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The Science of Hiking

I used to want not wanting. I say I consciously chose that path, but it was more my path by default. 

The Default Experience explained in Scientific Methodology:

The What

The Who

The When

The Where, and

The Why

WHAT: raped for first time

WHO: my husband

WHEN: my wedding day

WHERE: queen-sized bed, standard white sheets, dark drapes drawn, DO NOT DISTURB sign dangling

WHY: he never told me why

5.5 years of being his rape and pillage pet project on daily repeat because you know the song eventually gets old after playing it 3-5 times a day. At least I got tired, or woke up to being played so often. I stormed out of his record store. And by “stormed out,” I mean packed the one thing of greatest value we didn’t share anyway and with her tiny 3 1/2 year-old hand in mine we flew over the Rockies, the sunflower fields, the Kansas that never ends, Huck and Jim’s mighty Mississippi, and the ancient Appalachians and landed home again.

Of course I chose not wanting to be touched, not wanting to be seen, not wanting to be objectified, not wanting to be wanted in any way by any him. Not anytime. Probably not ever. 

But not ever didn’t last forever. I hiked my own Appalachian Trail with every therapist visit, with every non-existent child support check I wasn’t cashing, with every plea on behalf of her tiny hand for involvement, engagement, or interest, with every late night luxury cry session only when I knew those tiny hands were asleep. 

I may only have been at trail marker 749 when I said yes to a dinner. Marker 853 brought yes to a boyfriend, a relationship, co-hiking for maybe a few months on the trail. As the miles passed I replaced socks and boots, tended blisters and sores that couldn’t be avoided, hiking buddies who stayed a short while and others for longer, but none who wanted to complete the journey with me. And none with whom I wanted to see the view from the top or with whom I want to share stories and laughs on the return climb.

I keep looking, wondering where he might be — that elusive partner with boots already laced, already on the trail, no preamble needed, just fall in-step next to me because next to me is where he chooses to be and on top of me is where I choose to share me. No scientific experimentation required for later unpacking. Please — just carry out what you carry in, with only the added heart growth guaranteed from healthy exertion. 

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The Gardener

The potatoes need to be dug up. The long-dead green bean vines need to be pulled out and composted. The cucumbers haven’t been harvested in at least two weeks; their ability to materialize and then immediately engorge themselves on the vine is nothing short of magical. Sadly, the cukes we have eaten, no matter how small I pick them, are bitter and no amount of salt has been their salvation. And the tomatoes — we planted 14 of them, maybe six varieties, but 14 different plants. They’re prolific, to say the least. The squirrels and birds are getting well-fed on the abundant crop. I can’t eat them all. We talked about salsa, tomato soup or even spaghetti sauce, but haven’t picked more than three tomatoes since that wishful conversation three weeks ago. 

The ground is every bit as red as the heavy-laden plants, littered after the crowd dispersed and left their fruit behind to decay without attention because the gardener is gone. He’s not coming back to clean up the messiness of what he so meticulously planned and we then planted. His spreadsheets, order forms, lists, and labeled popsicle sticks now lie in piles I can’t find or make order out of the weeds in their wake.

The zinnias clambering all summer long for the front seat screaming, “SHOTGUN!” are now elbowing each other in the face and tumbling toward the ground, unable to stop the stampede they started and my attempts to fence them in again look paltry in comparison to the original vision of ordered tall down the middle, medium next, then shortest on the outside, cascading heights along both lengths of the flowerbed. Is this overgrowth and death and abundance just because it’s late August or is it because the master planner, the gardener, is gone? I know he’s not coming back. 

I love being in the garden, although double-edged for me. I feel closest to him there, weeding, transplanting, harvesting. And saddest for the same reasons.

I dug up all the potatoes. I started with the pitchfork but couldn’t dig without stabbing one spud on every plunge. The potatoes were too close to the surface; they were planted just before I got here. Helpers from elsewhere came to assist; to be directed and taught by the gardener: how to turn your soil, how to lay the yardstick to measure your stakes’ distance from each other, how to slip the string over the end of the opposite stake making the line taut, how to hoe down the row as you go and exactly what amount of space to leave between each hill, and how to bury them so completely to ensure their growth into brand new potatoes. 

Their greens were beautiful; the prettiest the gardener had ever seen. When he went away I kept watch, kept watering, kept talking to the buried spuds. There were potatoes popping above-ground! It was too soon. They were green like their tops — I had to bury them again, had to coax them back down, give them more time, do the work that the gardener trusted others to do but they weren’t deep enough. I could see evidence. Bucket after bucket after bucket of mulch I shoveled, hauled, dumped and spread. I laid a fresh and false blanket on top of the bed, urging the potatoes in whispered tones: Keep growing; it’s not time yet.

I laid aside the pitchfork and dropped down to my knees. I dug with my hands, cradling each potato to wipe it of the earth dirt clinging to its sides before tossing them into the now mulch-free buckets that buried them back down two months ago.

They aren’t all strong and mighty like a Russet is “supposed” to be, but the gardener worked through me to grow something in the end, something that we did together. And after the harvest buckets were hauled inside, I cried my own buckets of tears, weeping for the gardener whose harvest survives him but lies buried on the surface of the ground, visible beauty decaying, seeding, burying itself until it flowers again in its season.

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The Best We Can

My dad died. But that didn’t happen in a day. There was all the stuff leading up to my dad dying: the scheduled surgery, the excessively long recovery in the hospital, the restrictions in place because of Covid preventing us from even entering the hospital to be with him during said recuperation. And then the three phone calls: 

1. Your dad’s leak hasn’t repaired itself yet but I’m sending him home in three days’ time because he will heal better at home than here alone. It’s going to be a long slow process. I’ll talk with you soon; I’m off to the OR for the rest of the day.

2. Your dad is being moved back to ICU and probably being intubated. Oh and his heart stopped for eight minutes talk to you later, maybe? bye.

3. You need to come to the hospital right away; your dad’s heart stopped for another four minutes, hurry, don’t stop, come NOW.

Hurried phone calls, quick text messages, even faster than a heart beat prayers ascending, so many questions, too many thoughts, overcrowding emotions, hurrying up to slow down a goodbye.

He 

She 

We 

Are all really doing the best we can.

He — my dad — is doing the best he can to breathe, to heal, to beat in time with his desire to stay.

She — my mother — is doing the best she can to breathe, to hurt, to heal in time with her desire for him to be here with her.

We — my Self and siblings — are doing the best we can to breathe, to hold, to choose our parting words before the parting is gone, leaving a trail of should haves in its wake.

He — my dad — couldn’t sustain his own living will. 

She — my mother — couldn’t hold on to a heart whose beating isn’t her own.

We — my Self and siblings — couldn’t have imagined the single-file opening of parting through which we have now walked, exit option non-existent.

The best we can is shattering, heartfelt and unavoidable. 

“Any feeling fully felt leads to love,” says Gay Hendricks. 

“Just lead with love and there’s no need to feel your way back to it,” says I, my Self, my heart bursting open wide from its freshly-tender new room with a view, no door back to where it lived before, there is only an opening to a deeper place, it’s ahead of me and not behind. And 

He

She

We

Are all really doing the best we can right there.

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Growing Pains

My dad died in the middle of the night Monday morning. 

As a little girl I often woke in the middle of the night my legs hurting so much I would cry out in pain and into my room would come my daddy, with his soothing voice to calm me and take me in his arms to assure me everything was alright, that my legs were simply growing and that sometimes growing hurts. I can still feel the two extremities of those middle of the night moments: the exhaustion of my small body lying rigid and racked with pain, hot wet tears forcing their way through my closed lids, dropping off the short cliff at the corners of my eyes, cascading into cold pools inside my ear cavities coupled with my father calmly and gently massaging the calves of my little legs with rubbing alcohol, all the while reminding me that everything was alright, that sometimes growing bigger can hurt, but the hurt wouldn’t last, and that my legs would be stronger in the morning. 

At the time my daughter started experiencing growing pains of her own, she and I were living with my parents. When she cried out in the night it was my father who would go into her room, rubbing alcohol in-hand, with his familiar and soothing assurances of how okay everything was. Even after she and I moved into our own home, whenever those middle of the night pains showed up, my very little growing girl would phone her grandfather, waking him from his sleep, and he would get dressed, drive to our house with rubbing alcohol in-hand and calmly put her back to sleep with his soothing reminders of how much stronger she would be in the morning.

I will always remember sitting next to and holding my dad’s hand throughout the entirety of the middle of the night Saturday, hot wet tears silently leaking their way down my face, acutely feeling and aware of the two extremities of daddy’s moment: the physical exhaustion of his strong and courageous body racked with pain, tender tears of love in his eyes looking at me with lingering thoughts of what might be left to do, to say, to feel, to see, coupled with calm and gentle assurances from my heart to his that everything was alright, that letting go was okay, that his hurting won’t last, and that our love will be here in the morning, stronger than ever. 

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Hurry!

It’s already raining. A lot. No breaks in the drops. Too late to build my boat, I suppose. But if I could rewrite the rain I would.

Would I?

What if I catch the gutter rush as it surges past that point just above my ankles but below my shins. What’s left to do is fold my boat. There is still time!

Christopher and I were ready when we first heard the whip of the thunder crack, moments that seemed like hours before the dark afternoon room filled with the brightness of lightning tinged with the sweet scents of hot pavement steamed to perfection. 

Jumping to action we fold our newsprint as quickly as our ink-heavy fingers allow, laughter baiting each other faster. Is his vessel better or mine? Who has a better technique for the front bow fold versus the stern? The port and starboard sides? Just fold — what you know you know and no judgment or self-recrimination will float you now. 

Hurry! The storm is fast. There’s a perfect window to be timed — it opens while it’s still raining, but not as heavily, and the thunder has stopped, which means no lightning, and the floods are coursing downstream at full speed because they can’t get to the gutter fast enough. 

Hurry! No time for shoes or galoshes! Four bare feet racing, laughter propelling us onward — are we in a swimming pool? My feet tickle with squishy grass, mud and worms on the surface. My face is wet with fresh rain plus what the oak tree dropped on my perma-grin fixed pose. I will win. 

Hurry! Expand your port and starboard folds — create your base — just put it in the water! No time for adjustments. What’s done is done. You are done. It’s up to the gutter gods now. The rush is here! I step into the live stream, debris of leaves, twigs and my own giggles course past my bare legs. Laughter carries the two floaters forward, toppling, collapsing, tumbling into, with and around each other. No one cares. We laugh their way forward.

Both boats are victors, soggy and wasted with pleasure having fulfilled the measure of their creation, retrieved for disposal after giving their everything  — and so the parade commences, barefoot, high march steps, wet grassy path, we’re “Singin’ in the rain! Just singin’ in the rain! What a glorious feeling, I’m happy again!” 

Until the next storm. . . .