Of Earth and Stars

And less often, because some cards are meant to be held close, “I have PTSD.”

And maybe, for a select audience, “I don’t trust myself.”

At the heart of each of these is a nagging doubt in my ability to navigate life. If you have ever had enough unfortunate decisions or events pile up in short order, you may know that the central nervous system occasionally gets stuck on ramping up to high-alert, ready to rock-and-roll to face the next Big Bad whether you’re actually in danger or not. It can create a cascade of physical symptoms that then bounce off one another and leave you questioning your sanity.

Don’t worry – this is not a story about the events that led to these disclosures, or even about the disclosures themselves. It is a story about the stories we tell ourselves.

~o~

There’s a joke among hikers that while we all arrive for the expansive vistas and roaring waterfalls, 90 percent of the time outdoors is spent staring at the ground. Depending on the location, you’re often navigating a pile of rocks, roots, slick areas of mud, loose gravel, and keeping an eye out for snakes or poison ivy. Each step becomes a thoughtful and planned act in where to place your feet.

Shenandoah National Park lingers at the northern terminus of the Blue Ridge Parkway in the Virginia mountains, following a tumultuous history of eminent domain, evictions, and conservation. Today it is renowned for its scenic vistas and popular cloud-hugging skyline drive. It remains one of the most biodiverse areas in the region, its resplendent and protected forest acreage rich with undergrowth that no longer exists in much of the overdeveloped eastern U.S.

The trail that the partner-in-crime and I have chosen for this trip is the Old Rag circuit – a trail labelled by the National Park Service as “very strenuous,” but which numerous online reviews and videos assure us is absolutely doable, even by children, with some assistance (despite it having its fair share of medical evacuations each year). It’s famous for its rock scramble and elevation gain (2,348 feet), neither of which are completely new to us. The trailhead itself is pretty standard – a quick check-in with the ranger, an easy stroll that begins underneath a canopy of healthy hardwoods, and a soft dirt path alongside a gentle stream with loosely scattered ferns and rocks. Morning sunlight dapples through the canopy as we warm up.
 

~o~

We started hiking seriously in the summer of 2022. In truth, it was more a desperate need to get out of our home environment, when times were dark enough and the walls felt suffocating, than a desire to get fit. My mind, already well-practiced in a number of sh*tshows, was continuously evaluating when the next calamity would befall, and I wasted hours trying to plot out how to prevent the next physical, fiscal, or emotional rock slide from taking over our lives. Daily tasks included motivational speeches to convince my brain to rally and gentle self-talks to pull my heart rate under control. There was not a lot of rationality to it, beyond the fact that too many hard things had happened for too many years in a row. My nervous system was overworked and underpaid, and I couldn’t get the underlying sense of panic beneath everything to turn off.

During that time, hiking provided a sort of liminal space in which I could pretend not to be myself - or maybe it was the space where I could become more like myself, without the weight and trappings of all the worries and fears. All I had to focus on was one step in front of the other.

~o~

The trail shows only the earliest signs of autumn. Verdant grasses continue to mingle with blue asters and lavish displays of goldenrod. A smattering of fallen yellow leaves trace our path, as the soil shifts from pale sand to rich loam to stripes of rich ochre. It eventually transitions into a jumble of rocks – mostly chunks of light granite but also darker, smoother-grained grey-blue shale. Some tracts have the benefit of slab steps, and others are layers of smooth or fractured rockbed, which we navigate by aiming for the least slick surfaces. In my thin-soled hiking shoes, weaving through the rugged switchbacks feels like walking across a discordant symphony. But the ridge line begins to peek through - brilliant flashes of age-hewn granite outcroppings amidst millions of trees, beneath a flawless blue sky.
 

~o~

I don’t remember when I first began telling the story of my anxiety. I imagine that early on, it was an attempt to soothe over odd behaviors or unsociable responses to unconscious stimuli – there was the occasional public panic attack, in which I had to explain to coworkers or strangers that I either needed help or would be fine, while also feeling like a distant, isolated, electricity-fueled version of myself. Later, once a therapist helped give me better vocabulary, I amended the story to acknowledge my PTSD.  

Sometimes the stories we tell are helpful for understanding, for unraveling, for managing or treating. Sometimes they help us understand the shape of who and where we are.

~o~

There’s an old story about a naturalist and a common man who venture together out into the woods. The story poses the question of who enjoys the venture more – the naturalist, who can identify the flora, birds, insects, and ecological or geological patterns, and thus “see more,” or the common man, who isn’t as studied in his surroundings but finds beauty and art and creativity among the same.

I always used to think the easy answer to this was the naturalist. I want to know and understand as much as I can possibly absorb about the world around me, and the more I learn, the more I feel able to observe. But lately, as my feet have wandered, I’ve wondered – what if this mission to ruthlessly pinpoint everything in life into neat little classifications ends up limiting the big picture?

~o~

The rock scramble at Old Rag is announced by a small 6 x 6-inch sign reminding hikers that camping is not allowed above 2,800 feet, and the trail evolves into a tangled impasse of large boulders and outcroppings from the erosion-worn ridgeline. Our journey becomes a game of following bright blue blaze markers scattered among the boulders and fissures, and then figuring out how to interpret them.

At first the scrambling is simple, climbing up and around mid-sized rocks, and I inwardly compose a thank you note to my physical therapist for all the hip and ankle mobility exercises. Then we begin an ascent between two narrow vertical layers of stone, with a protruding shark-fin wedge of granite at its center that leaves about 12-14 inches to slide between. It’s here we realize that there is no easy way around or under the wedge, given the incline, the lack of footholds or stepping stones beneath, and that our packs make us too wide to traverse the gap.

I knew before we began that I overpacked; my brain likes to prepare for every scenario. We have our lunches and protein bars, enough water for ten hours of hiking for two, along with a first aid kit, rain gear, sunscreen and insect repellant, pocketknives and small flashlights, maps, day passes and identification, and some lightweight jackets for warmth or windbreak we don’t end up needing. But here that’s all an impediment, and so off the packs come as we strategize our approach.

~o~

The thing about an overworked anxiety-and-or-trauma-informed brain – or at least my brain – is that I am always preparing myself mentally for [the worst]. I’d like to think this makes me a somewhat decent survivalist, but in reality the extra load that comes with the unnecessary fretting, planning, and searching for information for what if [the worst] happens quietly absorbs and wastes a massive amount of my daily energy. Obsessively or compulsively checking for or imagining [the worst] never actually helps, and doesn’t actually give me any additional control over my surroundings. Instead it only liberates the underlying current of anxiety and tension, until my synapses are exhausted from a steady stream of cortisol without anything to show for it.

~o~

The Old Rag scramble has a series of tight spaces, narrow gaps, and areas requiring unnatural contortions of the body. The secret of passing that first tight gap is different for each of us – the partner-in-crime uses the rockface to his back as leverage and bear hugs the protruding wedge of granite while inching his hips through the gap. This may or may not be accompanied by slight moments of panic over whether his hips actually fit and/or whether he is stuck (luckily, the answer is yes, and then no). I pass his pack and mine up and over, then manage to find handholds to physically pull my lower half up and around the impasse. We sigh a note of relief and continue our ascent, moving from one blind obstacle to another.

It’s here I should add – the partner-in-crime has been relying on uncited advice that safe rock scrambling requires maintaining three points of contact at all times. This way, you work out each hand and foothold and know where your next step will be before you make a move. But Old Rag asks us to throw that advice out the window – in many places, the trail requires me to lower myself slowly from high boulder ledges, sometimes dropping down the last bit of length when I can’t find a foothold and my feet don’t reach the next surface. It is, at many points, an exercise in letting go, and hoping that I will land solidly on my feet.

~o~

The more wandering, the more wondering. I wonder why I have repeated the story of my anxiety and doubt-addled brain over the years, and whether at some point I began to apply it not so much as an explanation, but as a means to avoid difficult people or situations. In telling this story over and over, I consider whether it has lodged itself into the smooth muscle of my brain and become the lens and view through which I experience the world. Now I can’t look without seeing it, and now that I see it, I can’t stop questioning it.

What are the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves? At what points do we pick and choose who we are? What purpose do the stories serve, and at what point do we know when the story is helping or hindering us?

~o~

We reach a couple of particularly intimidating sections of the scramble. One involves what we jokingly refer to as a “death gap” – a roughly 18-inch to 2-foot gap between two uneven rockfaces, with a deep drop in between – the bottom of the drop is dark and fathomless. But it’s not a straight step across - the opposite ledge falls about 4 to 6 inches above waist height, and there’s no easily visible means of getting onto it. I first try a section in which it seems a raised edge on the opposite side might function as a handhold, but in leaning forward, my legs are too short and the space too wide for me to comfortably push or pull myself up to the new height. I give up and move to a ledge to the left, which is slightly lower and smaller, but with no obvious way to step or sit or grip from where I am standing.

Looking down into the gap, and up at the ledge, my heart pounds in a way that is reminiscent of a panic attack. Fear and adrenaline are rushing through my limbs as my brain flashes emergency signals. I weigh the options of launching myself blindly and falling to death or disability, or having to turn around and rescale some of the giant boulders or slim cliff faces I have already shimmied down in reverse.

~o~

What happens when I tell others I’m an anxiety-ridden person? What conclusions do they draw? What shape do I take in their brain if I confess my lack of confidence and shaky sense of self, all of which is inherent to the human condition and each of us, but which I have chosen to speak aloud? Why have I used these stories as frames of reference? And in repeating them, have I let them sink too far, too unquestioned, into my sense of identity?

~o~

At some point I decide the only way out is through, and that I will have to trust myself even while I don’t quite trust myself. I take off my pack and toss it to the opposite side. Leaning across the gap, I grab the small ledge with both hands and pull, lifting and leaning into my left shin at an angle while simultaneously pushing off the granite behind with my right foot. In this manner, I essentially leap and side roll onto all fours to perch on the opposite ledge. From this position I can slide sideways and get myself a comfortable distance from the gap, where I sit and breathe to slow down my heart rate. The partner-in-crime takes one look at my ungraceful move and shakes his head. He reverts to the original section I explored, where his legs are long enough for him to have the leverage and propulsion he needs. He tosses his pack over and follows it in short order, but not without a few minutes of triangulation and skepticism. It appears we all have to find our own courage.

~o~

It’s not that I need to erase or rewrite the stories that I have told before, but that I’m realizing that I’ve unconsciously let them become the story. If I tell myself I can’t trust myself, then who do I expect to trust me? If I tell myself I am afraid of what comes next, when do I give myself the opportunity to be brave? If I remain stuck reliving or waiting for the next trauma, am I giving myself time to actually live?

~o~

We sit a moment to let the adrenaline fade, then take a short stride to the next ridge, where we are greeted by a new gap. This time the opposite boulder is lower, but also the landing is at an awkward angle. A twenty-something young couple bypasses us, leaping across the gap as if they arrived from the New York City ballet. My long-legged partner-in-crime is able to easily follow their lead.

“You’ve got this,” he tells me, as I fret behind him.

“I don’t got this,” I tell him, my heart crashing around and my hands shaking uncontrollably. But I search and pivot to a different spot where I can launch myself more safely, and push past my hesitation.

One, two, no longer three points of contact, no longer any contact – now I am straight-up boulder-hopping, having left some other version of myself behind.
 

~o~

Once we complete the boulder hop and crab-walk our way through a crevice that is too narrow and deep to walk in a straightforward manner, we spill onto the final trail and eventually, the sign pointing to the summit - a beautiful, crag-ridden face of mottled feldspar and quartz laced with wildflowers and small pools of captured rainwater that opens straight into  the sky. The blue-green magic of the ancient Appalachians greets us, asking what took so long. We find our perch and decide to eat lunch and rest a bit – after all, we are only at 4.3 miles of a 9.8 mile trail, and have the scramble down ahead.

As we soak in the horizon, my mind wanders. Am I still the anxious and timid human I have been claiming to be, or am I actually able to let go of this chaos and get out of my own way?

~o~

It’s not that the stories I have repeated are untrue, or that I was necessarily wrong to embrace them when I did. But maybe they were never the full story, and perhaps I was wrong to take them to heart. Perhaps I erred in allowing them to consume so much of my energy, while providing no value in return.

Maybe I have reached the point where it is simply time to tell a new story – a story of a person who is finally learning that very little is actually within their control, and while they can never prepare for or prevent every bad thing from happening, there is something to be found in letting go of the worry and fear and trusting themselves to be able to handle it when it comes around again.

Or maybe it will just be a story of a person who enjoys climbing and hopping from boulder-to-boulder and obstacle-to-obstacle, because it's fun, and occasionally it teaches them something along the way.

Not to mention, the view when you reach the other side is pretty amazing.    

~~~

This has been an entry for Week 2 of therealljidol – Vampire Load. More pictures from Shenandoah and Old Rag Mountain are slowly being uploaded (and eventually transcribed) here. Thank you for reading!

thefridayfive

1. If you could instantly become an expert in something, what would it be?
I think I'm inclined here to say survivalist, but in a sustainable way - my gardening/mending/repairing/building/foraging/growing skills could all use a boost.

2. If you could do anything in the world as your career, what would you do?
If I could go back in time, I would have done more to orient myself towards climate modeling, communicating risks, and mitigation policy, but I don't know. I am where I am right now, and I'm trying to hold out hope that I'll end up in the right place as I get to answer the big three better. (The big three being: (1) What are you good at/what are your skills? (2) what is the work that needs doing? and (3) what brings you joy?)

3. If you could be immortal, what age would you choose to stop aging at and why?
I'd say sometime between 28-33, before things really started to hurt and I started feeling more tired.

4. If you could be any supernatural creature, what would you be and why?
I guess I'd probably go with dryad.

5. If you had to teach a class on one thing, what would you teach?
Well, I could teach about the Clean Air Act, or climate and policy/regulation in general, but I think probably 5 people might show up. Beyond that, I could teach a class on how to have big feelings and finding places to put them that don't harm others.

I attended a local writer's group today and the speaker, from a local "traditional" publishing house, was such an absolutely fantastic presenter - speaking to looking at writing from a publishing and reader's standpoint, and answering all the room's questions with such passion and encouragement. I'm really glad I took the time to go, even though it did carve 3 hours out of an already busy day. Now to clean house and prep for next week's trip!

Today I am forty-seven. I prefer to write it out, the length of the letters giving it a little more heft. Honestly, I might have told you I was forty-seven earlier this year – sometimes I don’t quite keep up, and we are now at a time and place where the actual number doesn’t matter so much anymore. I am – and have been – many different things in that span of hours and days. On the whole of it, really, we all descend from stars, somehow born of all that is ancient and timeless, while simultaneously, in temporary, careless bodies that are warp and weft from plants and soil and the dreams and fears of our parents— all come and gone in the sliver of a whisper of a blink when it comes to the terms of the age of the universe.

I have been an awkward child, an overachiever, and emotionally messy teenager. An acquiescer, an activist, a spiritualist, an environmentalist. A pagan and a scientist. I have been a political party officer and a non-profit board member, a volunteer, a project manager. A process creator, a painter, a disheveled lost person. I have been homeless, I have been broken, I have been cruel. I have been a survivor, a runner, a weight-lifter, a hiker-rock-climber-chasing-up-mountains-and-soaking-up-the-skyer— someone trying and seeking to build strength and confidence over the shadows of uncertainty and the emptiness of never feeling “enough”. I have been a clutz and a fool, a tension breaker, a sense of dark humor, the giggle at the funeral. I have been a creator of spaces, a tree hugger, an organizer and sign-maker. Both a parent and parentless. I am becoming the wise and sharp old crone and the curmudgeonly yet-soft-hearted wizard (I don’t think I am required to make up my mind on which, not just yet). I am a writer, a poet, a loner with a deep and reverent heart when it comes to the Earth, her systems, her boundless life, her solid minerals, her surprises. I am both a protector and an enabler, and I think, after reflection, the line between the two may just be a hair’s breadth. I am a recycler, a fixer, a make-it-last-er, but I am also the recycled and repaired, cracks full of gold or epoxy, as time permits. I am a documentarian, an editor, a re-framer. Warrior. Navigator. Terrible secret-keeper. Connoisseur. Grudge-holder. Forgiver. Serious, and then – not so much.

In forty-seven years, I have never been one set thing, but no one ever is, are they? We are everything and everyone that has ever come before us, that has ever touched our lives, small actions and pieces of ourselves that we glean and gift or burden to each other. We are the stars and the rocks and the ocean, the trees and the foxen and the beetles and the lichen. I am the echoes of my great-grandparents, Irish immigrants who lived in clapboard houses and swept yards of white sand and knelt in barren fields to conjure food from nothingness; the legs of my parents and grandparents, endlessly plodding forward with handed-down stories and hard-grained ethics and hints of prejudices which had to be cast away; the voices of my found family, who accepted me outside of common blood or soil but provided me a raft when I was adrift; the hands of those who loved me just as I am, a shifting, turbulent mess of blood and muscle and bone; a set of memories and years and emotions that live on in the bodies of my children. And so, I am also of you, friends and fellow writers (veteran or new), because we have passed our magic and our wisdom; confessed our sins and faults and failures; connived and strategized and whispered secrets; raised our glasses and limbs in highlights of success; held one another in times of loss. This is the purpose, I think (I would never presume to know). To carry on, each of us breathing and giving or taking or breaking – habits or patterns or bodies or relationships, words or paragraphs, tokens or tools, endings and beginnings. We are here to dance together, to tangle, to reach out and grasp fingertips and open arms and embrace, to laugh and sob and cling to one another, on this vast turning rock amidst this galaxy of stars in this great, great expanse of mostly nothingness.

So, yes….today I am forty-seven, but, as I have alluded, the number does not matter so much. How joyful, to have made it to this next revolution around the sun, to hear the crows call across the woods as the cicadas scream in harmony, to feel the breeze before the storm that carries the moisture from ancient mountain chains, to taste the dust of woodland smoke and overworked midwestern fields, to know the salt of the Gulf and the bite of the Arctic are all right here, in you, in me. This is why I invite you to sit, stranger or no. Rest a moment. Enjoy the gentle rock of the ceiling fan, the whispers of the oaks and hickories, the quiet warnings of the tallest pines, their undergrowth beginning to fall away. Stay a moment. Share. Look, the wind is rising, the rain will be here momentarily, you have time. Let us pause to trade pieces of ourselves and see that we are not so very far apart from one another, if at all.

This is an Introduction for Week 0 of therealljidol. If you're interested in playing along, the sign-up sheet is still open here.

thefridayfive

1. What is your favorite vegetable?
Okay, this really depends on the vegetable type - root vegetables: potato is the clear winner, but I really love sweet potatoes, as well; leafy vegetables: I probably defer to fresh spinach the most often; alliums are all wonderful, of the cruciferous variety I am partial to brussels sprouts (roasted or braised) or broccoli, and stem veg has to go to asparagus. If we're counting peas/beans I will struggle between black beans and chickpeas.

2. What is your least favorite (or most disliked) vegetable?
Cooked collards (it is fine raw as a wrap) or maybe turnips.

3. How many half cup (one deciliter) servings of vegetables do you eat on a typical day?
I have no good idea. I am vegan and so I'd say at least 50% or more of my diet is some form of vegetables, but I am looping in legumes/soy. The other 50% leaves room for bread/grains/nuts/seeds and, uh, coffee and b.s.

4. What is your favorite fruit?
I really like stone fruits like nectarines/cherries/peaches/apricots and that's what I gravitate towards, but also, pineapple.

5. What is your least favorite (or most disliked) fruit?
Hmm, maybe grapefruit or dragon fruit or honeydew. Though I'm not sure the times I've tried dragon fruit I was very good at figuring out if it was ripe. Also, any fruit that looks like it's trying to cash in on the chia seed craze is probably suspect. ;)

Sea leaves, Mary Oliver

The Wild Geese, Wendell Berry.

Please Use AI, Shawn Smucker (IG carousel, 7 images).

theartistsway

( cut because I care )

thefridayfive

1. What is your favorite imaginary animal?
It's a hard decision between Mermaids, Centaurs, the Rockbiter, and Big Foot.

2. What fictional family would you like to be a member of?
Put me in The Addams Family. I am not nearly gothy enough and will be a standout, but c'mon... who can deny wanting to be around a love like that?

3. What would the title of your autobiography be?
"Harm None: How I F*cked It All Up"

4. When you die, what do you want to be remembered for?
I wish I could say brilliant scientist and climate researcher, but my mistake was taking the contracting vs. grant funding route. Maybe a climate communicator? Or maybe I will just be remembered as a quiet bog witch who tended moss and tried to talk to trees.

5. If you were independently wealthy and didn’t have to work, what would you do with your time?
I would need some time to decompress and figure that out. I like to feel useful, so I imagine I would do all the things I don't find time for now - volunteering at the Refuge and other spaces, get wildlife rehabilitation certified and licensure, spend time with the local Pride group and mutual aid groups, write just for fun (and I don't know, maybe putting my stuff actually out there?) and attend the local writer's group meetings. Write a memoir. Travel. Make vegan baked goods for my community. Spend time mending relationships with family.