Instead
of doing something productive like that, I was caught somewhere between the
exhaustion of my days and the lack of energy I was expelling for my spare time
fun. Sure, there were good times and things that I was seeing and doing, but it
wasn’t like I was forcing myself to get outdoors to enjoy the wildness of the
things that the world had to offer me. Rather, I was sitting around watching TV
and trolling aimlessly through social network emptiness.
As a result of this
non-life, for about five years, I had gradually weaned myself of any and all
winter exercise after the final hiking trip to the frozen waterfalls of
Ricketts Glen, which took place in early 1998. This relatively annual trip was culminated
with a decision that this was going to be the last time that I would see the 10
to 94-foot waterfalls brought to a halt with the ice of winter. Of course, there
was a rhyme and reason to this, which saw a young girl from Bloomsburg get
really messed up after an accident that nearly turned her into a Popsicle. Fortunately,
she was rescued after a long, arduous process that made her chances of survival
as tough for her as it was to her rescuers, but it was a scary thing to think
about happening in the name of a simple day out and about in the winter woods
looking for the best possible pictures.
Now, it wasn’t like
that was the last time I was out in winter. I did do the winter waterfalls of
the Poconos with and without snow over the next two years, but it wasn’t like
it was the same thing as going into the gorge at Ricketts. Ricketts Glen was a
primitive place – even with trails and steps cut into the sides. Nevertheless,
Tumbling Waters from the top was a long trail to a frozen and snowed-in ice
blob. Hitting the same waterfall from the bottom without snow showed only the
start of icicles on the sides and a tinge of what might be if it were colder
and more wintery in northeastern Pennsylvania. Raymondskill, Dingman’s Falls,
Silverthread Falls, Indian Ladders, and Hornbeck’s Creek were equally unaffected by the full on
thrust of the season. In short, it was a day out, but it wasn’t the same full
on beauty that Rickett’s Glen offered.
As time went by, I also
recognized that the act of monetarily insuring myself against accidental and
untimely death meant that I had worth as a husband, son, friend, nephew,
teacher, uncle, and whatever else I was to those people around me. I couldn’t
be risking myself for some damn-fool idealistic crusade. As a result, the
memories were there, but the thrill was gone.
At
those times that I first felt like that, I clearly and fully decided that it
made sense to not solo hike up from the bottom through to the waterfalls of
Ganoga Glen and Glen Leigh. All of these years later, I still agree with that
sentiment; however, somewhere between then and now, I hit what could be
construed as my Personal Scum Line, which truly has affected my thoughts on
this matter, but those can’t be understood until everything else is fully
expressed first.
Writer Laurence
Gonzales coined the term Personal Scum Line in order to explain the level that
we can’t go beneath or we permanently lose everything that we are to the
ultimate failure that life has brought us to. For me, that Personal Scum Line
came from stress attributed to weight gain, stress, and lack of exercise. These
things had affected me in almost any single physical and mental way possible.
It wasn’t just flights of steps that winded me. It was many of the simple
pleasures of life that I should have and needed to be doing, but I just felt
unable to push myself to do them. Without listing them all by name, let’s just
say that most anything you can imagine and some you can’t were happening to me
from early 2011 into 2013.
And
that was the truth that it wasn’t one thing that had brought me to this place.
From 1990 when I went into the Air Force as a scrawny 120-pound kid, I rode the
transitions of early – twenty-something life that had me at a healthy 150-pound
frame to 180 pounds in the winter after I returned from England in 1996. Over the
following years, my weight went up and up. Much of this was late night
restaurant trips with friends and falling asleep on a full stomach of chicken
fingers, fries, and beer. These things tasted good, but alas, they weren’t
helping me physically in any way. In addition, I was drinking my calories with
a really bad 6 to 8 can a day Coca Cola habit that I finally kicked in 2004
after my doctor told me that some of my digestive system problems could be
attributed to that. I stopped caffeine all but cold turkey after that. After
drinking the remnants of the last little jug of iced tea and taking a few Tylenol,
I never looked back. People talk about how caffeine headaches are what keeps
them ingesting soda or coffee, but that wasn’t the truth for me. I knew when I
hadn’t had my first soda or second soda soon enough, but the first 2 days of
Tylenol were enough to get me over the hump when the chips were on the line.
Nearly a decade later,
I’m without the need for Coke though I do still drink iced tea from time to
time. Nevertheless, I don’t routinely drink my calories anymore if I can help
it – unless there’s a good reason for it. Sometimes, there just is.
Time
saw me getting more and more out of opportunities to be physically active.
Being a teacher took a serious toll on my entire state of being, and all too
many times after a school day, be it a good or bad day, I was left drained and
wanting to do nothing of consequence. Instead, I would drift into the TV or
computer, and just waste the moments that I could have been doing something,
anything.
It’s important to add
that despite being a writer, I find the performance aspect of teaching to be
taxing. Being center stage in front of adults and young adults (or any age
group for that matter) means being on all the time. It means keeping people
awake and tuned in. It means having the audacity to believe that what I’m
saying, whether to teach grammar, essay writing, or life wisdom is something
that needs to be listed to – even if that’s more far-fetched than the alien
conspiracy shows on television. It means that there needs to be purpose and
order to it – whether they can see it or not. I’d like to believe there always
is, but I’m sure I have my doubters.
In addition, like many
comedians, I have come to find it easier to talk to excessively large groups
than individuals due to my shyness. Nevertheless, it isn’t always easy to talk
to groups either. I learned the hard way to not be wary of the opinions of
others. I took the barbs and attacks of Air Force training instructors sitting
in the snake pit while I walked up to them as a chow runner. This was my
punishment for being a smart-assed and fearful night one trainee, but I did
what I needed to do until someone else needed to learn it more. And while there
are still faces out there that would do me harm in a minute, I do what I have
to do to keep getting through, to keep getting paid. It’s what Jackie Robinson
did, and let’s be honest; his detractors were a hell of a lot worse than mine.
What else is there to
do? The alternative is curled up like a ball in some corner, pushing through
the prison walls and no longer wanting to be. This is not a place I want to be.
However,
since I have chosen to be in this profession, it means that I have to
acknowledge the nature of the beast that serves my bread and butter. I must
close myself off. I must open myself up. I must grow thick skin to protect
myself from the rants and comments. I must be accurate and fair in looking at
how things are to be assessed. I must give everything and more. I must reach to
find their greatness. I must stoop to find the lowest common denominator. I
must work to get better. I must find new ways to do the things that didn’t work
the last time.
And
I must know what it takes to always find a way to get back in the ring after
taking my hits. This is how it works.
And
for the longest time, this is what I did. Days passed and time went by, and my
weight increased and my frustrations grew and I became the person I was, but I got
through those days to the next days, which were pretty much either the same or
more than the days that had gone by.
Through those years, it
wasn’t a total period of not hiking or not working out. In 2006, I did pushups
and gym visits for the first half of the year, and I was up to a set of 60 with
several other sets near that level throughout the day. Granted, it wasn’t NavySEAL fit, but it was something considering I had never pushed weight like that
before. However, as with many things in life, the local floods of the summer
and girl and job problems wiped out much of my desire to keep working out, and
well… that was that. Just as I started exercising on a whim, I stopped on a
whim, too.
Any
time that I could get out and about and hike locally or far away, I still
would, but it wasn’t like I was living to hike; I was living and hiking, and
that worked. Climbing up above my apartment to look down on the city beneath
the hill, I often wondered when it would capsize on itself. I wondered what the
final straw would be. All of the filth and crime and loss of hope and
meaningless existential non-wonder of the day to day life just filled the world
below, but up here it was somewhere else, somewhere higher above it all.
Thinking about that now makes more sense than it did then. Back then, hiking upthere and taking pictures while looking out on the world around me was just a
way to get away from it all. When it comes down to it, that’s all that really
matters in life.
The years of the same
passed by, and somehow, magically, at the end of the rope and in the darkness
of a pre-winter tunnel, I met my wife Heather. Promise and positivity were
there, but I never really knew how much damage those years prior to it did to
me until I started looking back on it all from a position of examining the snow
that they were still accumulating. It took many years of life happening to
realize what I had been made into by life and the choices that I had made. For
the support that she gave me through it all and the support that I gave to her,
my wife and I both traveled to new heights, but when things got tough, it made
us both go to our separate solitary corners. These are things that we work
through as couples do in all marriages, and because of it, these are things
that we and all couples everywhere learn from. We wear their effects on our
brows. Be it the joy of saying, “I do,” or the sadness or anger or frustration
or confusion that life offers, these things make us who we are. In the end,
there is good and bad in everything. A marriage works to make each day as good
as possible and to make sure that true love overcomes all things. Romantic love
only goes so far. Openness, forgiveness, and commitment mixed with
understanding and empathy and enhanced with the memories of all of the good
things past and the dreams that can be made real for tomorrow are what carries
things through to better tomorrows and true love, which will conquer all.
Love is the way. Love is
the answer. All you need is love. Love, love, love. Love and only love. Real love.
To make you feel my love. Love is all around. Love will keep us together. Love
her madly. What’s so funny about peace, love, and understanding. I love the
living you. Axis bold as love. I’ve got my love to keep me warm. The one I
love. Bigger than love. Love and sex and magic. The book of love. Your love is
my drug. Love game. D.J. got us falling in love. Crazy in love. Love and mercy.
I’m always in love.
But all of these words
above are interspersed here in the paragraphs of story that is told in a non-chronological
order. In the rest of these words, there is still other truth, but there is
also concealment. I hide behind half-stated ideas and implied memories. This
glimpse inside of my mind is just the beginning of something more. It’s an
exercise in shedding demons and kicking them out, but it’s also an exercise in
kicking back against all of the other something elses that don’t move and
getting over on them. It’s about finding my mountain and “chopping it down with
the edge of my hand.” Thus, for all that this sheds light on, it is necessary
to back inside some semblance of order to tell the rest of this tale that needs
to be stated.
During the early days
with my wife, we went out to as many of the waterfalls as we could possibly go
to. Scott Brown’s Pennsylvania Waterfalls
book served us well. We traveled all over the state and into the surrounding
states on all sides, and life was good. We continued on, getting married a
little over a year and a half after our first date, and we bought our first
house and turned it into a home just about 3 months after the wedding. We
continued doing and seeing the world as the time would allow, but then it all
seemed to stop after I attained my Masters of Education degree since gaining
the degree meant giving up my grad assistantship. Hence, I lost a solid and
substantial source of income that was fueling the car for all of those trips. The
result meant that I needed to get frugal quickly. We had money in the bank, but
I didn’t want to touch it unless we had to. As a result, instead of burning
money I wasn’t sure I could replace, I spent a lot of 2011 not pursuing the
things that I loved to do. Instead of replacing them with life-affirming things
like push-ups, sit-ups, and running, I filled my time with worry and sadness
and wondering whether I would ever get back to normal again. It was a very dark
time when I hit some of the lowest points that I’ve ever reached. I don’t ever
want to go back there again.
And then suddenly, it
was over. The moment that I couldn’t ever see coming came and happened, but
things weren’t really better. They just weren’t spiraling into some level of
worse than they were. And in this moment, I learned that there never really is
a bottom. If you want to keep falling or you don’t do anything to make yourself
stop falling, you can go on forever and ever and ever. If you don’t recognize
the Personal Scum Line, the freefall will continue and suck you into the vortex
of your own personal self-destruction. And for this realization, even when
things got better in the fall, things didn’t really change in what I was and
wasn’t doing and what my body was creating for me.
As
a result, the depression and frustration of not working enough combined with
the weight that I was gaining and the stress that I was building, a pair of scars
of sorts that kept multiplying around my middle and wracking at my brain. Secretly,
I knew that it would until they put me in a corner that I would have to work
myself out of, but even I wasn’t willing to admit it to myself since I wasn’t
there yet. More floors would have to be passed as I kept freefalling into
wherever. Along the way, opportunities would come and opportunities would go.
They would present themselves as hope, but hope is only temporary and fleeting
unless it’s built into something. Parachutes make the landing softer. Solid
ground gives people something to stand on. I found a little bit of solid ground
in all of this, and I found a parachute to guide me through, but until I
confronted myself, none of this would truly be able to be applied to the
greater goal of a future better me. As a result, there were going to be more
dark journeys and conflicts in my woods.
And
that time would come fairly quickly as it built through the end of another
summer into the seasonal affective disorder of the cold setting in during
another autumn, and with it, toward the end of 2012, I went to a doctor to
discuss things that I was feeling. After discussing stress and worry removal
options with a doctor, I was informed that I could go with the one standby that
seemed to be the most immediate (medication). I opened up in sadness and worry
over my sadness, worry, frustration, and the physical ailments I was creating
for myself as well as the circling spirals of my mind when I thought that only
that option could help. The doctor listened attentively and scribbled many
things, but for all of his professionalism, I sit here today and know that he
didn’t get it right since in looking back, the solution was less pharmaceutical
than one of “tough love:”
“Lose
some weight and get some exercise, fat boy.”
Nobody
told me that or any politically correct combination of words, but that’s what I
needed to hear. I’m sure doctors don’t often dispense advice that way, but
sometimes, that’s how it needs to be said. Thus, I went with the pharmaceutical
wonder solution for over half of a week before I started feeling dizzy for no
real good reason. As a result, I stopped the late 20th century
wonder medication pronto Tonto. The next time back at the doctor, I was
chastised for going off said medicine, but I didn’t like the way it made me
feel, and it’s my body, my choice, and if truth be told, I didn’t need it. I needed
a plan, but plans aren’t always therapeutic sitting in a doctor’s office. They can
be other things too, which this blog will detail throughout its existence. If you
choose to use said choices, that’s your decision, but for me, it wasn’t and it
isn’t the answer.
Thus,
in that half a year between said doctor’s visit and the spring of 2013, I was still
experiencing mystery chest pains. In hindsight, these pains were from stress, which
is what many of the previous problems I went through were, but when I went to
the same day doctor, I was sent to the hospital to see if I had a heart attack.
I don’t fault them for doing this. The EKG presented evidence to them that they
had to act on. If they didn’t, worse things could occur, so in this, I thank
them for directing me to the proper resources. That said, worse things hadn’t
and didn’t happen, but that day in the hospital was an eye opener, though it
wasn’t the immediate jolt into overcoming the Personal Scum Line that I had
crossed now on multiple occasions. Instead, I had to face the reality of the
pain and worry I had caused to my wife in having to tell her that we were going
to be in the hospital to figure out if something really tragic had or was occurring
to me. That’s never a pleasant conversation.
It
was a very horrible moment being there in the sterile air of the hospital, but
it was a very real place that came to drive me to a very real acknowledgement
that something had to change, but that moment of change wasn’t quite there yet.
Christmas had to come. The semester had to end. We had to have our magic
getaway to Jamaica. The New Year had to cast this year off for good without any
hard work… yeah, just the change of a calendar.
But
here’s the thing… nothing was going to change unless it was acted on.
The limitations of
physical activities that I wasn’t able to do also weren’t going to change
things unless I worked to change things. Instead, there was only more sadness
and the feelings of failure as the nagging feeling of weight gain and lack of
exercise were really starting to weigh on me in more ways than just back
strain.
Winter
came and went, and with it, the motions of going through the days happened, and
isn’t that what so much of adult life really is? Mindless drifting away from
meaning is modern society’s answer for all too many things, and I was embracing
its call in all of the things that I was and wasn’t doing.
Finally, in spring of
2013, I had one of those typical flu days, and for some reason, my appetite
didn’t return after it. I didn’t force it to either. I just went with lesser
portions, and ran with it. At the same time, I had the opportunity to get out
and go hiking again. It was a simple hike up through the woods of SullivanCounty to go and see Angel Falls, which is one of Pennsylvania’s bigger falls.
With its fellow falls, Gipson Falls, it stands at 82 feet according to the
aforementioned book Pennsylvania
Waterfalls (I consider this to be the definitive work on waterfalls in the
state of Pennsylvania).
For that one afternoon,
I wandered through the Wyoming State Forest in search of this waterfall. Not
having Run Keeper available to me at
the time, I had only my own approximation of how far I had traveled the trail
to the creek that led up to the falls. As a result, I leaped the tiny creek
that couldn’t possibly be carved out from a waterfall’s erosive forces, and I headed
down the forest to a fence that seemed like it was placed before me to keep me
from the waterfall. It didn’t, but instead, it provided an opportunity for me
to search for this mega falls, aimlessly, until I went down the hill and walked
barefoot through a creek to get back to the road. After a couple hours, it
seemed the search was futile, so I went back to the car dejected. I started to
drive away, but instead, I couldn’t bear leaving the waterfall unfound, so I
went back to find it by traveling the trails in search of said waterfall. There
was a rerouting of the Loyalsock Trail, so I followed that, but in realizing it
was just going to be going up the mountain, I knew it wasn’t leading me to the
base of this fall, so I wandered back down to the creek that just couldn’t lead
to Angel Falls; thus after looking at Brown’s directions one last time, I saw
how he walked over Falls Run at the point where it joined Brunnerdale Run.
I looked right, and I saw
a sign that stated no camping beyond this point. It was then that I realized
that I had wasted an afternoon trying to knock out a simple waterfall in a way
that could have been viewed had I paid more attention to the surroundings.
Nevertheless, I will say in my own defense that from where I stood and how the
leaves camouflaged it, it was hidden in last winter’s dead leaves. That said, the
trail was there all along, waiting for me.
Thus, I moved up the
creek, jumping over the stream where I could, balancing on rocks where I had
to, and ascending all the while to get up to the Kodak Picture Spot that surely
afforded the best picture. I took my pictures, none of which were very
memorable, and that was the day.
Over the following
weeks and months, I kept going out, kept seeing things, and I proceeded to
start “training.” I still don’t get out as much as I want to, but little things
like taking the stairs instead of the elevator have allowed my heart and lungs
to feel much better than they ever have since I ran my 2.5 mile run on the
final day of Basic Training.
I’m sure that at this
point, 30 pounds lighter than I was and able to endure 1,600-foot hikes up the
mountains of Central Pennsylvania, I could get myself into Basic Training
running shape in short time. This and strength training are my next goals,
which will go with my long distance hiking goals. That being said, I also look
to continue my writing and photography dreams because these are my skill sets
as a person who is trained as an English teacher. For years, I have helped
other people with their writing, and for years, I have worked on my own
writing, but now, I look to make that writing into something that truly
reflects my abilities. As I do, I look to reflect on who I was, who I am, and
who I am trying to be. I write this as an inspiration to my Great American Novel (registered trademark),
and in it, I am choosing to include songs of inspiration and meaning as well
the things that I reflect on while hiking. Sure, there are politics to
everything we do, but I am choosing to avoid the partisan nature of one party
versus the other politics. Instead, I am choosing to only reflect on that which
is worth carrying into the woods with me.
And that isn’t a lot of
things.
My hobbies and
interests come with me. The philosophies and theologies of life come with me.
My heroes also travel with me. Sadly, this has been a largely solitary pursuit.
As Henry Miller once stated in Tropic ofCapricorn, “Once in a great while I came across a being whom I felt I could
give myself to completely. Alas, these beings existed only in books. They were
worse than dead to me- they had never existed except in imagination. Ah, what
dialogues I conducted with kindred, ghostly spirits! Soul searching colloquies,
of which not a line has ever been recorded. Indeed these ‘excriminations,’ as I
chose to style them, defied recording. They were carried on in a language that
does not exist, a language so simple, so direct, so transparent, that words
were useless. It was not a silent language either, as is often used in
communications with ‘higher beings.’”
Nevertheless, I do have
my wife, and sometimes, my wife physically travels with me, but through it all,
whether she is there or not, she mentally travels with me. I understand that
she may get bored hiking up a long trail to the top of a mountain, and I get
that she doesn’t want to do all kinds of crazy trails that kick back like I do,
but I appreciate that for destination hiking – within reason – she’s willing to
give up her time in pursuit of my dreams.
I also appreciate that
she’s working hard to change her life for the better, too, through her own
physical gym visitations.
For that, this blog is
a story of finding inspiration and momentum to become my own hero, to find more
inspirations to look up to, and to conquer the fears that hold me back from
being who I want to and should be.
For this, I look to heavy
energy songs to push me to greatness that will take me onto the trail to kick back
against my obstacles harder than I did the last time. The feeling that I can
walk up nearly 1,000 feet of snow and ice over a 4 mile trail to arrive at the
top of the Pinnacle in the early days of winter is a fantastic feeling. To know
that I can do it without pause, no matter how slowly I do it, this is a great
feeling of accomplishment that has moved so far beyond the huff and puff, the
stop and go, the doubt and aimless wonder of it all. It has allowed me to
arrive somewhere new and so much better.
It’s like my dad said, “Just
think about how you couldn’t get up this mountain like this last year at this
time.”
And it’s true that
neither of us could have done this before the exercise and weight loss. I
couldn’t have wandered all over State Game Lands 81 pushing it up and down and
over rocks in search of the missing trail that was supposed to lead to
Priceless Point. I still had much to learn about what it took to be a true
hiker, but the November mountain air felt good on my skin and in my lungs, and
it showed me that the direction that I was on was a good one. In addition, the
bear’s growl across the hollow didn’t sound as terrifying as the first growl I
heard earlier in the fall, but rather, it made the moment something more
special than some random walk through the woods. In fact, knowing what it was
meant that I was becoming more at home and accustomed to the world of big, wild
mountains.
And that’s where I
wanted to be.
With it, I was
embracing a new philosophy that wasn’t the death philosophy of sadness,
frustration, and giving in to the failures and setbacks of life. I was kicking
hard for who I was, though not as hard as I knew that I wanted to be. For this,
I was following the philosophy of Henry Rollins in his song “Shine.”
“It’s time to align
your body with your mind. It’s hero time.”
The choices are endless
whether I go that direction or in a completely different direction. Pine GroveState Park, World’s End State Park, Benezette, Jim Thorpe, and the hidden
waterfalls of Sullivan County, sitting so close to the over-trafficked RickettsGlen State Park, are all good choices, but then again, so too are the choices
that I haven’t thought about.
The dreams of MountWashington and Mount Hood are also good choices that I think about in a future,
which also sees me doing the Horseshoe Trail, the Appalachian Trail, and
finishing up the Standing Stone Trail in one long trek.
These are all places
where the deer and the bear and the squirrels and the coyotes play. They are
places where the birds sing and between counted steps on this march through
Nature, and these are all the things that my new year, my new life want to
embrace, more and more as I continue to tick off the weight and add on the
muscle.
“All you got is
lifetime go!
It’s time to put on the
bright orange Under Armour pull-over hoodie and to slide into my Keen boots
complete with chains for extra grip on winter’s trail. I’ve got my Clif Bars,
dried meat sticks, dried fruit, and granola thrown into my Camelbak daypack,
which serve to keep me fueled until I get back to the car. I’ve got an inferno
in my chest that’s ready to ignite as I push on to the top of the trail as I
walk the ridge to its edge for that endless vista where I look out at all of
the things that I am now king of.
“Get up! It’s time to
shine.”
This is where it was
all meant to be. Life is good.
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