Arduous!!!!
Posted by squirrley on 10 Mar 2009 | Tagged as: home
I went on a ski trip for three days this weekend. It should have been easy–under normal conditions it’s four to five hours between huts. But it was seven degrees and raining. I hadn’t really thought about it: what difference does rain make except more of a slog? It hadn’t occurred to me that snow temperature can get much above freezing–after all, snow is basically little crystals of ice. Except when it’s puddles. Then your ski wax really is rather useless. And it’s not so easy to slip your way up slopes with a large pack and no grip. It also gets worse after dark, at least if you have a weak headlamp and the last descent towards the cabin is steep and the path twisted. Thrilling in a way. On the other hand, the ice crust was so sharp I actually cut my face up during a particularly stellar faceplant. It looks like I have a big nick on my chin from shaving.
I’ve actually been on far more dangerous, and far more exhausting, trips. But I was recovering from the flu, and so weary to begin with that I felt like packing it in and taking a nap in the snow at 2 pm on the first day. I had to keep going, but my second wind didn’t hit till 5:30, and it had pretty much petered out by 6:30, when a kind jackrabbit returned packless from the cabin and took my load for a couple of km. Even without the weight, I had hardly any kick in me–I was trudging, not skiing through the slush.
Except for the jackrabbit, everyone was utterly exhausted at some point on the trip, and everyone hit a wall. As Steve said at 4 pm on the first day “I’ve worked more so far than I expected to all weekend.”
What I love about trips is the getting away: the stillness alone on a trail, the sun slowly melting snow in a quiet forest. I also love the comraderie, the relaxation that comes at the end of the day, sitting round a table lit by a candle lantern, nothing to do except the dishes and maybe playing cards and drinking tea chased with whisky or a little rum. All the dayclothes hanging on makeshift lines above the woodstove, the cabin warm and scented with the resin of whatever wood is burning.
But this trip there was little time for rest, either on the trails or later. We were all too tired even to do the dishes at night, just leaving them to soak until we had had our nine restorative sleeping hours.
The last day was sunny and gorgeous, and the distance was doable in good time. I’m posting a couple of pictures that are from that day. In the background of the second one you can see the ridges/hills that constituted much of the terrain. They were not huge but we did go all the way up, traveling along a ridgeline and crossing over between valleys.
Usually trips give me space and thinking time; that was a little less true this time, particularly as the trip itself was a different kind of iteration on a theme of struggle–how sometimes one is just so tired, how as I get older life can seem to require more than I feel I have in me. I try to frame challenges as rich experiences, as hurdles that force me to grow in ways I otherwise wouldn’t or wouldn’t be able to. But it’s not always true that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Sometimes what doesn’t kill you doesn’t kill you. And leaves you where you have to adjust your expectations. It’s OK if the possible is different; but sometimes the horizon of possibilities shrinks. And that’s like a river where the ice is being eroded from underneath: your life stretched thinner and thinner, the solidity of self diminished. The surface placid but not the underbelly, cold water churning and sweeping your insides away.
Disappointment is a demon and I must summon my powers!!! But I have been flagging: I used to grow stronger from the fight and now — like with the ski trip — it’s more ambiguous. I feel the costs of expending my energy. Do I need more strategy, to be cool and efficient in what I take on? Or is the real struggle one of love, to not be diminished by disappointments but always to bring to the world an open heart? I guess what I’m working on is mindfulness: a balance of both, the dancer who is deft and strong, swift yet sure, and somehow delicate.
Enough angst and philosophy!!!! Really it is the lucky who get to think about such things: self-improvement, dreams, what one wants to contribute to the world. So many people are stuck on just survival, especially in these times.