rough and random
The sun doesn’t set over Alaska in late June. The fact that I managed to forget about this bit of scientific and geographical trivia until after I’d landed in Anchorage, hailed a cab, and lingered over a coke and fries until nearly midnight makes for an amusing anecdote. When I tell the story, I include my excitement over landing in Denver several days later and being able to look into the sky and find my old friend the moon.
At the time, I thought that my joy over clear night skies in Denver was a result of nights spent drawing the curtains of my hotel room, forcing myself to turn down the bedcovers, close my eyes, and remind myself not to be fooled by the constant presence of the light, lest I be surprised by exhaustion. But I’ve come to realize that the source of my joy is the moments I was fortunate enough to spend gazing on Denali. Maybe five percent of the many tourists who he spoke to, I’d been told by a local man, got a good look at the mountain that was so high that it makes its own weather. I hadn’t let on that I suspected that he was feeding me a bit of a line to make me feel good, help me justify spending so much money on a vacation. I was forced to swallow these unspoken thoughts not two hours later, when smoke from some distant forest fire not only obscured the sight of the mountain, but made it seem as if some clever magician had made it disappear completely.
The mountain and the moon have been present long before I was cobbled into existence, and will continue long after I’m gone. It’s a thought that’s as wistful as it is comforting.
Is it their presence that I take for granted, or my own?
**
In British Columbia, bears seem nearly as common as squirrels, and they seemed unfazed at the presence of humans, barely giving me a passing glance as I carefully maneuvered my rented car around them.
They’re cute, and it’s no wonder that their image is copied onto a children’s toy.
They’re also frightening, not just in their ability to kill me, but the way their presence reminds me that I’m not only a guest in their territory, but that my very presence on this planet is temporary.
**
I hear the waterfall before I see it. I have a pamphlet that tells me that I’m walking towards the rim. I barely have time to catch my breath before I leave the thicket and see it and am reminded of how small I really am.
**
Traveling hasn’t been an easy dream to achieve, and by the time my bank accounts are willing to loosen up enough to allow it, any romantic notions of sparse hostels are gone, and my days of summer camp and sleeping next to fires are relegated firmly to nostalgic memories, my thirty-something body winning the fight between my desire to be thrifty and my desire to be free of sore muscles. And yet here I am, having bypassed the more luxurious lodgings of several ski resort towns for a humble motel. In a way it feels like I’m returning to something.
I don’t know why I pick up the Bible from the bedside table. It’s just like the thousands of others that reside in rooms all across the U.S. I am no longer devout like I once was, my diminished faith now something I don’t know how to untangle, and I seldom feel a desire to work at the knot. There are memories in my fingers as I flip through the pages, though, and I let myself feel a sense of loss that I often try desperately to ignore.
**
The sign says that Tibrogargan Summit is recommended for experienced climbers only. Next to the warning, someone has graffitied “Lol.” I don’t know if it’s a scoff or a certain self-deprecating admission, but I know my limits: I am a hiker, not a mountain climber, and I set out for the six kilometer trail at a comfortable pace.
Hours later, the muscles in my back and legs chide me, loudly and insistently, reminding me of my age, my obesity, and my lack of athleticism.
I chew some aspirin and ignore them, doing it all again the next day.
The effects of the hikes linger for a week after I return home, exacerbated by twenty hours on an airplane and jetlag, but I never have a moment of questioning whether it was worth it, not because of the scenery, or even the symbolic “bucket list” trip I’ve crossed off, but because I had ignored every anxiety to travel to the other side of the planet by myself.
When I look at the picture I’d snapped of the graffitied “Lol,” I give a wry smile every time. Fearlessness is overrated.
**
There’s a cliché that I’ve repeated to myself my entire life: Don’t make mountains out of mole hills. It seems appropriate to flip the cliché and remind ourselves not to make mole hills out of mountains, but we don’t. It doesn’t take much imagination to decipher why.
The beginning of the end of my excursion across British Columbia involves driving over a mountain and down, down, down into the Bella Coola Valley. It involves maneuvering around black bears and hairpin turns that seem to never end. My hands grip the steering wheel, and my mind screams for an end, and yet I still catch glimpses of the beauty that surrounds me.
I’m mentally worn when I stroll (at least, that’s what I think it looks like. Psychologically, it feels like a stagger) into the charming inn at the end of town. “Did you come in on the ferry?” the receptionist asks. When I reply that I drove in, she asks, without a hint of irony, “How did you like The Hill?” I had spent my time on airplanes and in laundry mats during this vacation reading a trilogy about an alien apocalypse, so my immediate thought is that British Columbians will be the last to fall if such an event ever occurs. A zombie apocalypse would do them in, what with the ferry, but the residents of the westernmost province of Canada, who enjoy such an understatement, who seem to be fond of guns, and who are completely nonplussed at the sight of bears, are made of tough enough fabric to withstand the End.
My two days in the valley leave me with a sense of unease. I had felt small, looking at the vast waterfalls and encountering some of the planet’s fiercest predators, but being at sea level but surrounded by mountains leaves me with an almost claustrophobic feeling. Two days pass before I have to ascend The Hill in my tiny rental car. It’s a long, silent drive back to Williams Lake, and even a decade of living in Wyoming has not prepared me for the sense of solitude I feel, and six hours of mulling it over and over in my mind doesn’t yield any of the answers I’m seeking.
A year passes before I finally realize that it’s not the fear, but the speed, the way life doesn’t allow for enough time to catch one’s breath.
**
Prince Edward Island is a tiny plot of land off the East Coast of Canada, cut off by geography but connected, too, by bridges built by human hands and machines. It seems a less obvious choice after venturing to Alaska and Australia, but the pull I feel is almost tangible, though my familiarity and knowledge is nearly nonexistent, a vague picture formed by memories of literature I’d read in childhood.
When I spoon clam chowder while staring out at the waves breaking on the shore, I feel serenity. When I travel inland and gaze on rivers and lush greenery, I feel a sense of home, the red soil of the beaches the only stark reminder that I’m close to the shores of the Atlantic Ocean rather than Lake Michigan. I can make my way across the province in a matter of hours, not days. I had thought I’d grown to prefer mountains that carry me far above and give me a sense that I can almost touch the sky, thought I’d fallen in love with acres and acres of prairie that let me see for long miles. But there’s a refuge here, even as the ocean has never beckoned me.
At the time, I thought that my joy over clear night skies in Denver was a result of nights spent drawing the curtains of my hotel room, forcing myself to turn down the bedcovers, close my eyes, and remind myself not to be fooled by the constant presence of the light, lest I be surprised by exhaustion. But I’ve come to realize that the source of my joy is the moments I was fortunate enough to spend gazing on Denali. Maybe five percent of the many tourists who he spoke to, I’d been told by a local man, got a good look at the mountain that was so high that it makes its own weather. I hadn’t let on that I suspected that he was feeding me a bit of a line to make me feel good, help me justify spending so much money on a vacation. I was forced to swallow these unspoken thoughts not two hours later, when smoke from some distant forest fire not only obscured the sight of the mountain, but made it seem as if some clever magician had made it disappear completely.
The mountain and the moon have been present long before I was cobbled into existence, and will continue long after I’m gone. It’s a thought that’s as wistful as it is comforting.
Is it their presence that I take for granted, or my own?
**
In British Columbia, bears seem nearly as common as squirrels, and they seemed unfazed at the presence of humans, barely giving me a passing glance as I carefully maneuvered my rented car around them.
They’re cute, and it’s no wonder that their image is copied onto a children’s toy.
They’re also frightening, not just in their ability to kill me, but the way their presence reminds me that I’m not only a guest in their territory, but that my very presence on this planet is temporary.
**
I hear the waterfall before I see it. I have a pamphlet that tells me that I’m walking towards the rim. I barely have time to catch my breath before I leave the thicket and see it and am reminded of how small I really am.
**
Traveling hasn’t been an easy dream to achieve, and by the time my bank accounts are willing to loosen up enough to allow it, any romantic notions of sparse hostels are gone, and my days of summer camp and sleeping next to fires are relegated firmly to nostalgic memories, my thirty-something body winning the fight between my desire to be thrifty and my desire to be free of sore muscles. And yet here I am, having bypassed the more luxurious lodgings of several ski resort towns for a humble motel. In a way it feels like I’m returning to something.
I don’t know why I pick up the Bible from the bedside table. It’s just like the thousands of others that reside in rooms all across the U.S. I am no longer devout like I once was, my diminished faith now something I don’t know how to untangle, and I seldom feel a desire to work at the knot. There are memories in my fingers as I flip through the pages, though, and I let myself feel a sense of loss that I often try desperately to ignore.
**
The sign says that Tibrogargan Summit is recommended for experienced climbers only. Next to the warning, someone has graffitied “Lol.” I don’t know if it’s a scoff or a certain self-deprecating admission, but I know my limits: I am a hiker, not a mountain climber, and I set out for the six kilometer trail at a comfortable pace.
Hours later, the muscles in my back and legs chide me, loudly and insistently, reminding me of my age, my obesity, and my lack of athleticism.
I chew some aspirin and ignore them, doing it all again the next day.
The effects of the hikes linger for a week after I return home, exacerbated by twenty hours on an airplane and jetlag, but I never have a moment of questioning whether it was worth it, not because of the scenery, or even the symbolic “bucket list” trip I’ve crossed off, but because I had ignored every anxiety to travel to the other side of the planet by myself.
When I look at the picture I’d snapped of the graffitied “Lol,” I give a wry smile every time. Fearlessness is overrated.
**
There’s a cliché that I’ve repeated to myself my entire life: Don’t make mountains out of mole hills. It seems appropriate to flip the cliché and remind ourselves not to make mole hills out of mountains, but we don’t. It doesn’t take much imagination to decipher why.
The beginning of the end of my excursion across British Columbia involves driving over a mountain and down, down, down into the Bella Coola Valley. It involves maneuvering around black bears and hairpin turns that seem to never end. My hands grip the steering wheel, and my mind screams for an end, and yet I still catch glimpses of the beauty that surrounds me.
I’m mentally worn when I stroll (at least, that’s what I think it looks like. Psychologically, it feels like a stagger) into the charming inn at the end of town. “Did you come in on the ferry?” the receptionist asks. When I reply that I drove in, she asks, without a hint of irony, “How did you like The Hill?” I had spent my time on airplanes and in laundry mats during this vacation reading a trilogy about an alien apocalypse, so my immediate thought is that British Columbians will be the last to fall if such an event ever occurs. A zombie apocalypse would do them in, what with the ferry, but the residents of the westernmost province of Canada, who enjoy such an understatement, who seem to be fond of guns, and who are completely nonplussed at the sight of bears, are made of tough enough fabric to withstand the End.
My two days in the valley leave me with a sense of unease. I had felt small, looking at the vast waterfalls and encountering some of the planet’s fiercest predators, but being at sea level but surrounded by mountains leaves me with an almost claustrophobic feeling. Two days pass before I have to ascend The Hill in my tiny rental car. It’s a long, silent drive back to Williams Lake, and even a decade of living in Wyoming has not prepared me for the sense of solitude I feel, and six hours of mulling it over and over in my mind doesn’t yield any of the answers I’m seeking.
A year passes before I finally realize that it’s not the fear, but the speed, the way life doesn’t allow for enough time to catch one’s breath.
**
Prince Edward Island is a tiny plot of land off the East Coast of Canada, cut off by geography but connected, too, by bridges built by human hands and machines. It seems a less obvious choice after venturing to Alaska and Australia, but the pull I feel is almost tangible, though my familiarity and knowledge is nearly nonexistent, a vague picture formed by memories of literature I’d read in childhood.
When I spoon clam chowder while staring out at the waves breaking on the shore, I feel serenity. When I travel inland and gaze on rivers and lush greenery, I feel a sense of home, the red soil of the beaches the only stark reminder that I’m close to the shores of the Atlantic Ocean rather than Lake Michigan. I can make my way across the province in a matter of hours, not days. I had thought I’d grown to prefer mountains that carry me far above and give me a sense that I can almost touch the sky, thought I’d fallen in love with acres and acres of prairie that let me see for long miles. But there’s a refuge here, even as the ocean has never beckoned me.