Those were the words that leapt off the page of last year’s July edition of ‘O’ that I had gotten out of the library. It was an interview with author, Cheryl Strayed, about her book, Wild.
I didn’t need to know what the book was about; just that I needed to read it. It was sort of like my body and spirit recognized truth right there… the truth that the reason I was having such difficulty moving on with life is that I didn’t know how to bear what felt unbearable to me: the loss of my marriage, my soul-mate, my dream, my love, my self, my pride. There is an element of loss with my son’s autism too, but the root of my grief, the larger iceberg under the water, was the loss of my marriage.
It was the day after I posted my last entry that I rushed out to the book store to get a copy of Wild. It turns out that it’s a memoir about Cheryl Strayed’s journey on the Pacific Coast Trail (PCT), and I couldn’t believe that it was a book about how to bear the unbearable AND one of my few personal passions: hiking. (And I have hiked very small sections of the PCT while en route to less cumbersome trails).
Cheryl’s grief was centered around the loss of her mother, and as a side issue, the loss of her marriage. She decided to hike the PCT, on a whim, to find herself again, to re-connect herself to nature, to truth, to her natural self (and wow, had she ever lost touch with herself!) Hilariously and horrifyingly, the unbearable turns out to be her backpack that weighs almost as much as she does. She knew nothing of backpacking, so brought along everything she might possibly need on the trail. And the loveable thing about her (because I see it in myself) is that she pushes herself to carry it anyway. It’s a pack that muscular 6’2” men can’t even carry, and she’s like, 5’4”.
Cheryl talks about not achieving the mileage she expected to achieve… only achieving about 1/3 of it because her pack was so overbearing. She talks about burning and numbness and bruising and chafing, and toenails falling off. She talks about one step at a time. Sometimes 50 and 100 steps at a time, but sometimes all she could do was to take 10 steps at a time. Sometimes all she could achieve was simply to lean forward. And, somehow, by doing this, not only did she get stronger and wiser, but she walked all the way from the Mojave desert to the Oregon/Washington border!
Close to the beginning of her journey she is charged at by an aggressive long-horned bull (like the kind they run from in Spain). She is so terrified she closes her eyes and blows her scare- whistle. She thinks she’s going to die, but when she doesn’t, she opens her eyes again, and the bull is gone. She finally realizes she is DONE and it is time to pack this journey in and go home. But then she realizes that she doesn’t know which way the bull went. If she gives up and goes back, the bull could be there. Or if she goes forward, the bull could be there. So she decides she might as well go forward since she doesn’t know where the bull might be.
These two incidents rocked my traumatized/victimish world. It helped me to realize that while my journey is painful and numbing, I have to keep moving. Also, like Cheryl, I’m carrying a lot of stuff I don’t need to be carrying. Its time to put it down, burn it, whatever. Furthermore, I have no idea when and where my proverbial long-horned bull is going to come charging out of the bush at me, but I have to keep moving forward, because the bull may or may not come at me regardless of whether I go back, stay still, or move forward. So I might as well move forward. And finally I learned that some days, I might only be able to take 1 step at a time. Some moments, all I can do is lean and stumble in the right direction.
Since I’ve read Wild, I haven’t made any more blog entries. Why? Because I’m too busy living again, and its wonderful.
And.
There’s still days (like Sunday and today)
where I’m only getting in 10 steps all day,
or I push myself so hard to get in 20 steps that my fatigue makes me sick.
Since my journey is 20 – 40 years long, and I’ve got a little one who's counting on me, I need to be kinder and gentler to myself… congratulate myself for making ends meet, providing good nutrition for my son, and lots of hugs (which he requires many of). If that’s all that happens, that’s still a pretty damn good day.
