| Carol Ann (Gratsos) Howell... page 3 |
| VACATION #1 AFTERNOON IN ANDREAS CANYON You drive east on Interstate 10, past the giant wind machines whirling over the flat land and hills like locusts. You turn off on California 111. The presence of Mt. San Jacinto at 10,831 feet sets your mind into a dreaming mode, or could it be the freeway miles, or the desert? You drive down Palm Canyon Drive, through the arty town of Palm Springs, but you have no desire to stop. You are on your way to Andreas Canyon. On the other side of town the road curves left, but you follow the part that narrows and goes straight to the canyon. Then slowly, savoring the trip, you drive along the narrow road, stopping to talk to the wildflowers and to admire the granite opening that lets your car pass. You feel that if you were to say, "Close, Sesame!" it would. You honk your horn before each blind curve as you wind up the mountain. At the top you pull into the parking lot at the Trading Post. Hummingbird feeders are hung in the trees near the small adobe building. At other times you've seen birds in more colors than you knew existed. But today they aren't here, they're out sampling the spring blossoms. You walk inside the Trading Post to admire the Indian handicrafts and to talk with the women who work here. One tells you the history. "Andreas Canyon is one of five canyons. It was named for the leader of the Agua Caliente, a band of the Cahuilla, who were descendants of the Shoshone. The name Agua Caliente, which means hot water in Spanish, came from the Mexicans who used to come here. In those days the Agua Caliente lived an integrated life with the elements," the woman says, "In the beginning they all spoke the same language and could communicate. Do you know that the magic healing water still bubbles up from the ground? And right here in these canyons we have date palms that are two thousand years old. So you can see we've been here for a long time." You feel welcome. The woman has shared her heritage with you. Just as you are about to descend the steep path into the canyon, you pause to read a typical Indian sign. It is simultaneously a welcome and a warning. "Take nothing but photos. Leave nothing but footprints." Then you go down into the canyon, hike up and down the granite walls taking pictures. It always seems that if you go just a little bit farther there will be something even more beautiful and you are afraid to stop for fear you'll miss it. Hours later you pull off your shoes, stand in the warm water and splash you face and neck. You wet your hair down to the scalp, remembering what the Indian woman said about the sacred ritual of bathing each morning to begin a new day, cleansed and pure. But now it's afternoon, you've been hiking in the canyon since morning. You sit down on a rock by the creek. Just before the sun crawls behind the mountain to sleep it lights and warms your arm. You listen to the rhythm of the voices singing from the stream, a choir of waters whose breath bubbles over stones and boulders, tinkling grace notes in harmony with rich whole notes played in deeper water, a river choir singing with its own symphony -- neither being itself without the other. To the eye it is only water, rocks and space, but to the ear it is music, music this land has always known, long before there were human ears to hear it. It doesn't play or sing to be heard, but because it has to. The water must move, and as it moves it sings and sculpts the land. It breathes into the air its moisture. In being itself, the river gives and creates, and we humans, we benefit, we enjoy, we are enraptured, we who are drawn to these river places as if we had been drops of water, a puddle or a creek, as if our bodies had flown between these rocks long long ago, before we were divided into species, before some were determined to be more important and others less sacred, before some were said to have intelligence and others instinct, when we were all one and one all and there were no divisions, before the world was so sad and so sophisticated, when it was new and naive, and perhaps when it was truly -- wise. ***** |