This week when I was on my second road trip to Northern Arizona, I found the perfect place to take a fall and die. Have you been to Montezuma Well? It’s a natural springs that has bubbled up in a rock basin for thousands of years. The native inhabitants of the area used to live near the Well in cliffside dwellings they built from rocks. Even today, local tribes think of the Well as a sacred place. I can see why. It really feels magical, this unexpected oasis in the arid desert.
I was the first one at the gate, that's how eager I was. Being a tourist is fun sometimes. I sat and waited, and then more magic, but of the technological wireless variety. On the dot at 8:00 am, I heard a loud beeping, and the two metal gates swung open just for me.
Ignorant whites named it after Montezuma, mistaking it for part of the Aztec civilization. On the upside, however, the park service built a meandering staircase of 112 steps so that visitors could descend close to the water. You can’t touch it, and I’m not sure you’d want to anyway, given the pondscum on the surface and the leeches that lurk in the depths. Still, it's water in the desert, and that is always a welcome sight. If you are feeling robust, and if it is still early in the day before the heat bakes you into a husk, it’s a descent worth taking.
So I took it.
Going down wasn’t hard, you know, because of gravity, but there are no handrails, which is when I had the thought that I could fall here, just pitch right off the edge, and maybe that would not be so bad. My soul, if I have such a thing, would no doubt enjoy the dip in sacred waters, in spite of the leeches.
I didn’t fall.
Coming back up the 112 steps, though, was a workout. I could hear the voices of the two park rangers, who were standing at an overlook at the rim a good fifty yards above me. I could see them from time to time as I paused on landings to catch my breath and wait for my heart to slow. The larger heavier ranger was teaching the younger skinnier ranger about the history of the Well. Their voices echoed in the basin. I wondered if they knew CPR. Most likely, probably it's a job requirement, not that CPR is something I would want, given what I now know, that CPR is not a thing most people survive, nor would they want to, if they knew what I know now.
Better to let me slip under the green and blue water and let the leeches suck my soul while the ducks nibble on my toes.
I didn’t fall. I didn’t have a heart attack and die. I made it to the top. After a good long moment to rest, I took a trail down to the place in the side of the hill where the outflow (the swallet) emerged through a narrow channel made by long-dead indigenous peoples. That water was used to irrigate the “three sisters”—corn, beans, and squash. This practice endured for generations, until the tribes decided to uproot themselves and move south to join some villages that I guess seemed like more fun than farming the desert.
The day before I visited the Well, I saw the other part of the park system known as Montezuma Castle, which is the cliff dwelling clinging to the side of a high cliff about eleven miles away from the Well. That was an impressive construction feat, but as a visitor, I was disappointed, not by its construction, which is amazing, but because park visitors are not allowed to go up and walk around that dark castle, I guess for obvious reasons, but still. It would have been cool. Literally, it would probably have been much cooler up there in those carved caves—at ground level, it was easily 100°F at 4:30 when I was visiting just before closing time.
Montezuma Well was more satisfying in the sense that I could imagine I was walking in the footsteps of people who used to live and work there, finding physical and spiritual sustenance on the land because of that sacred water.
To celebrate my vacation, I did two food-related things. I ate ice cream. And I ate an English muffin. I know, I know. Some of you are saying, Carol, jeez, lighten up, no wonder you are so uptight, you need to eat more ice cream. And some of you are saying, oh no, you ate two of the five fingers of death! It’s curtains for you. The five fingers of death, if you don’t remember, are the invention of the erstwhile Dr. Tony, naturopathic bully: wheat, corn, soy, sugar, and dairy.
I try to minimize my intake of these foods. I hate to give Dr. Tony any credit for saving my life, but among the many wacky things he said and did, telling me to eat good food and drink water probably deserves a thanks. It doesn't mean I don't indulge in sugar in my oatmeal and soymilk in my tea, but I always feel a twinge of guilt, like, oh, no, what is the arrogant bully going to say this time as he sucks the money from my bank account? He has since retired to the godforsaken hinterlands of Oregon, also know as Bend, where I assume he is tormenting other willing victims who haven't yet caught on to his subtle yet nefarious passive aggressive quackish homeopathic ways. Me, resentful? No, but thanks for asking.
I am curiously waiting to try cultivated meat, vat-grown chicken, what are we calling it? Chicken cells grown in a stainless steel container. The intriguing thing is, no chickens are harmed in the creation of this product, although I’m not sure I totally buy that. No chicken would voluntarily donate its cells for science, even it meant all future chickens could escape the butcher's cleaver. I mean, we like chickens for lots of reasons, right, but we give them too much credit if we imagine they understand the moral and philosophical implications of offering up cells as a ploy to save chicken lives. They default to chicken run every time if given free range.
I want some of that protein, is all I’m saying, and I don’t want any chicken lives to be harmed in my attempt to get enough protein to stay alive, without resorting to eating bugs, grubs, and lizards.
I probably won’t live to see packages of cultivated chicken in the grocery store. I doubt I’ll live long enough to own an electric car. I probably won’t live to see a glut of affordable senior housing spring up about the land, driving rental prices down to the reach of any sad sack who needs a place to live. Too bad for me. I could be sad at the prospect of missing out on future prosperity, or I could be resentful, both really appealing and viable options. I'd like to know what happens after I’m gone, but unless there's something mystical that occurs after we die, probably once I'm gone, I'm gone, and none of this will matter, nobody will care. In a way, it's nice to know that life will go on, I just won’t be part of it anymore.
