Girl From the North Country

The sun is setting on day two of the Sierra High Route, and rays of warm colorful sunlight are burning brightly from the west, casting the shadow of my body long and large before me. Sharp feather edged peaks are rising up to my right and a long silent valley is opening up to my left where the colors of the sunset are settling down in pastel purples and soft hues of blue. I stare at my shadow as I walk towards the top of the steep grassy mountain I am climbing, the final push of hiking today. There are lovely blooming flowers scatter across the ground in little bursts of pinks and yellows, but I’m busy marveling at how smoothly my shadow seems to be moving over the wild landscape of the Eastern Sierras. My entire being feels utterly broken and exhausted after the tough day I’ve had, yet my shadow remains a transparency of long lost confidence and ability.

Tears are building behind my eyes, clawing at my tattered pride to wave the white flag of surrender, to concede defeat, to admit that I am weak, to draw up the damn on my tears, to allow the stream of pent up emotion to muddy the mask of my face. But my pride, or perhaps my bullheaded stubbornness, triumphs. Instead of bawling my eyes out I tighten my lips, bite back my emotions, and focus on my next step. 

Head down, with the golden sun still glistening at my back, I watch my shadow closely expand from my toes and rise above all my bodily, worldly struggles to express bygone elegance and aliveness. It is almost humorous to witness the sun transform your slow moving body and mind into a striking image of grace and capability. Further proof of the old adage that feeling is a far cry from appearance.

I rolled my ankle four times within a two hour period today, once really badly. It is not broken but it is as purple as a nice ripe plum and about the size of a lumpy peach, which means I am walking under the perilous conditions of a sprained ankle. Now, after hiking another ten or so miles on the mangled tendons in my right ankle, I weight each step with precariousness and my stride is propelled by caution and dread in equal measure. Needless to say, my deft shadow is confidently leading me up the mountain I am climbing. As for me, well, I’m just slogging behind it one careful, painful step at a time.

 We, Zack, Geoff, and I, are out here to feel real and alive under the stars, to rediscovering the pace of nature, and to be utterly free and happy; and on the other side of all of that idealism is my shriveled up and sorry excuse of comfort zone, marred with self doubt and permanently branded by personal struggle. 

Go gently, I silently whisper over and over again to the rhythm of my slow footsteps. It is the only shaky wobbly thought and I have to offer myself, the last swath of shelter from the arrant harshness of storming emotions. 

Go gently. Go gently. Go gently. 

Zack, who has a quick and spirited uphill pace - not unlike a mountain goat, has slowed down to keep pace with my injured foot. Dazed in a sort of day dream, or a living hell depending on my mood, I look up to find he has stopped 20 feet ahead to wait for me. At a distance he can see from my slow footfalls that I’m struggling, and as I get closer I am sure the expression on my face matches his assessment. I am struggling hard.

“Take a seat, E. Have a drink of water and catch your breath. Take a rest.” 

I slog up to him, take a seat, and look towards the setting sun in silence. My mind is racing.

He sits next to me, warps one of his long arms around my backpack and pulls me in. I instantly feel both better and worse, comforted in body and utterly lost in mind and spirit. Lost because my inspiration is gone, my passion is gone, my interest is gone, and my enjoyment today was obliterated hours ago - miles ago. And for some reason sitting here in his arms, staring off into the sunset I realize that in this moment I feel like a shell of myself, weathered with confusion and cracked to the core by puncturing self doubt.  

“You feeling pretty chewed up and spit out after today, huh?”,

He is watching me closely. 

My eyes start to well, transforming the images of the world around me into undefined, soft edged, and nondescript blotches of watercolors; beautiful abstract pools of color and Rorschach of emotions that appeal to my eyes but no longer make any sense to my mind. I close my eyes and like a child pretend I am invisible. I pretend that when I close my eyes the world around me can no longer witness my pain and frustration and dejection. I close my eyes and hope that I am invisible to the warmth of the soft summer sun on my skin, invisible to the unyielding mountain I am clinging to the side of, invisible to the pop of pink and yellow wildflowers that grow with such persistence, invisible to the fresh sound of trickling water in a nearby brook. I close my eyes and pretend I’m invisible to my darling sweet man, so that the unfathomable love he gifts to me day in and day out doesn’t have to see how weak and undeserving of that love I feel at the moment. I want to be invisible to everything wonderful around me, to somehow spare it from witnessing the humiliating despair and discomfort I am stuck in.

But I can’t be invisible, and deep down I do not want to be. And regardless of how bad my ankle hurts, and regardless of all my struggle and embarrassment, deep down I want to be right here, in the thick of this crazy beautiful world, here on the side of this unrelenting mountain with this beautiful man.

So, I open my eyes and choose to let the world back in. I let Zack in. I let the truth of myself in. And finally, I allow the long held back tears of my own disappointment and degradation smear down my cheeks. 

“More like today has continued to chew me up and grind me down into a pulp, and I’m just waiting for it to spit me out. I just want Nature to be spit out,” my words sound more like a prayer than an admission.

Please, please, please, spit me out, I say in the privacy of my own mind. 

True to character, Zack does not respond. Like the quiet soul he is he lets the silence of the setting sun hear my prayer and the wind of nature hold me in her mystery. 

We sat there for another minute or two in silence. Him with his arm around me, pulling me close to his heart, me with my wet face drooping in my dirty hands. The setting sun is shining down on us both. 

We let another moment pass, and then we got back on our feet to carry on. Onward and upward, as we say. 

Eventually, over the next day or so my ankle started to look a little less purple and a little less swollen. While it did continue to bother me for the remainder of our trip, I could feel tiny improvements each day and that gave me space to find gratitude and see beauty. After garnering more than my fair share of blood, sweat, and tears, Mama Nature did finally answer my prayer and spit me out of her razor edged death grip. And when she finally did I was able to learn an important lesson from this trip. I learned that self-doubt is far more painful and crippling than hiking 180 miles on a sprained ankle.

I see now that much of the challenge and struggle I experienced, and the pain and discomfort I felt was self-inflicted by my own doubt in myself and my own stubborn resistance, rather than breach in my physical pain tolerance. It is strange to admit now, but, I judged myself for accidentally spraining my ankle that day. When I fell and sprained it I beat myself down about it and I let my suffering mind turn the rugged beauty of Mama Nature into a reason to be ashamed of my body’s ability. For a few days there after I was angry and disappointed in myself, not for the injury itself but for the shame and the doubt and the disappointment the injury dredged out of my soul. 

Some days nature feels kind, and some days she feels punishing. But one thing is for sure, she shows us what we are ready to see in the world and in ourselves. Through footsteps, sunset shadows, and starry night skies she shows us who we are, where we belong, and the tough stuff we are made of.  Adventures in the wild, like a life well lived, are beautiful roller-coasters of experience. There are sharp turns, cathartic drops, momentous climbs, exhilarating sights, and slow steady ticks onward. And when it’s all over the only thing left to do is look back and see where you have come from; that, and hopefully remember and share the important experiences you had along the way. 

Words and Photos by Erin Cookston from the Sierra High Route.