GORECKI AND THE CONTINENTAL DIVIDE
Sight and Sound
Exquisite ride today. I was leaving United World College for a trip to the west coast where I hope to enjoy putting my feet in the Pacific Ocean. I was traveling the interstate south from Montezuma to Deming. The highway follows a fairly straight line. The Continental Divide winds back and forth east to west and back again. You need to see a map that illustrates the line of highlands from which rivers either flow toward the Pacific Ocean or toward the Atlantic Ocean. That line of highlands is called the Continental Divide. It runs through New Mexico on the western edge of the state, north to south.
The elevation of the highway is seven thousand feet beginning in Santa Fe and drops steadily to a little more than five thousand feet in Albuquerque. By the time I was driving south of Socorro the elevation was holding at five thousand. Closer to the southern part of New Mexico it was measuring a steady four thousand feet in elevation. Deming’s chamber of commerce posts the number just higher than four thousand feet. I have a slight discomfort living in Montezuma and Santa Fe because I can’t seem to get enough air with each breath. Lower than five thousand feet I feel much, much better.
On either side of the highway the mountain tops are spectacularly rugged and up-close show character definition and personality details to awe the onlooker. At a distance there is a shift in the presentation. The loss of detail adds another element to the appearance and to the intention felt by the observer as one drives along. The mountains seem to lose their identity. At greater distances the mass of rock and earth lie flatter to hug the long curvature of our world. The shapes then appear to be, not autonomous mountains but rather shapes of camouflage, disguising and intentionally hiding something else underneath. More like a blanket covering some sinister, hidden and forbidden thing. The shape is not what you see. Whatever lies under the skin of mountain veneer is something you have never seen before. You may only guess at what is lying under the covering.
The drive is long. The sun continues its ascent and the day warms. By noon-time the temperature has risen from mid-twenties F in Montezuma to seventy degrees F in Socorro. I’ve removed my jacket to my t-shirt. I am comfortably warm with that thin piece of apparel. I am drinking more water now. After a stop for gas in Socorro I am beginning to feel the road in my body and I wish for an end to this trip. I have a few more hours of driving facing me. I have found a radio station that plays classical music and I hear the woman announcer talk about Henryk Gorecki. She is explaining the inspiration for his third symphony, second movement. Gorecki has a deeply dark and deeply moving style but this piece really fills the air with sadness and despair and oddly, sweetly poignant grace.
The ride continues with the mountains to the east gathering the light from the afternoon sun in deep folds of shadows that accentuate the stresses of the earth’s formation. The tones from Gorecki blend and modulate the light-shadow dance that is simultaneously happening to the east. The ride is forgotten. I feel the scene and the sounds are including my body in motion. The feel of the road through the wheels are matching the vibrations of the bass notes that Gorecki favors in his composition. I am absorbed into all that I can possibly sense in this moment. I have never enjoyed Gorecki more than now.
Gentle George
February 7, 2020
Playing Fair and Being Kind 