Sometimes the only way out is through
Once again I’m back from the trail and, as friends ask me how it went, I find that I’m struggling to put my experience into words.
Really, as I look back on this last hundred plus miles, there are only two words that come to mind: Melancholy and Pain.
The trail was largely empty during my section hike through the Lassen Volcanic Wilderness - from Buck's Lake to The Hat Creek Overlook - and I walked each day without passing a soul. Unlike the Sierras, there were few views, and so my focus was mostly inward. The stunning reds, yellows, and oranges of fall were bursting all around me. Even the poison oak was beautiful. There was a soft, golden quality to the light and the breeze carried feelings and memories from past to present. The farther I walked the dividing line between my childhood, and the life I lead today, seemed to disappear. I spent miles walking as my 8-year-old self. And every time I would remember the truth- that 50 years have passed since that time- fresh waves of sadness would wash over me. I was not 8, my father was not just over the next rise fishing in that clear blue lake, my mom was not reclined against a nearby log, reading a novel in her black cat- eyed glasses.
Like the crazy old woman who I began to fear I’d become, I would find myself speaking out loud to the old-growth pines I passed: “You. You were alive back then. You would remember. You have been here for centuries and I am tiny beside you. My life has been a blink and you will outlive all of who I am.”
Sometimes my smallness comforts me, but this time it brought nothing but a painful sinking sensation as I understood how quickly my remaining life, like the season of my childhood, will pass.
I came upon a fallen log, a section cut away to clear the trail. I bent down and began to count “her” rings. At 150, and with dozens more rings to go, I stopped. “You could have known my father, and his father, and his father before him.” I had to tear myself away and I wondered what was wrong with me as I started to cry. I kept trying to change the channels in my brain, away from melancholy, to something more positive, but the acceptance and gratitude frequencies were simply not available.
I felt nothing but desolation as I walked this section of Lassen Volcanic Wilderness
With Lassen Peak in view, I walked fifteen miles through a forest destroyed by fire and my mood deteriorated even further. I was getting a sore throat, a cough, and the arthritis in my feet was killing me, another unwelcome reminder that childhood was long gone. This charred landscape was the perfect match for my aching body and dark psyche. I finally gave up and just accepted this was one of those sections I just had to “get through.” I was tired of judging my every thought. Tired of having “feelings about my feelings”. Tired of having the heaviness I was feeling weighed down even further by constant self-recrimination that I couldn’t just “snap out of it”. In that moment of surrender I finally had a moment of clarity. On top of getting sick, this was the month my father had died. This was the season I lost my mom. I was not weak, I was ill. I was not crazy, I was grieving.
I’d like to say that awareness brought relief. It didn’t. I still felt sad, and wimpy, and miserable. But, finally my melancholy made sense and I understood that I just had to accept that it was my companion for this portion of the trail. I clung to the truth I have come to trust where psychic misery is concerned: “This too shall pass and sometimes the only way out is through- Everything comes with an expiration date, even pain.”
And so I kept walking.
Two days later, as my cough grew worse and my body grew too tired, I did something I have never done on the trail before: I’m half proud, and half ashamed, to admit that I used a formula that is hard for me. I asked myself: “What is the path of greatest self-care? What would you do if you weren’t afraid?” The image of pancakes and my bed instantly sprang to mind. The answer was clear; It was time to rest.
My husband, Stephen, met me six miles into that 20-mile day. I greeted him with a hug and said “Take me to breakfast and then take me home.” He couldn’t believe his ears, but the relief on his face was unmistakable. He usually knows what’s best for me long before I will admit it. We went to JJ’s in Old Station for the best breakfast ever, and then booked a flight back to Colorado. I was forty miles, and a day and a half, from reaching my goal.
It seems a small thing, giving up on 40 miles, but it’s a large lesson: Grief and illness have a way of interfering with plans, even when we’ve counted on a clearer path. Having feelings about our feelings is rarely part of a positive solution, and while sometimes “the only way out is through”, there are other times when crying “Uncle” is the honest answer to “What would I do if I wasn’t afraid.”
I’m home now, rested and well. Predictably my mood has lightened and my sense of gratitude has returned. But friends, THIS is why I keep hiking this trail: It has become my gentle teacher, my patient mentor, and the only “parent” I have left. With every step I take, and every section I complete, it teaches me something that I probably already know, but need more help to fully understand.
