Life on High Looking Down Below

From the very first step, the trail was steep.  A fellow hiker had said it was steep all the way to the peak. Was I up for doing this?

Not a mondo-hiker type, I wasn’t sure why I was even here. For some reason, I couldn’t get hiking off my mind. Maybe it was from seeing two movies recently, “A Walk in the Woods” and “Wild,” both extreme hiking stories. Unemployed for four weeks, perhaps I had to get out of the house, shake off the growing depression. And suffering through a painful illness was only making my funk worse. Then again, maybe this wasn’t the time to push my limits either.

“Should we go back?” I asked my dog, Rusty, only two minutes in.

Suddenly, we entered a clearing. Nothing but aspens. Dramatic side lighting. Subdued colors. All defining a magical space.

Deeper, higher, steeper we stepped. The aspens went with us, stands growing more magnificent with each five-minute interval. I ignored a wooziness in my back. Worries of irreparable weariness were climbed over. Only a quarter-hour in, I stopped to ask, “Is this most beautiful hike I’ve ever been on?” My only regret was voicing the words in a vacuum, hearing no one echo back their shared thoughts with me.

Then, a spacious meadow, as if trying to top the aspen’s glory. Awed, up, up we went. The darkest blue sky and a widest range of greens escorted us through a dark, forested territory. It wasn’t until hiking through here I’d caught my conditioning equilibrium, and was prepared to swath through whatever changeable terrain was ahead.

A man headed toward us. Like a log rolling uncontrollably downhill, I forced myself at him. “Sir, I’ve lived here twenty years and I believe this is the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen.” My endorphins were revving on all cylinders now.

After trekking over an hour, I still had no vision of what this “peak” was supposed to look like, or when I’d come upon it. I could see the steepest hill of the trail so far through gaps in evergreens.

Out of the denseness, a clearing showcased the horizon line high above me, crisply defining dirt from sky. What was beyond it?

I played a game. Walking slowly, keeping my eyes on the rocky ground below, I withheld my view from the peak until reaching flat terrain. Shedding my invisible blindfold, I opened my eyes to an incredible vista. Within the expansive space before me was yet another mountain to climb, some of it partially cleared, recognizable to all who lived here as the Santa Fe ski area. What scale. What clarity. And I made it up here without aid of a chair lift.

Lunching near the top, I talked with a young couple. I plunged into a conversation with them, speaking about the quality of life one suddenly feels being up this high. I was elevated, elevated by people, ones I usually left by the roadside.

Walking down was like getting twice the hike seeing it from the opposite direction. The light was different, too, with direct sun from above. Every new part of the path was seen in 360 degrees – I would not miss anything.

Along the descent, I conversed with hikers who told stories of other great trails, ones – like this one – few hikers knew about. I was chatted up by a pretty young woman who, unlike most down at city elevation, engaged me in an energetic and unhurried talk. Then, to my surprise, I met a woman who was hiking with her 80-year-old mother, ski poles and all.

Walking is man’s natural 5-hour energy drink (one without expiration), his anti-depressant (one without side effects), and overall tonic for what ails him that’s always free and what his body craves. No woes, no injuries seem too big to move human being’s precious legs forward. I am comforted by this realization, and will always remember the image of that 80-year-old climbing this trail, giving me hope for how I wanted to live when I became 80.

Among the trees, rock and open spaces at higher elevation, people smile. They talk of gratitude. They speak of these places as timeless and sacred, ones that enhance their “other life below.” It’s never work to get all the way up here.

Oh, but that’s just endorphins talking.

I suppose. But I use them whenever I can. As life is high up high, so can it be low down below.

 

(Favio – if you’re reading this, nice to meet you!)

Eternity as the New Ninety

Human life expectancy has taken an unprecedented leap during middle-aged American’s lifetime. I hadn’t paid much attention to this phenomenon or seen evidence of it until just the past few years.

Suddenly, everyone I know has a loved one in their nineties. Not eighties: that used to be the standard for “old.” It appears ninety is the new eighty.

Some ninety-year-olds I know are articulate as ever. If they were feisty before, they’re feisty now. What made them happy before makes them happy now. The only visible impairment is slowness in walk, use of a cane, wrinkles, thinning hair, et al.

Maybe I, too, will live another ten years beyond what was expected fifty years ago. In fact, if we all take care of ourselves, with luck, we might live to ninety and beyond. I suppose that wish depends on how you define quality of life. Currently, this issue is approaching me head on because many of the ninety-year-olds I know are just barely hanging on. And on. And on.

The strong human will to live, combined with advances in science seemingly keep people going forever (that is, if you have the money to afford never-ending medical bills). Many ninety-somethings don’t even recognize loved ones who’ve come to visit them at the health center. Many are cognitively alive but unable to do much with their bodies, particularly activities that were special foundations to their happiness and self-worth.

If we knew now we’d be severely compromised at ninety, how many of us would elect not to be there? This question is dicey. So many if’s, so many legalities; so much family involvement, so much confusion. It’s one of the peskiest philosophical questions we’ll ever ask.

Not too many decades ago, it seemed when people died, they died. No hook-ups to machines; no cure or appreciable turnaround in health was imminent. People expected to die in their seventies and were happy to have lived that long. The dream today is about being as strong in our nineties as we were (or are now) at seventy-five. But most folk I know in their nineties, or know of, are nothing near their seventy-five-year-old self. We have to prepare for what the modern reality of ninety and beyond is.

One elderly woman I know is sharp as a tack. A beautiful person. She adds life and insight to everyone she knows. She’s glad not to be in any great pain, that she can walk a hundred feet from her apartment and back twice a day, but says she’s ready “to go.” Happy to have had ninety great years of life, it’s time. It’s time to die. And that’s that.

Another woman I know wants to live forever. She has a great circle of friends around her, lives in the same house she’s spent most of her life, and continues to cultivate a burning hobby. She’s also been healthy for over ninety-one years and is one of those never-get-sick, strong-as-an-ox kind of people. Even with the crippling changes in her body and other unfortunate recent circumstances, she’s better than she was at seventy-five!

Yet, most of my friend’s parents or relatives or close associates are stringing out life far into the nineties, making their families go through a living hell to care for them. Sure, no one wants a loved one to die, but how long should life go on? How exactly do we define quality of life? Again, a prickly question, one that’s not going away.

Neither is science (or pharmaceutical companies). In thirty years, will the new human one hundred be ninety? Will science of the near future be able to keep all vital systems of the mind and body going to sustain life past one hundred? I doubt it. Centuries of human evolution changed in mere decades? Modern health science seems more about halting disease, keeping ventricles pumping blood and lungs inhaling oxygen than sustaining the heart and soul of the survivor, not to mention breathing vibrant life back into a living, caring being that wants to go on for more than just the sake of going on.

As for me (note: I don’t have to worry about any of this since I’ve still got thirty years to think about it) , I joke about my plan to live a good life right up to the end by having a will made out, all possible loose ends tidied up, then, when the time is right, I step in front of a speeding train.

Even this flippant, quick and easy plan has a crack in it: “when the time is right.”

‘Tis the eternal question – when is the time right?

Remember This? “Darkness on the Edge of Town” and Enlightenment

I’ve done my best to live the right way
I get up every morning and go to work each day

 

It had been a long-awaited album. His last, Born to Run, was four years ago. I sensed pressure was on for a great follow-up to that great album. 

The first thing I experienced when the album came out in June, 1978, was the record jacket, both sides revealing a somber, skinny Bruce Springsteen (the pre-Born in the USA pumped up Bruce), standing alone in a cheap hotel room. The album name, Darkness on the Edge of Town, included  song titles like “Factory,” “Badlands,” and “Adam Raised a Cain.”

Bleak. I wanted Born to Run back before I even played one song of Darkness.

Of course, I was a very young man then, and probably the last to know just how naive.

I gave the album many listens. With each, I was taken to places like “Candy’s Room,” “Darkness on the Edge of Town” and “Promised Land.” The entire collection of soulful, searching songs was speaking to me about greed, inequity, disappointment, desperation, identity, satisfaction, love and hope; in other words, what real life is made of, not Top 40 life, and certainly not my own.

I was confused by the chaos all these human issues brought to me at once. Nonetheless, I appreciated how Springsteen ached to tell stories, as if busting out in Darkness, trying to bust apart the chains of man’s pain, warning “in comfort danger dwells; only on the dangerous cliff edge does one’s true self reside.” But I wasn’t sure if that’s what he was really saying.

There was an emptiness in my life such that Springsteen’s edge was as close to any edge I could stand upon. I was living in Gaithersburg, Maryland, then, not the edge of urban life, life, or anything – only the fringes of suburbia. Somehow, Springsteen’s words eventually penetrated the edge of my consciousness:

– The dogs on main street howl, ‘cause they understand / If I could take one moment into my hands  / Mister, I ain’t a boy, no I’m a man / And I believe in a promised land.

– I take her to the floor, looking for a moment when the world seems right / And I tear into the guts, of something in the night.

– ‘Cause in the darkness, there’ll be hidden worlds that shine / When I hold Candy close she makes the hidden worlds mine.

– Some guys just give up living / And start dying little by little, piece by piece / Some guys come home from work and wash up / And go racin’ in the street.

– End of the day, factory whistle cries / Men walk through these gates with death in their eyes / And you better believe, boy, somebody’s gonna get hurt tonight / It’s the working, the working, just the working life.

– Some folks are born into the good life / Other folks get it anyway, anyhow / I lost my money and I lost my wife /  Them things don’t seem to matter much to me now / Tonight I’ll be on that hill ‘cause I can’t stop / I’ll be on that hill with everything I got / Lives on the line where dreams are found and lost / I’ll be there on time and I’ll pay the cost / For wanting things that can only be found  / In the darkness on the edge of town.

In time, I sensed a testiness of my own. Discontent with machine shop work, empty experiences, boredom, unfulfilled dreams. So, I began to write songs; eschewed folk guitar and formed a rock band; became a freelance artist; worked as agency ad man before eventually finding a teaching career.

This rousing, creeping, crawling and often raucous stanza of rock and roll impressed me. Perhaps only at the edge does one gain best perspective. Slowly protruding from my shadow, Darkness prompted a head-on collision with my own life’s chorus.

I Don’t Get My Life Back Until They Lose. They Just Lost. Now I Don’t Like My Life

There’s a hole in my heart only a puck can fill.

Yes, I’m a hockey fan. A Washington Capitals hockey fan. I saw eighty regular season games on cable this year (well, most of them), all in hopes my Caps would make the Stanley Cup playoffs for only the second time in their forty-year history.

Well, they made the playoffs. That’s where the hysteria began.

Playoff madness takes over your mind, your life and you lose all perspective. Time becomes a blur. For any avid fan, life’s goal changes from spending time with friends and loved ones to intimately following your team through all four playoff rounds (and a possible twenty-eight games over a sixty day period) just so you can watch your ice heroes hoist the Stanley Cup sometime in June. June, as in beautiful late spring, early summer. When the weather is nice to be outside again. When chores need to be done. Yards need to be tended. What, little Johnnie is six now? When did that happen?

The worst part of the playoffs is pace: a game, a night off, another game, a night off – there’s practically no break until your team loses a best-of-seven round and is eliminated. I’m tired and the Caps only went two rounds this year. Think what it must be like to go to the finals.

If you’re a Caps fan, it gets even worse. Their hockey MO is to stretch series to the seven game limit. They cannot win or lose in four – they love teasing you with 3-1 series leads, then blowing the next three games. Sometimes they blow the next two and pull out the seventh in overtime, having succeeded in wearing themselves out just to do it all over again for another series, then ask for more.

They also love close games. There are no blow outs. They love overtime. They once played a playoff game into four overtimes, finally losing at 2 AM (I saw that one personally and stayed to the bitter end).

This is very difficult on fans. Sleep patterns are disrupted. Eating times are often rearranged. Bad moods last for days. Weight is gained. Interest in other activities wanes. Actually, bad moods never end. Unless … (until) you win the Cup.

The Capitals should be playing tonight. Had they beaten The New York Rangers in game seven Tuesday (losing in overtime, 2-1), they’d be playing Tampa Bay this weekend in the Eastern Conference finals. I miss the misery. I miss my emotions being yanked up and down like a yo-yo. I miss having to skip laundry because the game is on. I miss screaming at the TV, “Take that, Marcel #!%@* de &#@!#, you &#%$!!!”

Time now to clean the bathroom, refill prescriptions, vacuum, replace burned out light bulbs, refill the empty freezer case, take the snow shovel away from the front door, fix the front door lock, dust.  No wonder I can’t wait for the first preseason game in September.