It was gray and pock-marked, with patches of rose, like aged skin. Indeed, my skin against the rock looked just as aged. So preoccupied was I with my skin, that I failed at first to notice the swarm of black ants crowding into the rock’s imprint as I shifted it. I shrieked, more out of surprise than fear, but not a soul was present who could hear me.
30 miles north of Cuzco, in the Peruvian Andes, I was surrounded by mountains. When I looked across the valley to the opposing range, I imagined myself a small speck on one of its faces. The peaks closest to me were emerald green, the ones in the distance snowcapped, and the air, at eleven thousand feet, crisp and refreshing. I would spend three nights on this exposed plateau, amid ancient Incan ruins. These were not the remains of a temple, or a holy city like Machu Picchu, deemed worthy of preservation long after its congregates fled, but of villagers whose lives transpired here in the same bygone era, and had since become the undergrowth of a thriving community of shepherds and their families.
I studied a wall, that seemed to hold up the next higher terrace in the mountain – the legacy of a man who had cleared this plot, toiled every day and rested here as I would – most likely the product of a minga, or work party, comprised of many like him. Built by human hands, I thought. And mine were human, too. What I may have had in common with the cimarron, or peak dwellers, were callused pads where palms and fingertips should be, dark half-moons under every unpolished fingernail, lifelines drawn in soot and sealed with oil. Sometimes I couldn’t tell wrinkles from scratches, or a dot of dry mud from a scab. After handling stoves, moving through cities, riding buses, climbing, gardening, touching animal bones, picking my nose, interacting with filthy children, street vendors, boots and backpacks, after several days in this village with no running water, my hands were like chopped meat: Seasoned and tough, no longer tender, but able to pry up and haul large stones.
My first order of business upon arrival was to get situated, and fashion a shelter from tarp, string, and a safety pin I had been rationed, plus any useful material within in a 25-foot radius. Getting here necessitated a steep climb against the grain of spiny shrubs that clung to my nylon pants. I had on top a supportive tank, a tee-shirt, and a Gore-Tex shell, that smelled of sweat from the previous week’s expedition. I stood in three pairs of socks and mountaineering boots by La Sportiva. Twilight falls early, and night comes on suddenly once the sun dips below the highest crest, so I thought it wise to change into my nightclothes before undertaking to add second and third walls to the first that hedged this spot for two millenia.
I dumped the contents of my daypack: Two liters of water, a sleeping bag, two lengths of Cordura, a six by six plastic tarp, journal and a pen, a banana, an orange, two saltines, and two sugar cookies. A glacial wind tore through the canyon. I grimaced, and clutched the pack. It swung away from me, straps flailing in the current then relaxing again. At once I realized that, in this morning’s rushed departure from the Hostal Suecia in Cuzco, I had forgotten my nightclothes – long underwear, a turtle neck, a down vest by Patagonia. Thankfully, I had the habit of keeping an extra pair of woolies and a soft cap in my daypack’s zipper pouch.
The horizon was sculpted by the jagged silhouette of darkening peaks. Along it, ribbons of scarlet, like the skin of a tomato, ripened and bruised. Getting to work would keep me warm, and distract me from a mild phobia of the dark. According to my primitive model, each block of a stone wall that’s meant to stave off wind and rain, so common at this altitude, had best be flat and rough, heavy as possible, and positioned to receive the one laid on it. I scavenged for the ideal beginnings of a provisional shelter. Each pickup prompted a wrestling match between me and the mineral. The harder I would struggle, the warmer I would stay, which was incentive to harvest the largest masses I could manage. Problem was, I had no vision of the completed structure in mind. I had figured it would grow, rather than be built, up from where I plunked the first several rocks.
Darkness set in more quickly than I had expected. Dense clouds trapped valuable warmth, and dispersed the light of stars appearing behind them. I drafted a brief letter, then crawled into my sleeping bag, resolved to continue building after a nibble at sunup. While I wrote, black ants dallied on my sleeping bag. I’d wait until a dozen or so appeared, then sweep them away and keep writing until another sweep was called for. I feared the critters would colonize my aural and nasal canals while I slept.
As a child, my gaze was always fixed on the organic. I observed millipedes, crickets, inchworms, caterpillars, snails and lightning bugs. If you smash a lightning bug while it’s alight, the phosphorescence becomes a glowing smear on pavement, or skin. Worms, and even tiny red bugs that elude most eyes, showed themselves to me. I’d make a day of capturing as many as I could. My lab was located on a boulder in the vacant lot. It was called: MY ROCK. My sisters and most of the neighborhood kids affirmed my authority over the territory. This was enforced with random acts of violence; I was temperamental as a child.
A shallow pond would form in our yard when it rained, and when the sun came out I’d sit next to the pond for hours, watching. I was completely absorbed in this microbial world. One day, I noticed these minute, squiggly, S-shaped things, bouncing off each other and into the submerged slivers of grass that were architecture in their world. For unknown reasons – out of thoughtless compulsion, it seems – I collected a sample of pond water in a pickle jar and covered the jar with pantyhose. The following morning, I went out to the garage (where Mother insisted I keep all my specimens), and found hundreds of mosquitoes clinging to the netting, some dead, some dying. How had I known these were larvae? I intuited it. A hypothesis is born inarticulate, and grows into language.
I graduated from pickle jars and screw-on metal tops, in which I poked holes with a Phillips head screwdriver, to cages with mesh caps, specifically designed to house insects. I honed my method. I diversified my specimens. Grasshoppers were a dime a dozen, so to speak. I had filled a cage with 72 grasshoppers one day. They all died shortly thereafter. My prize takes were monarch butterflies. And I will never forget the thrill of catching bumblebees. When I discovered fire, the creatures were subject to some frying in the flame of a match. I would sneak matchbooks branded with restaurant logos out of the cupboard where Mother kept straws and plastic baggies. No matter where Mother would put them, I’d find the matches.
While all this was taking place outside – in addition to tree climbing, bus climbing, construction machinery climbing, roof climbing, and jumping, resulting in an assortment of scrapes – inside, I mixed potions of all the household chemicals I could find, and stashed these in a cupboard, until our housekeeper sourced the stench and my lab was evacuated. I took apart radios, and built pulley systems that closed the lights from my bed, so I wouldn’t have to spend an instant free-standing in the dark, or that served as a transport system between our first and second stories, via the laundry chute. Piano lessons, pottery, figure skating. . . Ballet was a catastrophe. Gymnastics didn’t last long; while I was quite acrobatic, the gym would not tolerate my erratic behavior, and dismissed me for "lacking poise."
These were beginnings, punctures in my sphere of awareness. . .
I woke with a sharp pain in my abdomen, and every muscle, my jaws clenched, my shoulders now peeking out of the bag as I sat bolt upright. I didn’t think I’d have enough time to put on my glasses and lace up my boots, for the dash across rugged terrain in the dark that would be necessary to do this business far away from my campsite. It was that prune, I thought, that prune I ate at the village market! I found a boulder to lean against, as I narrowly avoided an accident. I had known earlier that day, from the minute I eyed that plump, deep ruby of a prune, the likes of which I’d never seen, featured in an array of sacks bursting at the tops with grapes of eight varieties, and roots, and rice, and flax, and balms in hand-labeled jars, that this sweet would bring about suffering. It passed swiftly as a nightmare, and chill, at this point didn’t shock me anymore, so I removed my boots (which I’d kick myself with), and slid back into bed.
I hadn’t trusted darkness, upon entering into this contract, and I loathed it now. But it came over me and kept me unaware of the pain and cold for a precious few hours. At first light, I needed to do the deed again, and this was not a welcome wake up call. Numbed by this lengthy exposure of my ass to the wind, I was anxious to start work, and warm my blood again. Only, my muscles were fatigued, and would do no work if not encouraged. I got back into my bag and swooshed my legs and arms, aiming to rub my clothes against the bedding until their fabrics emitted sparks. I would milk them for static electricity. Moving about helped me regain feeling; I regained, somewhat, my sense of well-being, and this soothed me, put me right back to sleep. I drifted away thinking the only thing that matters is whether I’m hot or cold, wet or dry. Hot or cold, wet or dry.
By late morning, the sun burnt a hole in the clouds and its warmth spread, breaking apart the opaque mist that obscured the valley when I dozed off. I ate half my food and guzzled water, then, leaning on my elbow in the sleeping bag. While eating, I studied the Incan ruins some more, and refined my concept of the two walls I was hoping to finish by nightfall. These calories should be enough to go on; I’ve put on weight since the outset of my survival course; my dehydration is under control. I sought distraction, and began work on the shelter again. I made many trips to the perimeter of my site, and beyond, bringing back all the meaty rocks I could find.
Flesh melts upon rock; it yields to every protrusion, and fills or feels all the surface’s divots. While something soft as water can reduce a stone to nothing, stone brazes skin, and hence became the cause of my erosion. I knew as I scratched and kicked at the stones to loosen them, little pebbles in the soil were working on me, too, and on my rubber soles. I heard nothing but the constant murmur of wind, which occasionally piped up when a gust arose. I doubt I even heard my footsteps, but the rhythmic thuds which reverbed throughout my body were pacing the action. Each time I bent over, pumping blood would press against my eardrums. When I bent over, it felt as if blood surged my temples, filled my sinuses, then retreated again when I stood up. Proper breathing kept me from blacking out. I realize now that I wanted to deny the cold and flu. My labor was a method of escapism.
After assembling a mound of rocks near the campsite, I sat on it. I plucked a succulent leaf from a thicket of wildebush, and folded it until it snapped. A bit of goo wetted my hand. Where the droplet fell, dust in my pores blackened; a strand of hair came unmatted from my skin and stood on end. I supposed I should refrain from tasting the jelly, though I was tempted to. It was drying already, as I touched it to my nostrils. The scent of that shrub is imprinted in my memory. It had the stimulating effect of eucalyptus, or rosemary, but looked nothing like either, and was like nothing I had ever inhaled. There are some aspects of these days that I just don’t have words for.
I spent the afternoon grouping rocks with their like sizes. Subconsciously, I was also classifying them by shape, color, weight, and texture. As I worked, I would study the crevice that needed filling, and retrieve the rock that best suited it. The more familiar I became with the puzzle pieces, the more efficient was my progress. Each move was an intimate lesson. Failed maneuvers yielded revelations. I learned the probabilities, the principles of physics I was contending with. Ah, this layer demands three points of contact between each piece, if it is to support the next. These nifty pebbles can be wedged into the finer fissures. I made entertainment of it, talking to myself shamelessly.
By the time blush returned to the blanched sky, I had extended two low walls from the original ruin. The perpendicular angles, I fortified with columns of stone where the corners of my tarp could be affixed. I spread the tarp over the walls, and pinned it with another tier of stones. It was gratifying just to see the square of shade my hovel cast onto the ground. The line between shadow and light was blurring, though, so I removed my boots, and slid into bed with the ants.
In a dream, I joined a local relief effort. We were to evacuate an elementary school, where parents and teachers were gathered with their children when a hurricane struck. It was a holiday. We proceeded through this Amazonian village, where the American Red Cross had set up shacks for people to live in. Campesino women in full garb stood at the doorways of their shacks, singing beautiful hymns. Heard beneath the harmony of daughters, sisters, mothers, and grandmothers: the deep-throated moan of shamans chanting within. I walked on the winding paths, surveying the scene. My cohorts blathered on, Where are we going? But I shushed them and listened to the hymn. It was bittersweet, sung by children who should have been depressed, as they and livelihood of their parents were threatened, but they lingered in this short-lived moment of innocence, singing religious songs. Seemingly, they would continue singing no matter the tragedy. The community was like one extended family.
I awoke in the night with a sinking sense that I had urinated, or worse, shit in my sleep. But it was only rain, gathering in the eaves of my makeshift roof, and dripping onto my toes. Every hour that night, I had to bail the tarp by pressing it out. Curled up in the center of my hovel, I was able to stay quite dry, but the rocks weren’t heavy enough in places, and the tarp continuously caved in – another smarting lesson, which would have me lifting heavy rocks again come daybreak.
On the third day, once the drizzle tapered off, I went about securing the roof. I poked two holes in the tarp with shards of a stone I had pulverized, and tied strings to these points. I drew the plastic outward, creating channels for rain, should it accumulate again. Knowing I was to be retrieved by a guide the next morning, I finished all but a sugar cookie, saving it as a reward for enduring the wilderness solo.
My solitude was quite well realized. I climbed to an overlook, and faced the westerly ridge of this nameless mountain range. Standing above my semi-restored ruin, and taking in the grand landscape, I sucked air and puffed out my chest and congratulated myself. It was then that I received my first visitor.
A single sheep appeared at the top of this foothill. Shortly thereafter she was joined by many others. I fathomed the herd whose path I might be obstructing, and my pulse quickened. The tame animal barely regarded me, but was acutely aware of me. I stared at her open-mouthed, as another grunted. My eyes widened, and I must admit I was a bit stiff, perhaps from overexertion. The flock calmly formed two lines, and skirted the ridges I was situated between. They trickled into a lower meadow. Straining to keep track of the leader, I almost overlooked the shepherd passing by. He carried a stick, touching it to the ground every now and then, irregularly. He wore an alpaca poncho the color of sand, and a weathered fedora with a green feather in it, which he tipped to me without any change of expression. Yet, his steady eyes seemed sad. I couldn’t breathe until he looked away and continued on. We were momentarily connected by virtue of place; I believe we did commune. But I wondered, as he walked away, if what we really shared was loneliness. While loneliness reduces us to nothing, solitude breeds self-reliance, and hence became the cause of my evolution.