(no subject)
this is a story about a hike, one that went all kinds of wrong but in the end felt entirely right. the proposed path was supposed to be easy, supposed to have me off of the mountain before sunset. i should have been in my car and driving away from aranguren at 5. 5:30 at the latest. but like most things, the proposed path inevitably meandered away from itself, got lost somewhere, and took its follower into unknown places, places that were beautiful but scary, enchanting but (or maybe because they were) dangerous. and after a while the girl walking that path had to let go, to realize the direction she was going was not the one she had planned, that the sun was setting and her route was all but unsalvagable, and to trust that following a different gravelly road would eventually, somehow, bring her somewhere safe. the metaphor could go on for hours, but i'll trust this was enough.
i used to think about hiking a lot. i used to see mountains and wonder what it might be like to escape into them and not come out for days. i grew up in a part of virginia where forests still exist around houses and where getting lost in the woods wasn't just the stuff of fairytales -- it could really happen -- so it's natural, my predeliction for the outdoors. i don't feel at home unless i am surrounded by trees and yes, i've been known to photograph one or two of them in my time. but it's because they are a comfort, they are a safety. no matter where you go, the trees are always watching out for you. i lived in oregon for so long it's almost unbelievable that i never really went on hikes. in high school, sure, sarah v and i would trudge the often muddy path up mt pisgah or my sister and i would venture to the peak of spencer's butte, but when i moved to chicago i started drinking and smoking cigarettes so much and eating so terribly badly that by the time i moved back to oregon i just don't think it was in the cards anymore. i'd still look up at those mountains and wonder, but my time inevitably distributed itself to working at the gap and going out drinking in the evenings, or worse yet sitting in my apartment smoking (not cigarettes) and watching movies rented with my blockbuster movie pass. and yes, that time needed to happen, but eventually i moved beyond that. i quit smoking, actually quit drinking for quite some time, and at least started changing eating habits and routines that i no longer wanted to live by. soon enough i was pretty healthy again, and those mountains in the distance started calling my name. but i was in a relationship with a person who had summited hood, who owned more camping gear than normal clothes, for whom we had to make space in our closet because there were more hiking backpacks than available room. i felt like i couldn't do these things, hiking and camping and exploring the wild outdoors, because they weren't my things. they were someone else's. and if i did them i would be trying to do something that i had no idea how to do "well", that i had no "right equipment" for, and that i was afraid i would always appear ill-prepared to do. so i never went, except for once, with someone else, who took care of all of the "technical stuff". i just got in the car and went along. i lived in oregon for two whole years without so much as a single outdoor adventure on my own.
so now here i am in spain. here i am wondering why i don't want to meet people and why going out until three, four, five, six in the morning leaves me feeling restless, disenchanted, and not quite like i'm doing what i was supposed to do here. and eventually i discover that what is happening to me here in spain is that i am being given the opportunity to forget about other people for awhile, and to focus on myself and what makes me happy. i am given the break that i've needed for some time in order to figure out who the hell i am. because a relationship for a year really sucked a lot of myself out of me. i was living for the other person and i had forgotten who i wanted to be for myself. i am in spain, in a town in the middle of a valley that is abutted by hills and hills and more hills. if you climb the hills you see mountains. if you climbed the mountains, i bet you'd see something really amazing. and i am in a situation where i am not attached to anyone. where i know that if i go out for the entire day, i won't have missed the opportunity to see someone, to go out with someone, to spend time with someone. i don't feel like i have to sacrifice friendships for other things, and this is a truly rare blessing. i have been enabled to be myself, be BY myself, be with myself, most importantly. to go on those adventures that i was always too afraid to take because i didn't want to leave other people behind. and i realized this, and i felt afraid that i wasn't going to take advantage of this opportunity.
so you can understand how proud i am of such a small achievement as a hike up the mountain in aranguren. you can imagine how i look at a picture of myself, alone, on the side of a hill and smile the biggest smile you have ever seen. you can feel the pride that pours out of me radiates over me and elevates me when i realize that i have used my new hiking boots, my new hiking bag, and my powell's books nalgene bottle for something other than...well, nothing at all. those books about the trails in the valle de aranguren, the ones that are sitting on my floor, well, they're being used. they're acting as guides for me while i'm on a trail instead of as tales of adventures i wish i were taking. i am going out there and doing the thing that i have always wanted to do. all this time, my life existing in shades of things i have WANTED to do, and never things i am doing. sure, spain -- europe -- is something that i wanted to do, something i knew i would do, but it was fate, chance, that brought me here. this mountain, this trail i got lost on and wound up finding my way back to, this was my doing. this was me taking action to be my most amazing and brilliant self. to bring emily out there into the open and let her be free. i got the books from the library, i bought the hiking boots and pack, i drove to the town of aranguren, i asked the people where the trailhead was, i ventured up the mountain, i got lost, i found my way to another town, i found my way up the road back to aranguren and my car, i drove myself home through pamplona, and i was dead tired and covered in sweat and breaking out in blisters from my boots and so shaky from not having eaten. me. i did it. not anyone else. no one but me.
and i feel myself changing. i feel myself coming into my own, learning what i do and don't like, what makes me happy. i confirm for myself the things that i believe in, i come to know who i am and what that person needs, and i take care of myself. i give myself the things i am lacking and i trust myself to create a good life and to live it without regrets, without uncertainty (well some level of uncertainty, but the good kind), without worrying that maybe i am lost somewhere and never going to be found. i am on my way to discovering so many things, and the first thing i have discovered is myself. i cannot tell you how happy this makes me.
so this hike, this getting lost and being on a mountain at sunset, this complete not knowing where i was or if i'd arrive anywhere anytime before dark, this absolute loss of control over my surroundings, my direction...this being forced to follow a path that i had not planned on following, really made a huge difference for me. really reminded me of who i am and what i believe in. and even though i was certain i would literally fall over from exhaustion, it was entirely worth it. every moment of that journey was an expansion into the void that i've let frighten me. every step up that hill was an affirmation, a saying "yes" to the uncertainty ahead of me. every time i turned around and looked back down the mountain i knew i was getting further away from the emily i had left behind and always one step closer to the emily that i have been waiting for ever to find. and for this, i am grateful, and i am becoming free.