Big Bend, Really Far Away Texas (Part Two)

 Things I saw at Big Bend, in no particular order:

Birds! So many birds--there were vermillion flycatchers everywhere, zooming and divebombing all day long. They were entertaining, and obviously keeping the bug population down because I had zero issues with pests or biters at Big Bend. There were bright red boyos and I believe the orangey looking ones were their girlfriends. I am not an aves expert, so couldn’t say for sure, but they did look like matching pairs.

The most striking birds were the turkey vultures--they're big with impressive wingspans. Their flight patterns over the campsites were something to see…but my favorite part was when one would come down to the ground and carefully walk around looking for morsels. These are large, awesome birds with the scary vulture face, so to watch one carefully strut around on the grass was kind of hilarious, sort of like those less-than-majestic, face-front photos of bald eagles. So regal and suddenly so...gawky. They look like a first-day waiter balancing a large tray of drinks.

The best bird of all was the roadrunner. Look here: I have despised roadrunners since one tortured a skinny coyote on my favorite childhood cartoon. I always wanted Wile E. Coyote to catch that stupid, taunting bird and roast its little ass over a fire. I know there are fan drawings depicting that very scenario, and wouldn’t doubt someone’s put together a Looney Tunes snuff film because the outrage was just too much to bear. If only we’d known just how wonderfully dreadful real roadrunners are, and if only some of that sick twisted truth would have translated into the Bugs Bunny/Roadrunner Show.

This is him. Cute little murderbird!

My roadrunner sighting happened as I was driving from the campsite to the general store—it’s not terribly far, but hello, my name is Lazy, and I just put up a tent IRL and wasn’t about to hoof it. I almost ran it over, and it was a close call because the thing was taking its sweet time getting to the edge of the road, as though it saw my car and was like, What. Bitch? After staring at it for a minute, I made my way to the store. Being approximately 5-years-old when it comes to animals, I told the cashier I just saw a roadrunner as though he cared or was my mom and also I am five. But he was game (God love him and his kindness) and proceeded to tell me all about our friend, the roadrunner.

For example, if you’re driving through the park and hit some random bird and it happens to stick to your grille, the roadrunner will come up to your parked car and rip that carcass right off of there for ya and proceed to chow down. When I gawped at this, he sort of got this contemplative look and proceeded to tell me about a day he and some customers were at the store and looked out to see an amazing sight: three rare, colorful birds, bright and beautiful, congregating right there on the pavement just outside the window. Everyone was enchanted and delighted, sharing the moment in a crystalline bubble of wonderment…then a roadrunner comes zooming out of nowhere, stabs one of the pretty little birdies in the head with its beak, and proceeds to dismember it right there in front of the horrified audience. It’s like a little Hannibal Lecter bird! It’ll eat your parakeet’s liver with fava beans and a nice Chiantiiiii. Actually, according to park literature, the roadrunner literally lives on the blood of its enemies. Seriously, their main source of hydration is the blood of their kills. Now isn’t that some Vlad the Impaler shit or what?

On my second day at Big Bend, I ventured out to see some sights. I didn’t get crazy with the hiking but did take some rumbly roads to see weird rocks (and in my head, repeating and repeating, T.S. Eliot—who else—“There is shadow under this red rock,/(Come in under the shadow of this red rock)," documented thusly.

I enjoyed the walk up to look over the valley where the Rio is nestled as it afforded some strange scenes, like this bridge over boggy waters where all the foliage is blasted gray and lay flat as though some life leeching weapon had detonated and they decided to build a park upon it. The bridge itself was ridiculously boingy which I kind of enjoyed because what’s the worst that could happen, I fall into the slimy, slurpy watermud and, I don’t know, yell until someone drags me out? It actually did remind me of that part in LOTR: Two Towers where Smeagol leads Sam and Frodo through the Dead Marshes—very similar except no (visible) bodies.

Much of the path was walled in with plants and trees pushing inward, and there were many spots where everything would snarl together into dense patches of thicket which somehow made me feel safer. The top of the hill rendered lovely views of surrounding hills and the lush greenery around the river itself, and after doing the one, two, three, okay we’ve seen it now can we go it was time to go back down the stone steps and set up for dinner.

Stars! Both nights I stayed up as long as I could, but I was in bed (1st night, the wind cavern/tent, 2nd night, the car) by ten at the latest, so really the best stargazing didn’t happen until I had to get up to go to the restroom. Oh the days when I might have missed all those starry opportunities, but not anymore! Especially if it is cold, and if I wake even just a little, then I’m lying there cursing at or to whom I don’t know, and it is time to unzip the zipper of the tent, negotiate shoes and flashlight and overcoat, and trudge through the dark to the dimly lit facilities. Thrice the first night, twice the second.

 As groggy as I was, I still made myself stop and look up and wonder at what I had been missing for all these years. If you are in a part of the country with good stargazing opportunities, do not take it for granted. I am grateful that I will never recover from the awe of considering the universe and just where we are in it. And there are no words for how it feels to be able to do what I am doing now…not the opportunity (for which I am separately grateful, of course) but the ability to do it at all.

When I first got sober, I was terrified of the night. Every hour of darkness was spent wrapped tight in low grade anxiety. Going anywhere outside was not acceptable and to be avoided at all costs, and every hour was spent wrenching my hands together, watching the clock, and dreading the time I would have to go to bed and turn out the lights. I never had the TV off, ever. Since my drinking was uniform (wake up, go to work, start drinking after work, drink until bedtime, sleep 6 hours, repeat) and my nights were dedicated to one endeavor and one endeavor only, was it any wonder why the terror sunk in as soon as the sun set?

That first year of sobriety was full of every emotion you can imagine—and in full, clear technicolor—and so much of it was truly wonderful, but it’s hard to think back to those nights spent clenched in despair. I didn’t think I would get over it; though I’d been coached I could find a “new normal,” it still seemed a fool’s dream. And the thought of driving almost 800 miles to the middle of nowhere to camp outside and stand in the middle of the darkness to contemplate the universe by myself without imploding in a fury of panic stricken, introspective horror…unthinkable. Insane. Impossible.

Thank God, the Lutheran Hospital in Brooklyn, the Resource Counseling Center, and my own inner strength (which I never believed I had until these past couple of years), for getting me to this place. I feel like I could stand on the edge of the earth and fall backwards into the universe, to whatever’s next, come what may. Give me all the stars and endless nights of clear eyed and brilliant reverie.