The days are long, the world is big, and we all fall down

I've been thinking a lot about opposites lately.

Spoken word poet Sarah Kay (whose interview and TED talk I referenced in my last post), has a writing exercise that she uses called "Things I Know to Be True".  Her students are instructed to think of three things they know to be true, and whether it's a personal truth, a scientific truth, or a historical truth, Kay says that when these "truths" are shared in a group, invariably at least one of four things happen:

1) Two people discover they have written down the exact same or similar truth.

2) Two people discover they have written down the exact opposite truth.

3) Someone has written down a truth that no one else has ever heard of.

4) Someone has written down a truth that everyone thought they knew about, but never considered from this angle before.

While I think these are all potentially fascinating points of connection and conversation, I'm primarily interested right now in #2, holding in consideration the precise opposite of what I think is true.  I can't count how many times this came up in my last relationship, where at times it seemed that Carl and I were on completely different sides of different coins, minted on different planets.  This conundrum of opposing viewpoints often brought us to a conversational standstill, and even more often lead to a fight, but I'm left wondering about what we left hanging in the balance.  Could we have learned better to consider the paradox, be humored by it, appreciate our differences?  Could we soften to it, be transformed by it?

I could rehash my relationship over these questions ad nauseum, but one can play this game too.  How often do we flip our own perspective on its head, try to believe something we thought impossible, voluntarily invite certainty to slip away?  Martha Beck touches on the power of paradox in her book, Finding Your Way in a Wild New World:

By seeing that the things we believe to be true may also be false, we force the verbal brain to relinquish its obsessive belief that it knows the “right way,” or “how things should be.” This throws us out of our preconceptions and into pure perception and observation, into a state of open-mindedness.  

This week, as I was driving up to my hike at the Sam's Point Preserve, my GPS routed me to a destination that was quite obviously not the trailhead, but a residential dead-end.  Of course, the first thought that came to me was "KJ, you are lost."  But in the spirit of opposite-think, I tried this statement on for size, "KJ, you are exactly where you need to be."  And somehow, that suddenly seemed true too.  I laughed at myself, turned my car toward my intended destination, and gave it another try (many thanks to my hiking buddy this week for patience and navigation assistance).

We arrived a little later than planned, but enjoyed a beautiful day at the Preserve, hiking a 10-mile loop through a Ferngully-like landscape, through narrow ice caves, to the top of Verkeerder Kills Falls, and to the rocky outcrop High Point, from which we could see a massive stretch of the Shawangunk Ridge, the Catskills, and the Hudson Valley.  Unfortunately, my pictures of the hike just don't do the place justice, so I have little to share visually, but all the more reason for you to go and check this hike out on your own.  There are enchanting surprises at every turn.

Here are a few more truths I've tried turning upside down this week:

"I am tired."  ---> "I am waking up."

"Someone I love is sick." --> "Someone I love is healing."

"Someone I love is gone." --> "Someone I love is always with me."

"My heart is broken" --> "My heart is whole."

"I am alone."  --> "I am connected."

The days are short, the world is small, we all rise up.

Anthony's Nose and What Momma Knows

When I was a sophomore in high school, I had an Honors English teacher who inspired and terrified me.  His name was Charles Rossell (which I always thought was made up, because my high school was named after the Western artist Charles M. Russell...suspiciously close), and he was a motocross racing cowboy and aikido master, who would give impossibly difficult tests on the first day of school to see if you had thoroughly done your summer reading ("What color were Jane Eyre's eyes?", etc).  His gaze was unbelievably intense.  He scared us into writing a proper essay.  We worshipped him for making us better.  To be scrutinized by him was mortifying, to be praised by him was rare and glorious.

That fall, during the night of parent-teacher conferences, Mr. Rossell made each parent write an essay.  I have no idea what he asked them to write about, but I'm he sure intimidated the heck out of my mom and every parent in that room.

The next day in class he was telling us about his parent assignment and mocking their output a bit, when I heard him shout my name:
"GROW!"...
"Yes?" I stammered, fearing what he might say about my somewhat shy, understated mother.
"Your mom can really write."

And I was proud.  I'd never really heard of my mom writing before, but she's always been the kind of parent who has exactly the right words for me when I need them.  After my first blog post last week, my mother responded to me with this bit of botanist-philosopher-poet wisdom, which I thought was too beautiful to keep to myself:

I have heard the sadness in your voice for awhile now...Sadness has a way of hanging on and clinging to us like bindweed.  We think we can get rid of it by pulling it out and disposing of it, but it keeps popping up again and again.  Bindweed will take over and choke anything out if we don't tend to it properly.  We can kill it off with poisonous chemicals or we can plant in its place things of beauty that will eventually and naturally get rid of it.  In other words, feeding your sad soul with what is healthy and with things you love will help bring back happiness to your life.  

Zowie.  Do I want to be a momma like that some day?  You bet your boots I do.

Anyway, onto this weekend's hike.  I rolled out of bed around 6:30am and got on the road by 7, cruising up Bronx River and Sprain Brook parkways on the east side of the Hudson River, just across from where I'd hiked last week.  On the radio, I caught a beautiful NPR "On Being" interview with the magnificent spoken word poet Sarah Kay.  Kay speaks powerfully about the importance of telling your own story, the fragile nature of human hearts and existence, and the universal longing to connect.  In her poem "Hiroshima", she writes, "I see the impossible every day. Impossible is trying to connect in this world, trying to hold onto others while things are blowing up around you, knowing that while you're speaking, they aren't just waiting for their turn to talk -- they hear you. They feel exactly what you feel at the same time that you feel it. It's what I strive for every time I open my mouth -- that impossible connection."

And with those words, and the desire to connect - with myself, with the woods, with whoever or whatever I might encounter on the path ahead - I set out on the trail.

The Camp Smith trail starts just north of Peekskill at the old Bear Mountain toll house and skirts a narrow bit of land between Route 202/6 and a military firing range.  So, no venturing off-trail, lest you become target practice.  It's a blue-blazed trail that begins with a gradual climb and quickly becomes rocky and somewhat indistinct.

There's a fair amount of rock scramble getting up to the first viewpoint.  I've never much fancied myself a rock climber, but I do love a good scramble.  To me, it feels like being a kid playing on nature's jungle gym.

Less than a mile into the climb, I arrived at the first viewpoint.

No, that's not the Taj Mahal in the distance.  That's the controversial nuclear power facility at Indian Point, nestled in the middle of the Hudson River.  And just around the river bend, is Iona Island, a bird sanctuary and winter nesting home for bald eagles.

Black-capped chickadees darted around me while I bent down to take a photo of this wildflower (azalea, I think?), and as I reached into my back pocket for my trail map, I discovered it was gone.  It had fallen out of my pocket and was sitting somewhere back on the trail, presumably.  Luckily, it was a simple in-and-out hike, with no trail junctures.  And I had done a section of this hike with a group earlier in December, so instead of backtracking I decided to press on, mapless, and just trust my sense of direction and stay alert for the blazes.

It occurred to me as I hiked that this situation was pretty representative of my current life state.  I am feeling a definite sense of being mapless and unmoored.  And while it would be nice to have a larger view of where I'm going and how I'm getting there, right now I guess I just have to look for the signs, orient myself somehow, and be comforted by the knowledge that I'm not alone in this journey.  Others have gone before me and will help show me the way.

About 3 miles into the hike, I started wondering when I might see another hiker, when I heard a rustling in the grass.  I looked down to see about a half dozen baby wild turkeys, and just further afield, their regal looking mother.  She flew into a tree before I had a chance to grab for my camera, but having watched the strange and excellent PBS documentary, "My Life As a Turkey", I knew that wild turkeys could be dangerous if feeling threatened or ornery.  So I took care to not provoke the turkey family any further and moved on.

About a mile further ahead I began to hear a cacophonous sound.  At first I thought it might be a troupe of Boy Scouts, and then as I got closer I thought, "Maybe geese?"  But as it turns out, I had come upon a marshy pond filled with hundreds of frogs.  In this video you'll hear the constant whir of cicadas, and the syncopated croak of the frogs.  Quite a woodland chorus:

Just about a mile ahead, I climbed again and reached the end point for this hike, Anthony's Nose.  Nobody really knows why it's called Anthony's Nose (which put a little sing-song in my head: "Nobody knows why Anthony's Nose, does what it does, and blows where it blows"... Yeah, I know.  This is what happens in your brain when you hike alone...).  From the Nose, you get a gorgeous overhead view of the Bear Mountain bridge.

After a brief rest and exchanging hellos with an Asian couple hiking with their shih-tzu, I turned back on the trail and retraced my pathway back toward my car.  Not long after turning back, I was visited by the turkey family again, and this time, they stayed put long enough for me to capture the mother on camera:

I hiked happily back, zipping along the trail, feeling strong in my legs, but starting to get hungry for breakfast waiting for me on the other end.  And just I was skipping along, about half way back on the hike, this big boy appeared on the trail and scared the bejeezus out of me.

Nope, that's not a charred branch or a deflated bike tire.  That's a 4 foot long black rat snake.  He stayed frozen on the tail, with just his forked tongue sticking in and out in all his creepy snakiness, and me trembling in my boots.  Needless to say, I took an off-trail detour, giving him wide berth.  Reading up later, I discovered that these snakes are not poisonous and are actually greatly beneficial to farmers in keeping the rodent population in check.  But this guy was only half the size of what a black rat snake can grow to be, and seeing one on the trail definitely startled me.

Heart pumping, legs working, I got back to my car and checked my pedometer, clocking 8 miles in 3.5 hours.  

As I recapped to myself all I had thought about and seen that morning, starting with the words from my mother about planting things of beauty in my sad soul, I heard again in my mind these lines from the Sarah Kay poem, "If I should have a daughter": 

When your boots will fill with rain and you’ll be up to your knees in disappointment and those are the very days you have all the more reason to say “thank you,” ‘cause there is nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline no matter how many times it’s sent away.

You will put the “wind” in win some lose some, you will put the “star” in starting over and over, and no matter how many land mines erupt in a minute be sure your mind lands on the beauty of this funny place called life.

And yes, on a scale from one to over-trusting I am pretty damn naive but I want her to know that this world is made out of sugar. It can crumble so easily but don’t be afraid to stick your tongue out and taste it.

Look momma: this is me, sticking my tongue out and tasting the world.

Sanctuary

About 10 years ago, shortly after I moved to New York City, my mom came to visit for a long weekend.  At the time, I was living with my roommate Dom, a true blue New Yorker and big Yankees fan.  My mom wanted to go to church on Sunday morning, and she asked Dom if he'd like to come along.  He said "No, thank you.  I'm going to stay home and watch the baseball game.  Yankee Stadium is my church."  My mom cringed a bit, probably wondering what kind of pagan situation I'd gotten myself into by moving here.

I laugh at this episode now, because while my mom probably still considers herself someone who has a relationship with God, she's loosened up her practice a bit.  I would venture to guess that her most spiritual moments come when she is fixing her scope on a nest of baby owls, or pulling a loaf of bread out of the oven, or bluegrass jamming with her sisters on Sundays.

This Sunday, I went to visit my own church: the woods.  To me, there is nothing more soul-stirring than waking up early with the birds, jumping into the car (my newest purchase, named Ingrid, a 2008 gray Mazda 3), and heading for the woods.  This morning I set out through the Brooklyn Battery tunnel, up the Henry Hudson Parkway, over the George Washington Bridge, up the Palisades Parkway, radio tuned to WKCR's "Amazing Grace" program, which was playing gospel tunes by Mahalia Jackson, Mavis Staples and Sam Cooke.  I cruised along easily, enjoying the daybreak and the lush hills of the Hudson Valley and arrived at my destination, the Fort Montgomery Historical Site.

The first part of the trail took me along the Popolopen River Gorge.  Just days after storm Andrea hit this area, I thought it would be a watery, muddy mess, so I wore my big girl hiking boots rather than my usual trail runners, which was a good call.  As I slopped through the trail, I could hear and see the fullness of the river gorge next to me, cascading down the mountain.  An iridescent teal dragonfly hovered near me for a while, tiny cerulean butterflies fluttered around, a small garter snake slithered under a rock.  I watched a beautiful great blue heron silently and effortlessly lift off over the gorge.  This, I thought, is exactly where I belong, right now.

After a bit of wandering, I realized a hadn't seen a blaze for a while, so I traced back my steps, looking for the little red dots to show me the way.  When I found them, I realized why I had missed the turn.  This didn't look like a trail at all, it looked like a waterfall.

Note to self: stay alert and look for the blazes.

After the waterfall began the real climb.  The trail gains in elevation gradually for about 45 minutes, but then I crossed over a bridge and the real scramble began.

Now, before I tell you about the climb to the top, I want to let a little light in to the personal cracks in my life.  It's been a tough year.  Last fall, I had a hopeful reunion with Carl, the beloved and confounding on-again, off-again man in my life for the last 8 years.  This spring, we decided to be off-again, and though we've made that choice many times before, for some reason, this time brought with it a whole slew of complicated emotions.  Many relationships end in cases where people love each other, but they have different end goals.  Carl and I were the opposite.  We envisioned the same end goal - we each dreamed of sharing a humble cottage, a life immersed in nature, creating a family - but we stumbled over each other along the way.  Actually, stumbling is too kind.  We kicked each other along the way.  I never fight with people, but man, did I fight with Carl.  Though we shared a deep love, and many moments of connection and care and tenderness, there was always something flammable between us that could ignite at any second.  And so we decided to stop forcing it along.

All this to say that in letting that relationship go, a visitor has moved in, and her name is sadness and she is stubborn.  She has pitched a tent on my chest and doesn't seem to be going away any time soon.  It's astounding to me just how physical emotions can be.  When people say they feel heart-ache, I know they mean it.  I've been carrying now for months this physical sensation of sadness - a ballooning swell of something near my heart and a tightness in my throat.  And even when I'm having a good time, out with my friends, doing the things I love to do, sadness persists in staking out her territory, like she's made herself comfortable and might as well roast a few marshmallows while she's at it.

But now: the climb.  Anyone who has dealt with depression will tell you that staying active and getting outdoors is a great way to cope.  So as I began my ascent up to Popolopen Torne, I hoped that if I just put one foot in front of the other, and focused on my breathing and the path ahead of me, maybe little miss sadness would get lost for a little while.  The trail became quite strenuous then, and I scrambled up the exposed rock side of the mountain, sometimes pulling myself up with my arms while searching for a foothold and gripping the mountain with all my might.  And though I was using all my strength, and pushing through my moderate fear of heights, and climbing upward, upward, that little stinker sadness stayed right where she was.  But in that climb I heard my voice say, "Girl, you are sad, but you are strong."  And I thanked my voice for that.

When I arrived at the top, I was tapped out, sweaty, but feeling exhilarated.  The beautiful Hudson Valley stretched around me 360 degrees, and I felt like a warrior woman.

At the top, I encountered a few strong-looking dudes, presumably West Point cadets from the nearby academy, who invited me to join them in their round of 275 push-ups.  I laughed them off, and the leader joked, "As the strong feminist you are, you should just say no."  Yes sir, no sir.

I sat for a while, enjoying the vista and mid-morning sun, biting into an apple, and marveling at the siren-loud whir of seventeen-year cicadas. 

The hike back down was mercifully meandering and gentle, a kind reward for all the effort I put in the first few miles.  Near the bottom, I came upon Brooks Lake, and hiked the circumference, encountering only a few ducks and fisherman along the way.

Just before arriving back at my car, I came upon this little gem of a public service announcement.  Now, I agree that littering is a terrible, inexcusable offence, but wishing a generational end to this family seems a little extreme, no?  These steely-eyed, flat-bellied hikers don't mess around.

Back at the parking lot, I checked my pedometer and clocked just over 8 miles in about 3.5 hours.  I wolfed down half a bag of trail mix, the chocolate bits now melty from the sun, started Ingrid up, turned on the A/C and turned up a radio station playing the blues and turned my sad, strong self back toward the city.