Another Walk in the Woods

My head felt like a Forth of July sparkler with ideas shooting in all directions then burning out one after another. Nothing lasted long enough to ignite the fire of my imagination. Usually on Saturdays I pop out of bed with an idea or two to write about for my Wednesday blog post, but yesterday I had nothing. So I loaded my dishwasher, another Saturday chore---I'm nothing if not predictable---then I headed down to breakfast which others here call 'lunch' hoping the table conversation would spark a topic for me to write about.

Two people living here in my continuum care complex get up at 4:30 in the morning and they were at the lunch table. Guess who gets pressed into service when someone needs an early morning ride to the airport. These two couldn't be any more different from one another. The woman used to be a kindergarten teacher and she's never left that mindset behind of being like Julie Andrews in the Sound of Music in charge of entertaining and taking care of the Van Tripp family children. She's our little Miss Mary Sunshine, always ready to lead us in song when it's someone's birthday or pop out of her chair to grab something for a fellow diner. And she seems to enjoy her self-appointed Cheerleader role here in Old People Land.

The guy who is the early riser comes off like the iconic old duffer who yells "Get off my lawn!" at kids and dogs alike. A surly-acting man who pretends he doesn't like anything or anybody. I suspected and his wife confirmed that he's a jokester and his surliness is just an act. But there's certain kinds of humor that works when we're young and have a brighter sparkle in our eyes that doesn't work as well when we're old and have been delivering the same jokes for decades. God bless the spouses who can still laugh and cue the rest of us in on how to react at times like that. But he will do anything for anyone and he has appointed himself the package delivery guy and that's no small favor if you get a box that needs a dolly retrieved from the parking garage to move that package from the mail room to our apartments.

For lunch I had an omelette and ordered a taco salad as a take-out for Sunday and then I got out of Dodge---speaking of tired jokes---because the conversation was nothing to write home about. (Oh, no, please tell me that my brain is not getting stuck on trite phrases!) As writers we're supposed to avoid things like 'back in a flash', 'easier said than done', 'busy as a bee' and my personal favorite ' better late than never'. That last one was put into action when after leaving our cafe and I checked out our newly paved trail in the woods. The trail takes us past beautiful sugar maples and other trees I can't name and it's wide enough that our golf cart can take people from the assisted living and memory care building into the woods. My brother would have loved that. The trail also allows me to by-pass walking by the building where he lived which has been hard to do this summer.

Today it was so quiet in the woods that I pulled my walker over and sat awhile to pretend I was out in the real wildness instead of our tiny oasis smack dab in the middle of a busy city. You would not believe some of the heated debates a few of the residents here have had at the lunch table about getting this trail repaved. It was so broken up that it wasn't safe and it was narrow but several people thought the money spend wasn't worth it. It wasn't even our money. It came from a private foundation whose sole mission is to support this non-profit campus. That didn't stop the complainers who thought we residents should have a say in all improvements made. The debates are endless. "We need the lawn to go down to the lake's shoreline!" "No, we need to keep the natural grasses and weeds for the birds, bees and the butterflies!" By the way, I don't use a walker full-time. Only when I walk outside. I've seen too many black and blue and stitched up faces and other body parts on people who've tripped on the sidewalks around our campus.

Have you read Bill Bryson's book, A Walk in the Woods? It was also made into a movie starting Robert Redford. It's a true story about walking the Appalachian Trail which runs 2,193 miles starting in New Hampshire down through Georgia. It takes a whole summer to hike its wooded, mountainous terrain. I didn't even know it existed back when I might have dreamed of doing it. By the time I learned about it the best my aging body could do was to get on a reading binge about hiking the Triple Crown. "The Triple Crown," according to FKT.com, "consists of the Big Three National Scenic Trails: The Appalachian Trail, the Pacific Crest Trail and the Continental Divide Trail. Completing the Triple Crown requires about 7,900 miles of hiking through 22 US States." The culture of the long distance hikers who take on challenges like these trails is fascinating as is any hobby-turned-into-a-passion when you take the time to look under the hood. 

When one of the best known hikers, Heather Anderson, was asked about what she thought about while long-distance hiking she said, "I think about a lot of things. I think about food, macaroni and cheese, hot coffee, ice cream, milkshakes, hamburgers... pretty much anything that's not in my backpack. I think about how bad I smell. And how much I'm looking forward to the next time I get to do laundry and take a shower. Even though it's rather pointless since I'll smell again within 24 hours. I think about the way the sun plays on the water, on the trees, and creates shadows. I think about the birds of prey that swoop overhead. I think about the sound my feet make as they rhythmically strike the trail. I think about how far I have to go and how far I've gone...I think about how absolutely beautiful it is to be out here. And how very lucky I am. I think about what I want to do with my life when I grow up. And I think about how I am already grown up and still haven't figured out what I want to do with my life....And sometimes, I think about absolutely nothing."

Until my husband's stroke when I was 58 years old I never felt like a grownup and I still don't know what I want to do with my life. Maybe that's because we didn't have any kids to force the issue? Being responsible for someone else's life does change you. (Please don't tell JD Vance I said that. He already thinks childless women are to society like barnacles are to sea turtles that can slow them down so the they can't swim anymore and die.) Or maybe I was just too self absorbed to realize I had grown up and that no one has all the answers as to why we're here on earth. I just know I'd like to be like our Cheerleader or Package Delivery Guy who both seem content with the niches they've made for themselves in our small pond of players. Many residents here have taken on self-appointed roles---social director, mayor, florist, management suck-up, food critic, complainer-in-chief and so on.

Whatever the reason I was late in growing up that drive to find oneself is why the hiking genre of books appeals to me. Hikers all seem to be looking for themselves. That's me in a nutshell, looking for myself while living avariciously through the lives of the doers which---come to think of it---is not unlike many of my peers who take (too much?) pride in the accomplishments of their kids and grandkids as if they themselves had gotten the full-ride scholarship or the fancy-ass job title or are on the verge of reinventing the wheel. One day when this kind of brag-fest was the featured conversation at a lunch table I added that I once had a poodle who could do circus tricks. Everyone laughed. Could this be my purpose, to make people laugh when they start taking themselves too seriously? Maybe. One time the Art Professor sat down at the table and said, "Oh, good, Jean is here! I know we're going to laugh when she's here."

Until Next Wednesday.