Listening to the radio

Quotes from a call-in show, NPR:

‘Hiking is one of those things people either love or don’t get at all...what do you find, out there, on the trail?  That really gets to you...?’

‘John, I found a life.  After strenuous walk was rewarded by the most incredible sunset of my life.  You have to do the work, to get the view.  It was an epiphany for me.  I thought, if I can see this now, I want to see this all the time.  And I hit the trail.  And my life has been one of travel – given me the most amazing sights’. 

Boy this guy’s really hitting the ‘day of hard packing.’ (ie, carrying 25 lbs of necessities on your back for 15-20 miles).  

Why?  Wonder I.  Why not just a bag of nuts & water?

Caller:  ‘I get back to primitive me.’  (Speaking of how it changes your perspective).  I go to the woods for smoothing – I get it rough in the city.’

‘...what back-packing is all about – make a distinction between the few-day trip and the one-day one’ 
(this guy is really about ranking!  Weight lifted – whaddaya bench, man? 
Join the fucking army, dude).

Caller:  I don’t consider it work, I consider it life.  How do I make my water drinkable?  How do I prepare my food?  That’s not work.  It’s life.

(Myself:  Amen, dude).

‘It feels healthy.  It feels good when you do it.  Put on that pack and climb up that mountain.’

OKAY, MISTER, HOW BOUT WE DON’T KEEP GLORIFYING THE FUCKING PACK?  And why we always gotta go UP?  (Note:  first time I heard term PUDs – pointless ups and downs.  Ha!  That, apparently – as my girl told me – is what the Appalachian trail, no matter how you say it, is all about; or, as she put it, ‘what the Appalachian trail is.’  Tell it like it is, Strayed!)

     I don’t think I could stand to play at survival.  To have it made in town, but deliberately wade out into rough terrain (or jump out of planes), just to ‘see’ if you get back/don’t die – isn’t that just playing Russian roulette with nature? 

     And, sadly, I don’t mean animals – I wish I did.  Now THAT would be a noble way to die!  Just please make it fast.  Reminds me of that idea Shirl MacL told about in her Over It book – how the Masai think (or was it the white hunters, who had heard?) that when the predatory animal strikes, the prey’s soul separates, and never feels the pain of its body’s death.  A beautiful thought.  And why might it not be possible?  Pain is pointless if death is inevitable.  It literally makes no sense – and apparently, pain seems to have been created to make deep sense.  To point to the places you need to fix:  THIS IS WHERE IT HURTS.  But there is no point to pain if the body is definitively going to die anyway.  And I do believe in my body’s – in the body’s, in matter’s -- innate intelligence.  After all, that’s where we reside, right? 

     I wonder what people would be like if we weren’t self-conscious.  There’s an avenue that might be fun to write...so difficult to imagine.  I guess for me, it’s the complications that entrance.  (‘I only like it when it rains/I only like it when it’s com-pli-ca-ted’)  Also quote ‘Are you strong enough/to be my man’...and ‘Come a-way with me...’ Whatever evokes those women’s voices.  Their soul, how intimate they allow themselves, are brave enough, for me.

But back to caller!

‘I try to inspire them with my stories about the trail...encourage people to get off the couch, tell them where to go, make it easy for them...go to the Grand Canyon.  Buy that cheap flight to – etc etc.  Or just go climbing – go up for a sunrise, or a sunset...’

Caller:  ‘you have to observe constantly.  Which you don’t have to do in town.’ (OKAY WAIT.  Not my personal experience – other way around, I think).

‘Is there a bear behind that rock?’  (OKAY if you aren’t seeing the fucking bear behind the goddamn rock while your eyes are open, your problems are a lot bigger than mine!)

Peter C --?  Classic Hikes of North America.