It has something to do with the Valley of the Shadow of Death. As Hobbs said,
“ The passions that
incline us to peace are: fear-of-death and hope-for-commodious living” And I ask, how does the notion of peace change through eleven years of
aging?
The land changes and I change. I go to where I was eleven years ago, to find a new me and a new world. It’s Nature and my nature that I wish compare, both in how they evolve and how their relationship evolves. For example, the hiking rule of thirds, which says that the middle third of any hike is hardest. It’s a rule gleaned from years of hiking, more a part of my nature than of Nature, and yet the two connect. It’s as though someone takes notice of who is flourishing and who is not, and at what stages of life and hikes flourishing best happen.
As a tree is not fooled by a midwinter thaw into opening its buds too early and letting tender young leaves freeze, and as it does so without eyes or nose or nerves, yet it knows what to do and when to do it. A forestry graduate should have a better idea of how a tree does this. And what of the rocks that I so admire and talk about at length in geologic time and at length of scientific data. Are they too involved in the treeness of knowing and the humanness of hiking? These things I want to learn.
I know what I was doing in 2010 in Death Valley, and I know what I was doing one morning long ago in Tennessee as the full moon rose on a freezing evening, throwing shadows of the trees along our graveled driveway, all of them matched in girth and form, along its curving edge. These stories are linked in this valley of death—she whom I was and she whom I am.
Looking at the trail again, I may roll my eyes and groan, or I may face its middle third with hope and understanding. The work will never be easy.
The land changes and I change. I go to where I was eleven years ago, to find a new me and a new world. It’s Nature and my nature that I wish compare, both in how they evolve and how their relationship evolves. For example, the hiking rule of thirds, which says that the middle third of any hike is hardest. It’s a rule gleaned from years of hiking, more a part of my nature than of Nature, and yet the two connect. It’s as though someone takes notice of who is flourishing and who is not, and at what stages of life and hikes flourishing best happen.
As a tree is not fooled by a midwinter thaw into opening its buds too early and letting tender young leaves freeze, and as it does so without eyes or nose or nerves, yet it knows what to do and when to do it. A forestry graduate should have a better idea of how a tree does this. And what of the rocks that I so admire and talk about at length in geologic time and at length of scientific data. Are they too involved in the treeness of knowing and the humanness of hiking? These things I want to learn.
I know what I was doing in 2010 in Death Valley, and I know what I was doing one morning long ago in Tennessee as the full moon rose on a freezing evening, throwing shadows of the trees along our graveled driveway, all of them matched in girth and form, along its curving edge. These stories are linked in this valley of death—she whom I was and she whom I am.
Looking at the trail again, I may roll my eyes and groan, or I may face its middle third with hope and understanding. The work will never be easy.
