The journey of beautiful places I've been putting off since I was 12 continues. This week, the notorious South Ridge, via a forestry department (not very well) maintained control road, winding around various campsites, to the trailhead.
We immediately came to a road wash out with some SUVs stuck in the sand, but we pushed passed them in Cricket, the Subaru tank. The trail head had about 6 cars, but we decided to do it anyway. It starts off pretty steep, then levels out through a quaint little meadow, then gets really steep in the last mile up to Tahquitz Peak, which is about a 3,000 ft. gain over about 4 miles. A definite highlight was passing an older gentleman on our way up. My wife asked if he made it all the way, and he just shook his head and said, "Yeah, but it wasn't that steep in the 70s."
Our destination was the beloved fire lookout, just shy of the peak, but about the same elevation (8,846). During the Cranston fire a couple years ago someone posted zoomed in photos of the fire kissing the lookout, and I assumed it was going to be another thing I would never see because I waited too long. Later, photos were posted of the lookout still standing, and our little community rejoiced. After the exhausting-for-me hike, we got to see how close the fire actually got. This was, of course, after arriving to a dozen tourists lounging around, so once we found our little spot to relax, we could really take it all in, and it was pretty epic.
I finally got my chance to look Tahquitz in the eye. This was from a magical little spot we found over some rocks in the meadow. The hard part of the hike was still to come, as the lookout and peak are 1,200 feet above our famous rock and its infamous legend and curse. We could have hung out at this little spot for much longer, and ended up stopping there for a while on the way back.
Once we did make it to the top, I just wanted to keep going. We talked about doing the whole loop, back through Saddle and down Devil's Slide, but this would be a near impossible trek with the kids, and with things like they are, we don't get much time away from family time, which is fine by me. I'm loving this little world I've found myself in, and since I've been able to step back and look at it, I can see that this has been one hell of a journey. I've been so stuck on extraordinary and accomplishing something that I was looking right past the extraordinary we have here and what we've accomplished. I've also been able to focus more on the bigger picture, instead of doing these baby steps in circles.
This doesn't really do how close it got justice. I didn't get many shots because of the human traffic, but I snapped a couple from the rock where we took it all in. There were blackened skeletons of Manzanita right next to the tower, with little regrowth this far up, but the lookout appears untouched.
This truly is a magical place, but that will always be relative to perception. I spent over 20 years feeling like I was stuck here. That has evolved into a deeper appreciation, and need to explore more. The only two big spots left for me up here are Suicide, our other popular climbing spot, which always has a dozen cars at the trail head, even at the peak of the lockdown, and Jan Jacinto peak (10,833), a popular photo novelty for PCT hikers. Bring it on.
I am still wrapping my head around where I'm going with all of this, but also still just appreciating this. I imagine a community here that is more about wellness and happiness; exploring for the sake of the journey, not what is being accomplished, so I guess this is all just one foot in front of the other, stop to catch your breath, and just keep going.
“The bear’s message for modern people is to remind them of their roots, which they are beginning to long to understand but have nearly lost. The bear connects us to our primeval roots. Bears remind us of our earthly origin and show us the pathway through our human life; they connect us to our human purpose.” ~ Mayer, Tierisch Gut.
In this journey of self, I have always been pretty convinced that I relate to certain animals, as in a kind of spirit animal and connection. Most my life people have referenced me as a bear, but I figured it was more of a Huey the Bear reference, in that most of the time I try to be playful someone ends up getting hurt.
Recently my goddess wife, the quintessential Wolf, matter of factly said, "no, you're a bear." So, really having no understanding of bears, I decided to do a little research and got Storl's Bear. I must say that there are a lot of things that I resonate with quite deeply, knowing my actual nature in relation to the character that I feel forced to play in most facets of this patriarchal society, which I've had such serious resentments about since I was a child that I spent most my life hating and fighting all of it, maliciously, like a stubborn bear, doing the exact opposite of what I was told to do, and willingly suffering whatever consequences I had to because fuck you, I can take anything, but, also like a bear, my intentions were always pure and innocent, much to the dismay of those who assume.
Returning to raw roots and nature is something I have always preached, but, along with my personality, have lost in this world that I am flailing to exist in. Aside from growing up in LA, I have always been in nature, and when I was closer to bigger towns, nature was my only escape and refuge. I could never live in a city again, and if I had too it would be on the outskirts, so I could at least escape to my backyard. My work is all natural and free bodies in wild nature, and I try to teach the reward and beauty in that. The only time structures or buildings appear, they are abandoned by this world, thus becoming the nature of the future.
My attitude has always been a bit more primal and animalistic, and my dream has always been of a Rousseauesque ideal, where we all live off of and roam the land freely, but commune to create and support each other, with no ruler or leader, no alpha, as we all live in honor and respect so we don't need one. This is a daunting task in this world, because what was once our right to exist now comes with a price tag: land is owned and sold; water is stopped upstream, bottled and sold, or contaminated by corporate negligence; hunting and fishing is regulated and requires permission; even growing your own plants and food outside of regulation is punishable.
It is my dream, though, and it is always something I am subtly fighting for. It is also something that effects my mood on a regular basis: living in this world that is so incredibly wrong. In this specific time of total and complete repression and control, we should all be fighting for our wild, our wonderful and joyful wild.
“[The bear warns us to come back to a natural consciousness] Let instinct, intuition, curiosity, and the force of life itself become the tools that guide your zest for life and bestow you with ever new experiences and joy. And when the time is appropriate, have the awareness to sink into the inner depth, the deep inner darkness, where you can draw strength from these experiences in peace.” ~ [Storl, Bear] Mayer, Tierisch Gut
More than the work, I have always appreciated the beautiful souls that I've found on this journey. Ana wrote a little thing the other day that really resonated with the kind of world I want to live in, and she was gracious enough to let me share it here.
"Deep belly inhale and exhale, releasing all the muscle tension, all the urge deep inside my core to be smaller, more angular. No no, my shoulders are not round, see how sharp they are when I lift them? My belly is not soft at all, look, you can see my ribs when I suck in! My thighs, my glorious thighs, I promise they don’t spread on the chair surface when I sit down, why would they? I keep my muscles nice and tense to prevent that from happening. Because I can’t let my body take all the space that it takes. It has to take up less space. It has to want less food. It’s hard to believe that I went through almost 2 decades of cycles of different forms of eating disorders. And even though in the recent years it has been mild, I still couldn’t fully let go, fully trust my body’s judgement on when, how much and what it wants to eat.
I would still fall for all kinds of mental tricks: intermittent fasting, cutting off sugar and gluten, celery juices, etc etc. As if I really cared about all those health benefits as much as I cared about the promised weight loss. I would still love myself more when I am 5 kilos lighter or under the condition that I’m working on losing those 5 kilos, I still would feel bad if I overeat, trying to overcompensate with exercise, I still would praise myself for lack of appetite, as if appetite was a bad thing.
How stupid it is to live in this delusion that my healthy perfectly normal appetite for food (and for life!) is something to be suppressed.
It’s fascinating how the mind and the body are connected. And at this point I don’t even know what came first.
But since I let myself fully trust my heart, something clicked in my brain, as if my stomach wanted to be heard too. 😁 I don’t care if I gain or lose weight anymore, who really cares?
If my body decides that it feels comfortable in a certain weight, I would fully embrace that weight and wear it with love and confidence. I will not feel bad for the space I take up. I will not feel ashamed of the appetite that I have for life. I don’t want to be smaller, less soft, less prominent, less significant.
I want to be just as big as I am. And I know that there are plenty of women who can relate to this. When you walk around with your belly sucked in, with you shoulders lifted, so that your arms look slimmer, biting your cheeks inside your mouth, so that those cheek bones look more prominent, think of how all that tension in your physical body creates mental blocks that prevent you from being wonderfully unique and authentic you.
And if only it was only about the looks! That tension holds back your ideas, your creativity, your joy, your free expression, your sexuality, your ambitions, your passion.
Cherish your appetite for food, for pleasure, for life. Relax into it and let that driving force lead you. When you validate your appetite and start satisfying it, all of a sudden the world around you becomes abundant. And obviously it’s not just about food."
One more beautiful day with my amazing little family, wondering how I got here, yet enjoying every little moment. It is nice to finally put my brain down and use my body a little bit. This particular body bit was a quaint stroll through an overgrown green field, then a couple miles of switchbacks, straight up to a campground nestled in the mountains, but we stopped at the top, where it crosses PCT.
There is so much reward in just being, without any expectation, without any goal, just placing one foot in front of the other. You quickly appreciate the little things, like being shade for your daughter under a surprisingly hot sun to juxtapose the surprisingly cold breeze, and being proud of her for making it the whole way with minimal (mostly) complaining.
The little one even walked most the way, though she was being pulled by mom's straps, like a helpless little adventure prisoner. The biting wind increased more and more as we got higher, I mean, that's how it works, but by the time we got there we chose a rock in the sun over the makeshift bench under the shade of a Cedar, so we all ended up a little burnt and burned out by the juxtaposition.
When you can smile and appreciate when the kids throw fits, you've gotten somewhere; when peace remains amongst chaos. Everyone has a hard time with things. Everyone gets cuts and bruises. Everyone gets tired and sore. Everyone hurts and suffers pain to some extent, whether it be physical, psychological, emotional, spiritual, existential, or any other 'als that might exist for you... maybe just soci'al' right now?
Everyone; always; spanning infinite time and space; but we're still here, and we're still going. All the suffering only makes us stronger, and all that will ever matter is how we choose to respond to it. I get to teach these beautiful little creatures to stand up, dust yourselves off, smile, and just keep going.
... and the view of our little town, nestled in the San Jacinto Mountains, from up there. While this is a nice general view of this place in which we happen to be stuck, saying regularly that there are worse places, this town and these trails hold far more significance for a soul who was crammed into this place when they were 12.
My wife hopped around at her whim most of her life and found herself here ten years ago, but she's the type of person to hit all these trails immediately, so in reality she knows my mountain better than I do, while I'm the type of person who has been putting these trails off for 30 years, because why would I want to go for a long, exhausting walk when I could be treating photos or writing?
She has felt the aching stir of her nomad soul, pushing her to escape, while I managed to escape twice, then was kicked out, and yet, here we are, hiking the trails that eluded my motivational drive for three decades, like Tahquitz won't let us escape until we truly understand him. Maybe that was always the curse that so many people speak of? Maybe this devil, trapped underneath Southern California granite is just lonely?
I've clearly been using the current social climate to take a step back from my work and really enjoy my family, but as a family we've been enjoying this mountain so much more that we have been wondering why we wanted to escape so bad? We are beginning to truly appreciate where we are stuck.
This particular trail wouldn't have been possible with the kids, as we were trudging through feet of snow near the top, but the goddess and I needed a little escape from our escape, and luckily we still have some support from our beautiful, and relatively unaffected community (good luck finding toilet paper) up here so we can get away and take a deep breath, when most are observing the world through closed blinds.
I am not a trail soul, yet, but I am relentless, whether I can breathe or not, and with this beautiful soul leading me, I can conquer anything. The next little baby step in my own personal realignment should be pretty epic. La vita è bella.
I have been praised for my creative relentlessness, but it exists to such a fault that I don’t really know how to interact with people on a basic, human level. All I ever knew how to do was communicate and feel creatively. Even in writing this down, I feel like I’m doing something wrong because I understand the function and futility of it all, but I have to because this is how I process on a deeper level. I also refused to really put my work out into the world because I really was just doing it all for me. I needed it.
The dissonance came from me needing to process, and no one wanting to read that, because why would they want to? The deeper need to be the tortured creative that I chose to be as a child, and the single-child-who-was-praised-for-their-talents attention that I needed never lined up, but it was the perfect formula for the misery I needed to be what I wanted to be. Now I’m finally starting to step away from that, and I’m just like, “wait a minute, who the fuck am I, exactly?” I’m not who I want to be, but I’m also not who I always was, and everything feels like a pin being pressed into my voodoo doll by some ex lover in a rickety, Louisiana cabin, with the faint sound of a banjo playing from next door.
My life has been a miserable conundrum, and in trying to accomplish something I keep destroying everything, because I thought everything needed to be destroyed to truly fulfill that hero’s journey, but I was mostly a tyrant, a detached manipulator, an addicted lover, and a fucking masochist, to get all pyramidy on you (that's a word now). I guess you could say everything did need to be destroyed in order to learn and grow, but, standing in this charred rubble, I can see it was me that needed to be destroyed the whole time, and my hair is on fire.
This isolation has forced me to really stare at myself, and for a while I just wanted to break all these fucking mirrors, but I’m really starting to feel grateful for this opportunity to see the beautiful things I have in my life and appreciate them. All of that lined up perfectly with me feeling like I needed to step back from everything and reevaluate anyway. I was thinking I needed to reevaluate my purpose, but it was my priorities that were out of whack. I was so blinded by my drive that I didn’t realize I kept driving all over my family.
In the worst of it I was actually annoyed that they were in my way, which is a pretty awesome thing to come to terms with, like lay-down-in-the-street awesome, and while I refuse to admit that the only value I put on the love of my life was that of a muse, for a while, in the beginning of us, I was pretty put out by going places or doing things that didn’t involve accomplishing something and going home with a product. Anyone who has experienced that level of relentless, creative madness can more than likely understand how lucky I am that she’s even still around.
Looking at myself, at my work, and this drive, has made me realize how fortunate I am that the universe gave me this firecracker. I just wish I would’ve stopped lighting the fuse earlier in this journey, but if I did we wouldn’t be here.
I am no longer worried about what people think, or how many people are even paying attention, because I don’t really feel like I’m trying to get anywhere. I’m having a hard enough time just trying to be here, because I’ve never really done that before.
It’s about time I started being relentless about my family, because without them anything I could ever accomplish creatively is useless. At the end of the day, I have to write, and I fully understand that this is something that no one really wants to read, but I have to write… something… in this limbo of figuring out who I am, and who we are, and what the fuck is going on, so forgive me if I just write about my brain fighting itself for a little while.
*The title of this post is a contribution from our six year old mispronouncing the oasis-esque little spot we found in our mountains. When you get to the point where everyone stops, keep going. That applies to everything.
