some of my dearest friends. I’ve gotten far away from the highways deep into the Chihuahuan Desert, Chisos Mountains, and the Guadeloupe Range. I’ve been with people nonstop. I’ve stayed up into the night to photograph the moon rise over the desert. I’ve spent full days climbing arid peaks. I’ve had so many of the things that life has to offer, solitude and silence being two key exceptions.
But I’m alone again. And this morning I found myself buried 750 feet below the New Mexico desert in the Carlsbad Caverns National Park.
Carlsbad is a strange place for North America’s largest accessible cave system. There is nothing above the ground that would indicate to a non-scientific eye that there should be countless miles of passageways below. From above, the top of the butte gently swells and rolls to the north and west. The ground seems more than solid underfoot. There are not legions of dark holes into which one might climb. To the east and south an immense vista of flatness stretches to the horizon -- dirt, rubble, cholla, yucca, other cacti, and a solitary highway as far as the eye can see. If you squint you can see the fires coming from the fracking wells. Other truths lie on the landscape too - invisible to the human eye. They say we used to test nuclear bombs just 30 miles from here. Does radiation still cling unseen to the rocks in the parks?
But, I didn’t come here for what’s above the surface. It’s that huge fissure in the earth that drew me. And as I approached it, my eyes looked down into the hole - switchbacks that disappeared into the below.
As I descended, I wondered what madness possessed the first explorers more than 100 years ago, before walkie talkies, electric lights, and automatic pulleys to climb miles and miles into unknown, unlit chambers below the earth. Looking at the rock, its grade, its wetness, its shape – I imagined what it’d be like climb before there were trails. How easy it must have been to fall to places unseen, how easy to become lost. And if you did – what horrors then? What would it be like to starve to death in the pitch black?
I walked briskly until I’d gone so far down I could no longer see any of the natural light above. I was not afraid. I wanted to be still. Absolutely still. There was no sound, save the drip, drip, drip of unseen water into unseen pools.
There were faint noises further up toward the entrance of the cave. Probably the six school buses of children I saw on my drive in. Better keep moving. But I couldn’t go fast. I took a step, then stopped, lingering to look at the ornate details, like filigree on the columns of stalagmites that stretched from the cave’s ceiling to its floor. Then I’d take another step only to linger more before a vein of sparkling calcite. I forgot about hurrying.
They began to catch up. I expected a horde, but instead at first I saw only a teacher and 10 middle school aged girls. Further back, I could hear more of them. But this first group was quiet-ish. When they spoke and giggled, they did so in respectful, hushed whispers. I let them pass. But a few minutes later I caught up, and passed them again.
I wondered if I should rush ahead to stay ahead of the noise. I was so enjoying the stillness before they came. It nourished me in ways I didn’t understand. I wanted more. I so dreaded the others who I knew followed behind them.
I tried this for a while - trying to rush toward stillness.
But then I paused. A huge cavern had opened up before me. It looked as though the ceiling were a hundred feet above my head. I set up my tripod. I fiddled with the settings.
I heard them before I saw them. It wasn’t words, but one voice, whimpering. I imagined what the girl must be feeling as she climbed ever deeper into the earth, away from the surface and the natural light. I heard her sniffle. I turned, and watched them come toward me. I saw the crying girl. One of her classmates was holding her hand, a second one had her in a loose embrace.
“It’ll be okay, Justice” one said. “Don’t cry,” said a second.
As they walked by me, other girls pressed close too. The whole group stopped, and surrounded the girl in a large embrace.
They made loving sounds. A few girls began to giggle, one called out: “Oh Justice - there’s nothing to cry about!” Another laughing: “We can’t take you anywhere!” A third: “Oh Justice, we love you.”
The teacher wordlessly caught my eye, and smiled, her face saying: “Do you see? How could I not be happy in a world that has this?”
They walked on, disappearing around a corner, echoes of loving whispers and warm laughter still reaching back to me from the darkness.
But my reverie was short lived. At first it was a titter, then an indistinct din, a cacophony of many voices echoing through the chamber – unmistakably teenage boys. As they got closer I could hear specific conversations - perhaps something about Batman, football, definitely girls, a few pretend farts, machismo claims about their lack of fear - shushing every now and then as well.
I wondered why couldn’t they be quiet, like the others? Why don’t the teachers control them? Why it so hard for so many people to be quiet? Is it play, or a deflection for their fears? If so, of what? Of monsters in the dark? Of silence? Does the darkness, and these depths, make them think of dying, or the dead? Or perhaps, is it the monsters lurking in their minds, images that only surface when no one speaks, that they are trying to keep at bay behind their idle chatter?
Of course now it’s so obvious - the questions were as much directed at me as them. But in that moment, I didn’t see that yet.
Groups of 10 began to pass me one by one. I tried to ignore them, to focus on my photography. But the path was too narrow. Kids kept bumping into my tripod. I gave up and walked slowly, close to edge, so they could pass. How long would this go on? Six school buses hold a lot of noise and hormones.
I tried to enjoy the majesty of the caves, but I saw nothing, my mouth may not have moved, but my mind was racing as I walked up. First it was consumed with the boys, then the impeachment hearing, later other frustrations happening above the surface. I saw a sign and stopped to read it. It said that in the 1920s the Caverns first became a national attraction. Then, there were no elevators or paved paths. Tours used to take 5 hours but today they’ve cut the time in half! (Yes, there was an exclamation point on the sign). Is that a good thing? I wondered.
I kept walking toward the great room. Suddenly I realized I was alone. All of them must have passed. It was silent again. I hadn’t even noticed. How long had it been still? This was very thing I’d said I wanted to run to – what took me so long to notice it’d arrived?
I stood motionless and held my breath. I wanted to hear nothing. But instead of nothing I heard the blood pulsing through my veins.
I breathed again, and found my eyes had filled with tears. My throat tighten. It was hard to breathe deeply. For the first time in a long time. I saw the body. Yes, that had happened. It wasn’t a dream.
Even as I saw him, I felt held by caves and within the silence. Here I’d found a place both contained and also more expansive than I could imagine.
I realized what the whimpering girl must have known - that there was 750 feet of heavy rock above my head and miles trail I’d have to climb to get back to the surface. If the walls shook I would certainly die. Still I did not feel afraid.
I’m not sure how long I sat there. I know many other people walked by. The children looped back at one point but it was as if they were far away. I knew they were there but I didn’t hear their words anymore.
Slowly I found both the sadness and the image of the man began to fade from my mind, in its place I found a chasm had opened up inside me, and I felt the cave all around rushing it.
The silence said: do not be afraid, you are alive, give thanks.
Looking within, I found the darkness had begun to take shape and color — deep reservoirs of gratitude abounding where sadness and resentment had prevailed only a moment before.
I felt gratitude for the absurdity of being able to stand 750 feet below the earth. Gratitude that I’m a citizen of a country which chose to preserve so many of its most beautiful places before I was born. Gratitude for the other worldly beauty of the caves. Gratitude for my health and the ability to walk through them on my own legs. Gratitude to learn from the noise of those boys – and realize how my mind is often just as loud. Gratitude to witness the tenderness of those girls for their friend. Gratitude to be free and able to go on this journey. Gratitude for the strangers who I’ve met on this journey, many of whom have changed my life. Gratitude for the friends and family who’ve supported me when I was afraid. And too, gratitude for the air in my lungs and the blood still pumping through my veins.
Hearing nothing in the cave but the beating of my heart, I felt so fiercely the truth of my pulse. There is always much to mourn; but as long as I breathe, I must also give thanks.
It is a most strange, unfair, beautiful, and miraculous thing to be alive.
