Mind Watching: Field Notes from Wilderness Solitude – Day 19

50 days of observations, insights, and contemplations...

by Tyler Volk

Tyler Volk’s “Mind Watching” Series Table of Contents

Day 19 - Bluewater Lake

Beautiful as New Mexico is, the dryness can grow weary for a born and bred Easterner like me. So I often gravitate toward water. The next morning, after packing up my camp at El Morro, I spent too much time looking at map for options (which included heading home), and weighing them by juggling internal imagery, until I decided out of the blue to bolt for a place I had never been called Bluewater Lake State Park.

The Park’s lake was a reservoir that was surprisingly huge. The public area was an odd scene with hundreds of campsites, but only a half dozen occupied. Because of three years of drought, the water level was so low that it disheartened the standard clientele of folks bringing their boats. Some stay-aways were likely wishing for an alternative moment, comparing the present lake to the one they had known from wetter years. However, to a mere swimmer like me, the vast shimmering expanse seemed like the ocean.

After establishing camp, I hiked into down the canyon below the reservoir’s dam. The only human I saw was a cheerful fellow illegally cutting cedar wood. We waved silent hellos. Botanically, it was a magical place, full of life, with a profusion of yellow flowers, purple flowers, cattails, equisetum (horsetails), red cedars, and white cedars. A trickling stream, the lake’s outlet, wended down the middle of the narrow, flat valley. Life was lush because the dam prevented the flash floods that would have periodically “cleaned” things out. With stability, a rich, diverse life could take hold.

What about times of stability or instability in one’s life?

ell, times of dramatic change can mean a new start. Some of the slate of self is erased. In an ecosystem, pioneering species then come in. But does the system head back toward the same prior conclusion? Or will the system assemble itself in a different way, and if so, toward what goal? What do these questions possibly mean as a metaphor for one’s life? Times of more stability can lead to slower, secure growth. Both sides seem to have pros and cons. So to the extent one has choice in the matter, how to judge what the mix should be?

I raise these questions without answering them not because I don’t have answers. I don’t have answers. But that’s not the reason for not answering. It’s that no one has answers that are with ease succinctly written down. Novelists sweat hundreds of pages answering the issues of pros and cons for slow change versus fast change for specific situations they explore. I only contribute here, in a small way, the potential for using ecology as a metaphor for personal exploration of the self and its timeline over life, for the self is more than equal to ecology in terms of complexity in space and time, or, with specific regards to us, in personal space and time.

In the canyon, I watched cliff swallows darting in and out of their mud-and-stick nests. No one on Earth knew where I was. I liked that.

Later at dusk, while swimming in the reservoir, rain began. Heavy raindrops pelted me and thunder pealed. I lingered in the deliciously warm gray water, which all around me was micro-cratering from the falling droplets. When I climbed out and hiked back up to camp, I discovered that rain had driven right through the tent screen. The tent floor was wet, too, and so was a portion of the sleeping bag. Didn’t make a fire. Enjoyed sitting in the dark after the rain passed. For dinner, crackers with peanut butter. Yum.

© 2024 by Tyler Volk

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