History, reborn

It comes from the least likely places.  A word here. A sentence there. A name. A concept. A trivial fact around a bigger event.  I never know when it will hit, why it hits, or how deeply it will hit.  But when I get that skip in my heartbeat, that catch in my breath, I know.  

Right now that heightened interest is focused around a little piece of history in an area very dear to my heart.  The White Mountains in beautiful New Hampshire.  I love the mountains. Perhaps it’s because I feel the very essence of my grandfather, Jack, is wandering the trails and I’m connected to him there.  He’s my constant hiking companion.  I love everything about the mountains, actually. The smell of the air, the feel of the ground beneath my hiking boots, the incredible, overwhelming view from the peaks.  When I first see a glimpse of Franconia Notch on 93 North, or the peak of Chocorua when returning from Maine via Ossipee, my heart rejoices.  I smile.  I’m home.  So when I wanted to merge my passions (writing, hiking, history), I naturally turned my attention in that direction.  

The first thing I stumbled on was the abandoned mill community of Livermore in the heart of the White Mountains.  It’s nothing but foundations reclaimed by the land now, but the echo of history remains, reverberating through time.  It was as simple as that.  A town, long since forgotten.  And so the research began.  Old, out of print books have been found and acquired. Livermore is a tiny part of a much larger topic and I’m captivated with a logging history I never knew existed. I’ve hiked these trails, never giving thought to the ravages to the land that took place over a hundred years ago. I see pictures and it changes my entire outlook on my beloved mountains.  How resilient they are!  

As I read, possibilities fly through my mind.  Names, areas, tiny events flash, catch my imagination and I start to form the story before I even flip the page.  I have the outline. I have the concept, the focus, the passion without getting past chapter 2.  I know where it’s going…I can barely keep reading because I want to start immediately, want to bring the pages to life NOW.  But I don’t.  I make notes and I keep reading, because it will continue throughout the book.  It will reshape, become more defined and ignite my imagination so fiercely that I’ll be consumed.  I learned a long time ago, with many other overwhelming concepts, that if I stop now and don’t keep researching, I’ll miss so much.  The passion will change, it will twist and grow until it’s mature enough to remain.  It will stick.

As a writer, I love nothing more than picking out small pieces of history and creating a world around them.  With the smallest name and circumstance, I’ve written entire novels.  It starts with nothing more than a name.  A paragraph in a text book.  A long-forgotten piece of seemingly irrelevant history no one recalls.  It was put down as an afterthought.  But something grabs my attention and no matter what else I read about, it remains.  The spark takes light and until I write about it, it will not die.  And so it goes.  A new name has caught my interest.  A new tidbit. A new world is about to be born…or reborn, I should say.  

Action in Motion

“Activation August” I’ve decided to call it.  Action on the path I’ve set out on, movement on my journey.  DOING.  MOVING.  Move out of my head and into the land of the living through actions. Deliberate and with awareness.  Start walking on the trail I’m always talking about, instead of just talking about it.  This is my month of ACTION.

It’s only five days into the month and I’m doing well.  Hiking solo, working each day actively on my passions.  Writing, hiking, nature and learning.  Doing something every day that propels me along.  But action truly comes in many forms.  It can manifest itself in the physical actions you take, or in the small, tiny choices that take no physical action at all.  Saying yes.  Saying no.  Each time you make a mindful decision or choice, you are in action.  As a matter of fact, it’s the mental, emotional awareness behind the action that makes it true activation.  Action, without awareness, is just movement.  Like picking up weights and just flailing your arms around instead of determined, concise movement, each choice needs to have purpose. Without purpose, it’s just movement, not improvement.

As a writer, I know the importance of having each sentence either reveal something about the character or propel the story forward.  All else is filler.  Avoid filler.  The same is true of life.  Each decision should be based on either revealing a strength or weakness about yourself, or it should propel you along in your journey.  If it reveals a weakness, work to make yourself stronger.  If it reveals a strength, keep doing it.  Either way, even the choice to have salad over pizza is an action.  It’s a deliberate choice to keep you on your path.

It’s the simple ability to say yes to an opportunity that gets you closer to your goal, or saying no to something that takes you in the wrong direction; action is living mindfully towards your goals.  It takes practice.  It takes determination and the knowledge of what your path is.  Then you can ask yourself what your decisions are telling you.  When you do something that goes against your path or your heart, what are you saying about yourself?  What are you saying about that action? Does it propel you towards your goal or does it reveal something about you?  Weaknesses, strengths, needs, desires–each choice tells a story.  Be actively aware of every choice you make.  Accept it.  It’s your choice.  Go for a walk or don’t.  It is never wrong. For we are responsible for the choices we make.  Not our parents or our spouse.  Not our family, friends or society.  We are.  So we need to make careful, mindful choices based on our own journey.  It’s not easy.  It never will be.  But each choice makes it easier to receive the things you need.  Like a wheel in motion, as long as you are moving, you aren’t growing moss.

So I’ll keep moving.  Keep making mindful decisions that propel me forward.  Action isn’t just about running a marathon or hiking a mountain.  It’s the deliberate awareness that comes with the physical action.  It’s the marriage of the two that makes it ACTIVATION!

Solo…the Summit

Summit Marker at Mt. Ascutney, VT

This weekend I did my first Solo Summit.  Mt. Ascutney in Vermont is rather local, less than an hour from the house.  I hadn’t planned on doing it alone, but I preferred to leave my reluctant teenagers asleep in their nice warm beds and head out on my own.  I had a purpose.

Mt. Ascutney is 3,144 ft and according to my phone app, I ascended 2270 feet from the trail head.  It’s a good hike, but not a horrendous one.  It is easily done in 4-5 hours; a perfect choice for my first solo hike.  Now, let’s understand the difference between solo hiking and solo wandering.  I wander all the time.  Like Thoreau once did, I strike out my back door and wander for hours through the woods and along forgotten roads.  Wandering solo is something I’ve not only done for years, it’s something I enjoy.  I take the dogs, we head out and return stronger, more focused.  It feeds my meandering spirit, a relaxed ramble through the familiar landscape of my life.

Hiking is different.  It’s to challenge myself. My hikes are well planned and always with a partner (for safety sake).  Needless to say, there usually isn’t the same familiarity of the trail. But it’s also very intimate.  As you generally spend 5+ hours with your hiking partner, you have a tendency to share a lot of things you may not have the inclination to do otherwise.  You’re both hot and sweaty and struggling over boulders and up steep inclines. After a few minutes you don’t care how you look.  Shyness is left at the trail head.  You become raw, vulnerable and real.  You become yourself.  So I can’t hike with just anyone.  It’s draining to make small talk or go through your life history with people you don’t know.  Well, it is for me anyway.  I prefer to be with people I know, who know me, and our conversation can help the relationship become richer.  It’s just who I am and how I prefer to hike; everyone is different. There are hiking clubs you can join or partners you can find on the web to get together and summit.  It’s a great idea and a wonderful way to meet people.  It’s just not where I am right now.  As in many areas of my life, I just don’t have the energy to spare.   So I struck out on my own. Not just because I had written it down in my day planner and wanted to keep to schedule, but because I wanted to know I could. I wanted to know I could make it on my own.

It was hot. It was humid.  My breathing sucked and I wanted to turn around more times than I’d like to admit.  But I kept going.  I stopped and rested when I needed to.  That was the nice thing about being alone; I wasn’t holding anyone up.  I could go at my own pace and didn’t have to feel ashamed for continually needing to stop and catch my breath.  Continually explain how I tend to breathe very shallow when it’s humid; that I thought I had asthma for the longest time and even went through a rash of tests.  How it only really bothers me in the humidity.  And how I’m really in good shape, honest.  I didn’t have to explain to anyone.  But I didn’t have anyone to prod me along, either.  I had to rely on myself.  It’s tougher than I thought.  Somewhere along the line I began to understand the need to reach the summit alone.  I began to understand that there would be a lot more mountains to climb alone, a lot more times I would have to rely on myself to push through. That was the point.  I may never need to hike alone after this, but I could.

It took me a little over 2 and a half hours to reach the summit.  I was tired and hungry and because of the haze I didn’t have a beautiful view for all my troubles.  But that’s okay. I did it.  I sat and ate my pb & j and took a few pictures before heading back down, carrying a new outlook on life.  I’d made it on my own.  It was a simple thing. A simple mountain.  It wasn’t life threatening or extremely difficult.  It was your average hike on your average day.  I ran into very few people, no wildlife (except a snake) and no obstacles.  It was uneventful.  But it let me know I’m more determined and stronger than I thought.  There was a time I wouldn’t have even attempted it.  I, too, would have stayed at home.  There was a time when I would have turned around and said “yeah, riiiight”.  And no one would have thought worse of me.  But I didn’t.  I kept going. And I did it.

I have no doubt I’ll continue to hike on my own, because the alternative is not hiking at all.  I’ll be careful and take my time.  I’ll drink in the beauty of life and see views I will never forget. While I found out how strong and determined I am, I also found out how lonely the trail can be without someone to share it with.  Not someone to keep me going or keep me safe.  That, I now know, I can do on my own.  But someone I can be raw, vulnerable and real with.  Until then, I’ll go it alone. I’ll continue alone until I come to love the solitude as much as I do when I wander the woods behind my home.  I’ll continue alone because I can.