Not far from this lonely, little trailer is another quiet place, high above the black and craggy lava flows below.
The Sandstone Bluffs are a part of the El Malpais National Monument. El Malpais, or the badlands, as the land was called by the Spanish who trekked across it when they first forayed into this part of the desert, are dried lava beds left from when Mt. Taylor and this part of northwestern New Mexico were still active as angry, spurting volcanic hotspots.
They are the high cliffs that run north-south along the eastern side of the park. Because the lava fields below them are dark and flat, the light heights of the faces of the bluffs are easily visible from miles away in many directions – from Grants, from I-40, from the western edge of the Monument, from the southern reaches of NM-117.
Up top, there are nooks and holes that rains fill with water in the monsoon season – opaque pools colored like sea glass from minerals and deposits, home to new families of tadpoles and mosquitoes swimming or flitting here and there.
I have been there countless times throughout my childhood and throughout the three years that I’ve now lived here, and every time, they are beautiful and new. At the end of the day, especially – when the sweet light comes and sunset is about you and nothing is below you – it seems wholesome and nurturing to climb up, take your shoes off, peek over the edge, and cling barefoot to the smooth grit of the orange sandstone. Walking with your skin straight on the earth makes you feel grounded.
In winter, it can be frigid, and in summer, it can be excruciatingly hot – unless you happen to head to the Bluffs with your mother and aunt on an August day of cool, cloudy greyness. Then they are perfect – perfectly silent, perfectly still, perfectly suited to make you think you are thousands of years removed from time, with nothing but rock and air around and below you.
Be well. xoxo.
– SAWK