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10/15/2004: "Final Thoughts of Mountains, Lions and Rivers" by Walter King
Essentially my trip was over and it was just a matter of driving back through the panhandle of Oklahoma back to Columbus. The first stop was a return to Santa Fe where Michelle talked me into staying one extra day so we could climb another trail. We were up above the Pecos River climbing Round Mountain. At about 7000 ft we began to find large Mountain Lion scat along the trail. We’d just been watching the news coverage of the mountain lion who killed a guy and mauled a female hiker in California. I’d heard about it in Tucson but hadn’t caught any of the gruesome details until I hit Santa Fe. Most of the scat seemed to be several days old so we weren't very worried. When we finally reached the bald on the top of the mountain her dog found a piece of fresh raw meat. That bothered us a bit. But not enough to keep me from spending an hour or so doing a water color. We also found a leg bone of an elk with some meat still on it as we began back down the mountain. There was a large boulder field with lots of larger stones stacked up making some very lovely cairns and grottos along the way as we mushed through the 12” to 18” deep snow. I would have loved to stay for a while to paint the cairns but Michelle didn’t think it was a good idea. She said it looked like the most likely place for a large cat to keep a lair so we passed by very warily. I couldn’t help but look over my should about every 4 or 5 steps. But besides finding the leg bone and some tail fluff from several rats, rabbits and other small animals strewn along the trail, we never saw a cat. I did have a funny cartoon playing in my mind the whole time with the Pink Panther catching little animals by the tail, holding his head back and swallowing each rodent whole except for the little bit of tail fluff which he would bite off and toss nonchalantly over his shoulder as he exited stage left.
I had mentioned to Michelle that I’d seen a mountain lion crossing the highway on my way back from Arizona. I was on a long stretch of flat highway doing about 80 making sketches and notes in the pad on my knee when in the distance up ahead I saw what looked like a very large dog beginning to cross the road. I slowed a bit and as I got closer I got a better view and realized that the head was the wrong shape for any breed of dog I knew. The animal moved differently than a dog with its butt higher as it ran and its tail was rather long, ropy and very un-dog-like in its articulated movement. That’s when I was close enough to know I was watching a mature mountain lion, maybe a female, crossing in front of me. The sketch pad fell to the floor boards as I hit the brakes and began frantically searching for my camera in the junk next to me on the front seat of the pickup truck. Of course by the time I found it the big cat had loped across the road, blithely climbed the slight embankment and with a brief glance over its shoulder back at me it disappeared into the sagebrush, cacti and grasses along the side of the road. I couldn’t see much over the embankment and wasn’t in the mood to get out of the truck to get a better view. I had no idea how cats hunt or if that was even what she was doing out in the middle of the day. I mean maybe she was just out for a little walk-about like myself and had no intention of eating me for lunch.
(Hamilton Mesa above the Pecos, watercolor-Walter King) That’s the second cat I’ve seen in the wild. I saw one in Arkansas near my mother in laws property by Bull Shoals lake up towards the Missouri border. I thought they’d disappeared from the Ozarks by the late 40’s but after seeing one loping across a meadow from the road one day I asked some locals and learned that the panthers (as they call them in the Ozarks) had begun to reappear over the last few years. They are frighteningly large and incredibly powerful animals. I’ve seen them much closer at the zoo of course. When my younger son James was 4 or 5 he was playing in front of a view window in front of the black panther cage at the Columbus Zoo spinning around on a railing put up to keep people from getting too close to the glass. A panther inside the glass began to crouch and slowly move towards him as if stalking prey...then in a blinding flash of speed and agility it leaped over a boulder inside his enclosure heading right for the window where my son was playing. I leaped towards my oblivious little boy and desperately tried to grab James away from the window. I looked up in time to see the beast’s tense musculature along its haunches trying to back peddle so as not to hit the window. Skittering and sliding in the gravel it hit sideways with a thud and it scared hell out of me cause I thought for sure the whole window would be knocked out of its frame. You could see the glass bow under the impact. I had a sickening picture in my head of Jim in the panther’s mouth being shaken like a limp doll. But of course nothing happened. The poor cat was dazed and sort of stumbled back to its hiding place behind the boulder. Panthers are a bit smaller than mountain lions I think. But it wouldn’t have mattered. They are still bigger than little boys.
(Notes with sketch of a ringtail I was making when I saw the lion..) According to Michelle, seeing the mountain lion was big medicine. And she would look it up in her book when we got back to the house to tell me what it might mean. Later she told me it had something to do with power, authority and leadership. Fair enough. But if I was going to have anything to do with leadership it would have to be in a way other than as chair of a department.I mentioned the Greg Brown concert earlier. Michelle was unsuccessful in procuring a ticket for me so I went to see the movie she’d suggested. It was the last screening of “Down the Same River Twice” a documentary about some free spirits from the mid- 70’s who worked as raft guides down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon each summer. At the end of each season they would take a float down the Colorado together in rafts and canoes and kayaks with enough food and supplies to last a month or more.
The film begins with footage from their last float in 1978. This footage is from a short film called ’Riverdogs’ shot by Robb Moss who had been one of the rafters. The film opened with the group of friends spending their days doing that late 60’s early 70’s hippie/alternative thing- getting naked and high on the river, in camp, playing softball, hiking, rock climbing, lots of campfires and singing at night along with various tensions, arguments and those deep philosophical discussions that always seemed to lead nowhere- but which seem to open so many pathways in the brain that are quite hard to close later in life.
(Still from “Down the Same River Twice” from press packet on www.metrocinema.org/film_view?FILM_ID431) The audience was largely old hippy professors, environmentalists and leftists all with David Crosby’s hippy hopefulness still twinkling in their eyes. There were a few younger proteges with them but I’d say the average age was between 50 and 60 (I’m 51.) The mood was such that at one point it felt like we might all jump up, strip down and join the naturists on screen for the rest of the movie. Not sure I wouldn’t have joined in as I was beginning to catch the spirit of freedom and abandon coming through the young rafters with the beautiful footage of the incredible yellow, orange and ochre of the sandstone gorges and the viridian and turquoise green pools and muddy sienna swells of the river as background, not to mention the really good looking healthy 20 something bodies. I could almost feel the hot canyon winds on my bare skin. Then the film cuts to footage of the group some 20 years later. Two of the main characters became mayors of their small towns (one conservative and one liberal- I guess nakedness knows no party), one an aerobics instructor, one a writer, one a radio talk show host, one was diagnosed with cancer, and of course one is the filmmaker. They each talked about their failures and triumphs in life. But the guy who was sort of their river rat guru or shaman of the group never left the river. He was still leading raft expeditions down the Colorado, had a sense of his first love and never left it. The temptation to try to judge who had followed their true path and who hadn’t was unavoidable and equally dubious. You could see that each, including the river guru, had clinging doubts and rationalizations for their choices.
(“Grand Canyon“, water color- Walter King) But in the end the film caused me to become quite reflective. I know I’m not 20 anymore. My hippie days are long past, my kids are grown and I’ve got 20 years in as a college professor and even more as a visual artist and although not particularly famous I have some reputation. While I’m not predisposed to sweat lodges and no longer need drugs to imagine spiritual visions (I’ve been such a daydreamer all my life I’m not sure I ever needed any medicinal help seeing visions) I was finally ready to do what I sort of knew was my purpose for this trip in the first place- to do some soul searching in an attempt to prepare myself for what I sense is a big life juncture rolling up on my wife and I with what seems like a predetermined and unstoppable insistence. Danny, my oldest son, is married and, as I mentioned in a former blog, is serving in Tucson with the Air Force until January. James, the younger, will be finished with CCAD in two years. He doesn’t seem like the type who will hang around long after school is over, especially if he is lucky enough to find work in his field. My first (and probably only) sabbatical will begin in January 05 ending summer of 05. I’m renting a studio in Brooklyn NY for three months and will write about that when the time comes. I’ll have two more years on my contract with the college. After that I can‘t see very clearly. I like teaching but also know it has been a diversion from my path as an artist. I like students and empathize deeply with their ever so hopeful sense of potential. One of the greatest joys in life is to help someone unlock their potential. But I especially disliked my time as an administrator. I’ve never had the patience for administration. I have always been too jealous of my creative time. The time I might have given to artistic endeavors over the years has always been limited-- first by having to work full-time while in school, then as a commercial artist to provide for my family and then by teaching. However I’ve done alright. Couldn’t have supported my family by any other means. I’ve gotten to travel, exhibit in interesting places and experience a number of other countries. I’ve met foreign dignitaries, some artistically important people and some who weren’t involved in the arts or considered important to anyone but me. I’ve gotten a few good reviews, won a few small awards and had a small number of things published . I have managed to keep a pretty serious studio discipline. But there was so much art I had in me to make and only a fraction of it has been realized.
And I’ve seen some strange and interesting things in my rather loopy life path. You can be assured some of it will become grist for later blogs. My good friend Michelle tells me I am here as a quiet witness to the times and attitudes in which we live. It’s a good thing to have someone in your life , even if you only see them once every couple of years, who isn’t afraid to tell you what she thinks. Michelle will tell me to take a bath if I need one. And while her advice doesn’t always seem perfect at least I know her heart and soul is in the right place. And more often than not she isn’t far from the truth. I think the roll of witness is one of the main roles that most artists play whether they understand it or not. It is the old cliche of mirror to society. Yes I know it is a cliche- an old saw, ‘but it still cuts wood’ as my friends in the Ozarks might say.
My dream time did me a lot of good. I came back home with a new attitude-- a new calm. I’ve been more patient with my students this year. I’ve been more positive about their work and their intentions. I’ve become more reflective about things in general since my time in the solitude of the desert, the mountains and the road. A good road trip always does this for me. And I‘ve come to the end of this river of thought. Time to go out to the studio and cut some wood.
