Water from a stone

Group Field Exercise #1 performed October 10, 2010

River Access Point #1: Second Street /Valley High SW—

A river is life. Flowing, eddying, meandering, providing, transporting, emptying—eventually. It is, simply, there.

Robin, Marie, and I parked on a patch of dirt just above the ditchbank, crossed over the bike path, and followed a wide dirt path through the cottonwoods’ grand entrance toward the bank of the Rio Grande. The cottonwood trees seemed larger and greyer than at other places where I’d seen them along the river. Some with trunks so large, two or three people might be challenged to connect their arms around and encircle onecompletely. And there were weeds that I blithely disregarded, some trampled by the edge of the path, some growing knee-to-waist high interspersed beneath the cottonwoods. Closer to the river are willows, tamarisks, and of course, elms, which stray and are invaders everywhere. And there was trash, a lot of it, everywhere.

Just as we approached the river, we met three boys and their German Shepherd dog. They were headed home, most likely, with their catch of the day, a fairly scrawny-looking catfish that they said they were going to eat.

After the boys headed out, the river was, for a moment, organic and pure, and peacefully quiet except for the hum of some unknown insect crescendoing from across the river. Strangely, there didn’t seem to be any insect sounds on our side of the river—why didn’t our side of the river have any insect sounds? The moment passed as car sounds, airplane noise, and the sound of an ice cream truck filtered into hearing range.

The Rio Grande is a fixture on the map of New Mexico. From the air, it isa strip of color that cuts the state in half. From within the Albuquerque area, its tree-lined banks separate east-siders from west-siders—a line of demarcation that residents of either side refer to when explaining context or location.

The water in the river was very low, in fact, at its lowest level since 2004, and we were able to walk on areasof sand and mud that were the river bottom when the Rio Grande had plentiful water. There were areas of fine-grained sand, hard-packed and cracked sun-baked mud, areas of thick, moist clay-like mud, and large areas of medium-grained dirt that revealed the river’s flow pattern from the ripple impressions and tiny polished stones and even a few small shells that formed designs on the dry surface as directed by previous water flow. I was fascinated by the patterns in the dirt, following their courses, squatting down and becoming absorbed by the tiny, tiny colorful, polished stones and the occasional shell, astounded that this was all revealed to me because of the lack of water.

What is the fate of the Silvery Minnow if the river flow lessens? How will the cottonwoods along the banks thrive? And the ducks and the dragonflies? Will small, brightly colored, polished stones spew from my tap one day and surprise me? Why should I be surprised?

River Access Point #2: Central Avenue at Tingley Drive--

The next stop on our south side of Albuquerque river tour was the Central Avenue bridge at Tingley Drive by the BioPark. South of the bridge is Tingly Beach, a reconstructed area with fishing ponds, duck ponds, and parking and picnic facilities. The train that runs from the zoo to the biopark has a station here. When we drove by, there were hundreds of people out enjoying a variety of activities in the warm October afternoon sun.

We parked and walked out to the middle of the bridge. The cars speeding by so close to us on Central were disconcerting as we reviewed the artscape of the bridge: the painted metal cut-outs of dinosaurs and saber-toothed tigers, the informational signs at the observation points, and the stuccoed benches with their odd messages. There was very little water flowing under the bridge, and we could see people walking on the dirt out towards the middle of the river. Perhaps in the world’s destruction it would be possible at last to see how it was made. Oceans, mountains. The ponderous counterspectacle of things ceasing to be. The sweeping waste, hydroptic and coldly secular. The silence. –Cormac McCarthy, The Road.

More river explorations next trip…