THE CRACK BIRTHDAY

 

 

A year ago I turned fifty-five.

Once, I heard someone call fifty-five the double nickel birthday…which always reminds me of Sudbury, which is the nickel capital of Canada.
Sudbury is where Canada mines it’s nickel AND to celebrate that fact the town erected a giant nickel that I’m not sure is actually made of real nickel…WHICH reminds me of the trips that my mom, step-dad, gramma and I took up to Sudbury when I was little to visit gramma’s sister…and sometimes we’d also SEE the giant nickel, if I was lucky.
My great aunt was a maid for a man who incidentally used to be a nickel miner, who let us stay in his house while we visited…a house that had spittoons all over the place that my gramma’s sister used to have to clean out three times a day.
Those spittoons were one of the first things I can remember that made me gag.

Oh memories, am I right? What a meandering little journey they can take you on.
SO, to make a long meander short, last year was my Spittoon Birthday..but def did not make me gag.

My fiftieth was such a shit show of a time in my life it became important to me to celebrate my Spittoon Birthday to the very limit.
And I did.
The fifty-fifth day of my birth, I sat in the nail salon near my house, getting a mani/pedi and watched one of my best friends walk by the place with two pink Mylar balloons that pronounced the number fifty-five, which he brought to the party I had that night with some amazing humans…two of whom wrote me a song for my birthday and performed it, accompanied on guitar.
It really was a fucking awesome night.
The next morning, bright and early, I left for the airport to travel to the crowning joy of my Spittoon birthday, a trip to Yosemite National Park in California with my friend Patty.

It should be mentioned here that at 5:32am the day after my awesome fifty-fifth birthday party, as I sat in a cheap airport restaurant eating a wildly expensive but bland breakfast sandwich, I looked up from my table and saw my ex-husband walk around the corner in Terminal Three.
I just about shit.
I’d not seen him in a very long while and after my mind did all the required checks to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating I literally picked up all my belongings, left the sandwich behind, and moved quickly behind a huge pole…because who wants to have the person who fucked up your fiftieth birthday ALSO kinda haunt your fifty-fifth?

Not me.
Like…fuck off.
I regret nothing.

Don’t worry, I went back and got my breakfast sandwich when the coast was clear.
As I sat waiting for my plane to leave…hoping he would not be on it…I wondered what it ALL meant, then I decided it didn’t have to mean anything at all because sometimes life can just be very fucking weird…OR maybe I was just being reminded how me how good I’ve got it AND reinforcing the power of not engaging in bullshit.
Yeah, that.

OKAY! A FEW MONTHS BEFORE when I told my pal Patty that I was going to Yosemite…and that I was going alone because it was a bit of last minute decision…she said…

PATTY: Well, can I come with you?

I almost cried…okay, I DID cry.
My friend was going to fly from Edmonton to meet me in California and we were going to drive to one of my bucket list destinations…together.
After a lot of solo travel…which I don’t hate…I was VERY excited to have someone with me on this quest.
Patty and I had an epic drive to Yosemite, turns out we don’t JUST harmonize well vocally…we’re pretty good travel partners.
We were overjoyed that the last fifty miles of the drive to Yosemite…during which we listened to Joni sing about California…is a gorgeous and steady climb through a natural stone archway that leads into the park.
I’d seen Yosemite in movies and pictures but of course nothing can do justice to actually seeing El Capitan in person.
I wanted to climb something so bad…not El Capitan, obvs…but Patty and I were incredibly tired and jet lagged (and I suspect a bit zonked from the altitude) so instead we did a lovely hike to Mirror Lake and got lost on the way back to the parking lot but eventually found our way to the car and THEN to the hotel down the road a bit…with not much help from a very creepy guy named Chris.
It was a stellar day with a wonderful human…Patty, not Chris.
Patty took an awesome picture of me looking up, admiring the mountains.

As we drove away from Yosemite the next day I vowed to myself and Patty that NEXT year, I would be looking down from some kind of summit.

The next month I started training to be looking down from one…or at least a really high hill.

When I could manage it…and I made it a priority to manage it…I did one small hike every week and then a big hike on weekends.
The small hike started as a 5km or 6km that made it’s way up to a 6km to 9km and the big hike started as a 7km to a 9km that eventually turned into a 9km to a 14km.
Some days were easier than others, and I made sure that the hikes were pretty dynamic…up and down…rocky as only Bruce Trail hikes can be. On BT hikes, you HAVE to keep looking down when you walk, if you wanna look around, you gotta stop…or you’re courting a broken ankle.
You HAVE to stay in the moment and mind your feet.
Good fucking life lesson.
Fall hikes turned into winter hikes (oddly one of my fave things to do even though I mostly hate winter), which turned into spring hikes…

SIDEBAR: If you’re following along, I accidentally climbed a mountain in California when I took a solo vacation to drive the PCH in March of this year. I went up a 6km called Buzzard’s Roost in Big Sur without enough research…which I don’t advise at all. Luckily, I lived and I learned…AND it was fucking hard as hell..BUT though it counts as a climb, it was STILL not my birthday climb. It was accidental NOT on purpose. END OF SIDEBAR

…then suddenly it was summer hikes…and one day in early August I realized it was almost my birthday again.

Where the hell and what the hell was I gonna climb?

Throughout the year, I’d been massaging the idea of hiking the Sleeping Giant outside Thunder Bay on my birthday…23km in-and-out…but it would take me a few days to drive there and I didn’t have the time on either end to make the trip.
I googled CLOSEST BEST HIKE SUMMIT NEAR ME.
It kicked me to my ALLTRAILS app…which is a fucking great app, by the way…and the hike that presented itself was THE CRACK in Killarney Provincial Park.

I mean…THE CRACK.

Do names get better than that? Do they?
Killarney is about four hours north of Toronto and it looked like it was a gorgeous campground…it looked very old-school to me.
This fifty-sixth birthday trip…which didn’t yet have a cherry name like Spittoon Birthday…would also be my fifth solo camp, because though it might be nice to go with someone, I felt that maybe I should do this thing alone.
This time I REALLY researched the hike…like, a lot.
After the Buzzard’s Roost experience, I learned to study the elevation aspect of hikes on my AllTrails app and THE CRACK was comparable to the Buzzard’s Roost in elevation…but the while the ascent on BR was gradual as hell, the ascent on TC seemed to happen all at once.
THE CRACK was recently rerouted from 7.5kms and is now almost 9km.
THEY say it starts easy.
Everyone in the hiking reviews commented that the first 2.5km are nothing, a really simple forest walk, but then the trail slowly begins to climb until suddenly the elevation graph goes straight up. And it’s not a loop, it’s an in-and-out. Whatever you climb up, you must climb down.
AND it seemed that this middle climb was up and then back down a literal rockfall that I believed none of the pictures I googled did true justice to.

SPOILER: I was not wrong.

Before I could change my mind I went to the Ontario Parks website, found a lovely campsite, and booked it for two nights.
I would arrive, set up camp, rest for the night, get up on my birthday and climb THE CRACK and then stay one more night.
As the trip got closer, I kept researching the hike…because I didn’t want to be caught off guard like Buzzard’s Roost.
Now, I’ve done some hikes that were challenging, but The Crack seemed like it would be my most challenging endeavour to date because of that last push straight up…up a famous rockfall.
People on the forums warned you over and over again about the rockfall.
Yet, some said it was a super simple hike and others talked about how they turned back at the rockfall.
Some poo-pooed it and others laughed at the poo-poo-ers.

Hikers/Humans can be right assholes sometimes.

I started to get nervous.
Like…really nervous.

To curb the nerves, I asked a couple of friends if they might like to go with me…and I asked super casually, like I wasn’t getting really fucking freaked out about this promise I’d made to myself.
Not a lot of my friends are hikers and the few that ARE weren’t available…my trip was in the middle of the week, after all..AND a couple of them asked me if I was feeling scared.

ME: No! No…not at all…I just thought it might be nice to have someone with me, BUT I’ll be fine. I’ve been training right? I’ve camped alone, right? I’ll be fine! I should do this alone. I should. It was my plan after all. It seems to be destined that way. (nervous laughter)

I’d be fine.
I would.
As it got closer and closer I started to become this very weird mix of hyper-excited and a constant slow-brewing anxious…BUT I’d not been anxious in so long, that I didn’t clock it at first.
Instead of admitting to the sum of my nerves (or quantifying them) I told a couple of my closest friends that the reviews I continued to read and hiking/camping groups I’d joined had started to make me feel a bit…trepidatious.
After looking at many words to describe the way I was feeling THAT was the word I felt I could handle…trepidatious.
My pal Patty told me to stop reading forums.

PATTY: You have ALL the info you need. Shar, you can always turn back. You don’t HAVE to do anything.

ME: Don’t I? You know me! I’ll feel like a failure if I don’t do it all.

PATTY: Well, maybe that’s an important belief to examine…you’re not a failure if you try. You’re not a failure if you decide the rockfall is too much. I wish I could come with you.

ME: Yeah, I wish you could, too…and I know I can turn back…but still…

But still.
The day before I left I ran around, excitedly gathering the last few things I needed and packing my Subaru.
I researched…my grown life has become ALL about research, who knew?…and picked up a cot to sleep on because fifty-six.
I got a little collapsable stool for my tent.
I bought a book to read and purchased my predetermined list of groceries.
My main birthday present to myself was a new cooler in which to put the groceries…because THAT’S what’s exciting to me now, THAT and climbing things that make me feel nervous.

I kept asking myself the same two questions that whole long day of getting ready:

1. When does information become TOO much information and did I get TOO much information?

2. What if I couldn’t do this thing that some people said was too hard and a few other people said was easy as pie? Would I forever feel a failure?

It was around 5:00pm on the day before I left that ALL my muscles started to ache and my stomach felt really shit and I started to worry that I had the flu.
I also started to worry about the facts that I had to drive so far away, then I had to set up camp…which is no small feat alone…then I HAD to sleep alone in the forest…then I HAD to climb THE CRACK…and if I HAD the flu how will I do all of those things alone!?!?! How!??!!
Rinse and Repeat that last paragraph about a million times and you will have the content of my mind for the next two days.

I started my journey to Killarney the day before my birthday, after a night of literally no sleep. About three hours into my drive, I stopped to top up the gas tank and I found myself queasy and fidgeting from foot to foot outside my car. My stomach felt so bad that I had not eaten a lot…honestly, I wasn’t really hungry at all…but was still making sure that I had enough protein and carbs inside me to support the physical output that was approaching.
As I stood with my hand on the gas pump, it suddenly hit me that the last time I’d felt this way was at the beginning of my trip to Tofino.
Three years before, when I started to drive out of Toronto on my big solo road trip to Vancouver Island, I felt EXACTLY this way. EXACTLY.
OHHHH.
Okay.
Well, I’d done THAT…which was a huge effing drive AND I’d recently spent almost two weeks driving the PCH in California all by myself…I could do this.
I COULD do this.

But my mind kept running through the anxiety slide show of THE CRACK. THE ROCKFALL. YOUR STOMACH. THE CAMP SET UP. THE EVERYTHING. THE ALONE.

When I drove my car away from the gas station outside Parry Sound, I finally ripped off the shiny wrapping around my fears and started asking myself if I was too old and not fit enough to do this. Would people be watching me as I hiked, passing me, judging me? Would I get hurt? Was I going to be scared and lonely? AM I scared and lonely? Why did I decide to do this alone.

AND HOW, AFTER YEARS OF WORK OF MYSELF, COULD I BE THIS FUCKING ANXIOUS?!

ME to ME: I HAVE worked on myself for years…So, normalize this..I have to get into my wise mind. OF course I feel this way. This is a big fucking deal. OF COURSE. Normalize it.

I spent the rest of the drive talking to myself, really trying hard to get back into my wise mind, the mind that knows I can turn back, that knows I’m fit as eff, that knows I’ve been alone many times, that knows I’m good at doing hard things, that knows I have a credit card and always get a hotel room for as long as I wish, that I have people that would come and get me if something bad happened, that believes that humanity is helpful, that knows that doing very important, scary things will make me anxious…but it was not a picture perfect dialogue.
No matter how much breathing, visualizing, positive self-talking I did, I couldn’t seem to convince myself that I would be okay, which FURTHER freaked me out because THAT has become one of my superpowers…I don’t need anyone else to tell me I’ll be okay, I tell myself instead…except this time? Is seems I didn’t believe myself.

Though I arrived at the park more than a bit overwhelmed, I was struck but the beauty of Killarney. My campsite was one of the best I’ve ever reserved. There was no one around me, except for one campsite in front of my site on non-through road. It was quiet and serene.

So, I just started setting up. And no matter the state of my stomach and appetite…which was still questionable at best…my new sleeping set up was solid. Which I counted as a win.

By the time my tent was up, the water gathered, the kitchen set up, my bike off the car and locked up…all with my anxiety brewing at a level 3 all day…I was exhausted.
I made dinner, forced myself to eat it, cleaned and put away all my kitchen stuff in the car because of THE ACTIVE BEARS, walked down the road to the vaults, washed up, came back, got into my tent, changed into sleeping clothes, climbed into my sleeping bag and tried to read a book.

But my stomach, y’all.
It would JUST not calm down.
Umm….would I have to go the vaults ALL NIGHT in the PITCH DARK? This was too bleak to even consider.
Was I sick?
Would I be able to get ANY sleep?
How would I make the hike?
AND if I was sick how would I be able to take down my set up and drive home?
Again, rinse and repeat.

I laid in my sleeping bag…miserable…worried…frozen and not by the cold…and feeling like a fucking idiot.
My stomach roiled and I made my first trip to the vaults in the pitch dark with only the light of my headlamp to guide me.
I barely cared because my stomach was so bad.
The only good thing was that moon was shining very brightly…which I gamely tried to count as the most tenuous of wins.
When I got back into my tent, I grabbed my backpack, took out my meds and swallowed an Imodium, a Gravol, a Tylenol and an Advil.
I was not fucking around.
I slept fitfully on and off all night, made two more trips to the vaults during which I was thankfully not eaten by a bear (AND DON’T @ ME I WAS CARRYING MY BEARSPRAY) and constantly lamenting that I’d probably set myself up for the worst birthday ever.
I’d been looking SO FUCKING FORWARD TO THIS TRIP that this possible reality was a bit devastating.
I texted Patty in the middle of the night from the vaults and told her what a right holy mess I was…because I had to tell SOMEONE…and watched the message spin and then kick back because NO FUCKING CELL SERVICE.
And lying there in an northern Ontario forest in the middle of the night, possibly surrounded by bears and/or possibly serial killers with a stomach that was about as upset as my feels, I finally allowed myself to quantify my anxiety on a scale of one to ten (which is a good tool for anxiety sufferers) I clocked myself at a seven.

I’ve been worse.

I’ve been WAY worse.
That’s what I kept saying to my sad almost birthday self…I’ve been worse.
THAT was my solace.

At 9:00am…after laying in that cot for almost twelve hours…I decided to get up and do some physical recon.
My stomach felt a bit better though I was still not very hungry.
I’d gotten about six hours sleep total, with a side of six hours of worrying…and another side of seriously anxious aching muscles…which is what happens to me when I get anxious for an extended period of time. SAYING ALL THAT? My body did not feel terrible.

I know. Post-menopausal body evaluations are fucking nuts. If you don’t wake feel physically devastated it JUST might be an okay day. WIN!

I got my yoga mat out of the car and did a stretch.
Okay. I could work with this.

I made myself eat a HUGE peanut butter and banana sandwich, drank 1000 msg of electrolytes, and then packed up another sandwich, two Clif bars, 3l of water, trail mix, more electrolytes, and fruit for my pack…plus extra socks, a warm jacket, head lamp, SPF, bug spray and all my emergency stuff…because that’s what’s called for on a hike such as THE CRACK. It would be about ten pounds on my back…but I always trained with about this much.
I got into my hiking clothes, closed up my tent, checked my pack again, got into the car and drove to the trailhead.
All the above things were done in a way that felt not unlike I was getting ready for my own funeral…all drama and no hyperbole.
Up until the moment I pulled the car out of the site and my cell service kicked in causing my phone to start pinging madly, I’d forgotten that it was my friggen birthday.

I drove a fairly short distance back along the highway to a sign that said THE CRACK, turned in, parked the car, displayed the permit I’d procured the day before, laced up my hiking boots, pulled out my trekking poles, wrote Ari and Patty telling them I was starting the trek and to give me five hours to check in and THEN walked around the parking lot with my phone in the air till the messages thankfully sent, I sprayed myself from head to toe with nuclear bug spray, I gagged and then dry heaved into a bush and thought about the spittoons (no lie), then I took a picture of the emergency phone number on the map at the trailhead and started walking.

My phone pinged and just before I lost service again Patty’d sent me a text.

PATTY: YOU’VE GOT THIS!!! I’LL BE WAITING FOR YOUR MESSAGE. TAKE YOUR TIME. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

As the forums had all said, the start was a fairly easy. The forest was beautiful. I tried to breathe consciously, to let myself lean into the rhythm of my feet hitting the path…to let my body rumble with the start of the hike then to lean in.
About a kilometre in, a man came around the corner towards me. His face was very grave. He had no pack, no water bottle and carried a HUGE FUCKING BOWIE KNIFE on his hip. He looked like shit. I instinctively put my hand on the coyote (man) spray in MY hip pocket.
When he got close, he looked at me straight in the eyes, and said…

BOWIE KNIFE GUY: Keep your wits about you…it’s a long hard climb.

CAN YOU FUCKING EVEN!?!?
I had no idea how I responded. I think I smiled. I PROBABLY SMILED. Why the FUCK do we do that?

From that moment on every person I passed as I kept moving steadily forward looked like…as my gramma would say…they were rode hard and put up wet.
Every woman looked exhausted and sweaty and every man…EVERY MAN…looked the same BUT also told me a cautionary tale. NO JOKE.

MAN ONE: Make sure you mind the blazes. (He had at least 30 pounds on his back)

MAN TWO: Watch your feet! (HE was wearing Teva’s and carrying just one empty, worried Dasani bottle and nothing else)

MAN THREE: Look out for the slippery rocks. (He had Air Jordan’s on his feet and was limping his way to the finish)

And on and on.
My mood went back and forth from FUCK OFF to GOD, IT’S BEAUTIFUL IN HERE and back to FUCK OFF.
After about 2 kms the flat terrain started to roll. Up and down. Up and up and down. Up. Up. UP. Down a bit and UPPPP.
Every corner I came around, I expected to see the famous rockfall.
But first, I came to a barren uphill that was not unlike what I imagine the surface of the moon would look like if there was a tiny bit of foliage and sunshine on it.
And it was hot as blazes.
My watch screamed that it was 29 degrees but it felt even hotter.
This is when the rock scrambling started…sometimes hands AND feet were required.
And though it galled me to admit it, MAN ONE was not wrong, you really had to watch your blazes…you could easily get turned around…for this I also used my ALLTRAILS app, which was undeniably helpful. If I was off the trail, it would alert me.

FYI: You don’t need cell service for ALLTRAILS to work.

As I wandered this area from marker to marker, it got hotter and hotter.
I kept thinking I was getting closer to the top and then I would see a dip and when I looked straight up the hill from the bottom of that dip there would be a blue marker farther up…way up…farther up…at what I thought was ACTUALLY the top.
This happened about four times.
Did I mention it was hot and there was NO breeze?
As I got to another “top” I started to feel my heart racing…it seemed like I was always ascending at this point.
I checked my heart rate and deduced that I needed to sit in the shade for a minute.
When I finally found a patchy tree to crouch under, I pulled off my pack and took stock.
I was overheated, needed water, needed fuel and felt done IN. Like DONE IN.

ME to ME: Maybe I should turn back. Maybe this is too much for me.

I could have cried.
Okay, I cried.
Sitting in my little patch of shade. On my fucking birthday.

I looked at my heart rate again…fast but not as fast…closed my eyes, took some deep breaths.
I ate a Clif bar, drank some water with electrolytes and breathed some more.
My face was SOOO hot. I realized that I’d not put my hat on when I came out of the forest onto the face of the moon.
I dug through my pack and found my favourite Outdoor Research SPF bucket hat.
I dug farther down into my pack and found Wetwipes and had at my dirty, sweaty face and neck.
I drank more water and slowed my body down…with intent.

I heard a couple approach, chatting happily…FUCK OFF with your happiness…and the man part of the couple spied me hiding under a tree…

FRENCH DUDE: Oh hello there! Are you okay, Miss?

ME: Yup. I’m just taking a minute. It’s hot, yeah?

FRENCH DUDE: Oui. Are you sure you’re okay?

And I lied.

ME: Yup.

Was I okay?
I looked over my shoulder and saw another fucking blue marker WAY up the side of a cliff.
All I could think of was this…

BUT I’M SO CLOSE.

I could just try, yeah?

I checked my heart rate one last time…back to rights…put all the things back in my pack, pulled it tight, made sure my hat was secure and started back walking up.
Up and Up.
I even felt marginally better. Marginally.
Then I thought…

This is what athletes do. They push themselves. Your heart rate’s back down, you’re hydrated, you ate, you breathed, you have more than enough sunlight to get back to your car.
You are capable of this. You’ve trained for this.

I kept putting one foot in front of the other till I finally arrived at the rockfall.

It was…you guys it looked fucking nuts.

It looked like…a two person climb…at least for people who weren’t rock climbers.
This picture really does not tell the whole story…but still.

I stowed my trekking poles and started climbing.
It was no fucking joke.Sometimes I needed three points of contact to haul myself up.
At one point my hands were over my head holding onto a ledge and my knee was in front of my face and I pulled myself up from THAT.
Just before I got to the top, I passed a couple who were helping each other down. The man and I shared a ledge for a moment and he said…

MAN FOUR: It’s even harder on the way down…are you alone?

And I lied again.

ME: Nope. Have a great day!

About ten minutes later, without much fanfare, I got to the top of the rockfall.

I was sweaty, scratched, bruised, dirty, hesitantly thankful and I felt spent as fuck.

I tried not to begin to obsess about the way down before I even got to the vista, which promised to be at the end of a dirt path that I dragged myself up.
THIS is when the view suddenly revealed itself.
It was…stunning. Truly.

A couple I’d passed a few times as we tacked our way along the trail were sitting under a tree and raised their weary hands in salute to my making it.

ME: Oh my fuck, I almost gave up once.

MAN PART OF COUPLE: ONCE!?!? Only once? I almost turned back about…um…four times.

This soothed me somehow.
I asked them to take my picture, handing my phone to the lady part of the couple, and as I got near the edge of the cliff I stumbled over my feet.
After a respectful silence in honour of me almost dying, we all laughed nervously.

ME: What a thing that would be…to have made it all the way up here and to die because I flipped over my own feet, right?

MAN PART OF THE COUPLE: Yeah, that would have fucking sucked…for ALL of us.

It is really something and I look A LOT better then I felt.

Again, I found my own little patch of shade under a tiny tree and sat crossed legged, looking at the view, drinking more water and trying NOT to consider the rest of the hike.

ME to ME: The view. Breathe and enjoy the view.

My phone starts to ring and all the people who’ve made it up look at me like I’m ruining nature…which I totally get.

ME: It’s my birthday.

Somehow THIS seems to make everyone on the top of this mini-mountain nod understandingly and wish me a happy birthday.
Somehow getting a Facetime on the top of THE CRACK on my birthday is okay and does NOT totally ruin nature. WIN.

It’s my friend Mickey and while it seems a bit odd to answer, I do.

Mickey’s lying in bed staring at my face. He leans into the screen and looks at the reflection in my sunglasses.

MICKEY: Where the FUCK are you?

While Mickey and I’ve spoken about a million things, we obviously had not chatted about this adventure.

I tell him about everything. I tell him how fucking tired I am. I show him the view. I tell him ALMOST how scared I am to climb back down.

MICKEY: Well, that sounds just awful. But way to go, Shar. Me? I’m watching The Gilmour Girls…again. So, sames, right?

Somehow Mickey…in pure Mickey fashion…manages to make me laugh a number of times.
THIS connection at this very moment was EXACTLY what I needed.

MICKEY: Okay. Well, please text me from the parking lot. I need to know you didn’t die.

ME: Will do.

MICKEY: For god sakes, take your time.

ME: Mmm hmm.

MICKEY: You’re nuts, right?

ME: Yeah, I know.

MICKEY: Good for you though.

I rang off, looked at the view and considered the journey back.
When I started to get anxious again, I drank some more water, ate an orange and shoved down some trailmix, mopped my brow with another Wetwipe, packed it all up and got going.
When I quickly arrived back at the rock fall, it looked ten times more daunting than the way up…which is kinda what I think childbirth…STAY WITH ME…must be like when you’re pushing out a kid and know it’s too late to stop the process. Or maybe not. I’m childless, so it’s just a guess.

This was the view from the top of the rockfall.

Slowly, carefully and with a bit of terror, I started to make my way down…thanking the bunnies and the kitties ever step that I’m not afraid of heights.

I would like to add here a little reminder that I’ve a ten pound pack on my back…a little less with the water depleted and now inside me OR on my brow…with two trekking poles tucked into the side.
My centre of gravity was quite different.
My signature move on this descent was to get right down on my ass and make my way ledge to ledge from a place as close to the ground as I could manage.

It was fucking terrifying.

In around the middle of the rockfall, I got to a ledge that I could not figure my way off of.
No matter how I tried to do the climbing math, there did not seem to be a way to get down to the next level.
My heart began to beat loud enough for me to hear.
I tried to rewind back and remember how I got up, but to no avail. I don’t think it would have mattered anyhow.

I sat there for a VERY long time.
No one came up and no one came down.
I just…I sat there.
There was no one to help me BUT me…sitting on this fucking ledge like I was the only person in the world…and as the minutes passed by VERY SLOWLY my life came into complete focus.
It was like parts of it passed through my mind…but slowly…and with great detail.

My life has changed so much in the last decade.
I’ve said this a number of times in my writing BUT eight years ago, I honestly thought I knew EXACTLY what my life was going to be till the day I died and it turned out that I was totally wrong.
AND it’s not an ill fitting thing this wrongness…which is actually right.
In the last ten years, I’ve led myself, pulled myself, ran myself and sometimes dragged myself to a place that’s very exciting, passionate and peaceful.
I will not lie, dealing with the seismic shift of my life was…and much to my frustration every once in a while, still fucking is…very terrible and terrifying…like this fucking ledge.
I’ve had to work hard to learn to trust myself…and I’m still working on trusting other people.
AND I’ve spent the last few years orchestrating a huge life change that’s suddenly and finally imminent…and kinda terrifying…like this fucking ledge.
AND AND after steadily working…and earning and learning…this last year I’ve made my living almost solely as a writer…by design and by situation…joyously and thankfully…and terrifyingly…like this fucking ledge.
I cannot tell you how many times I’ve talked with friends, and with their moral support tried to remind myself to trust the fucking process of this life course I’ve set myself on…yes, hopefully like this fucking ledge.
On that fucking ledge I considered a timely question that had been knocking around inside of me…am I too old to keep changing my life?

And I gasp air into my lungs.
Am I?
Is this stupid?
Look at me…56 years old…sitting on a fucking rock ledge STUCK…gasping air in, trying not to break.
So, I let myself break.
And I cry.

I cry and cry.

No one up. No one down. Just me.

When I’ve finally cried it all out, I wipe my face with the hem of my shirt which comes away brown with dirt, and look back down.
If I can just get to the next fucking ledge.

And I cannot tell you how exactly I did it. I really can’t. But I fucking did. It seemed impossible. I swear to god. But somehow, some way, was on the next ledge.

I think I actually took the kind of chance that I don’t want to remember.

I kept crawling down till I got to the bottom and when I got there, I don’t know if I’ve EVER felt that relieved. Like…ever.

It took me a while to get further down and over the face of the moon…where it was even hotter…and I had to look at my Alltrails a number of times, but when I finally walked into the cool forest, I jumped and yelled and jumped and yelled for JOY.

It was still about 3km to the car.

When I looked back over my app when I finally reached the trailhead, it told me that my fastest kilometres were my last two. I was almost running, I think. My feet were pounding the path like a drumbeat.

I still felt tired, my stomach still hurt, I was still anxious (at a level two-ish), my feet were sore, my back was sore, but my legs…felt strong…like steel.

I fucking did it.

I got my phone out and wandered around the parking lot till I got a signal and texted Ari, Patty, Mickey and my niece Gina to tell them I made it out.

I took off my boots, surveyed a couple ripe blisters and shoved my feet into my Birks.

I got in the car and opened the cooler…my revered birthday gift to myself…STILL filled with ice, even after a day in the car, under a towel BUT in the sun. WIN.

I plucked out some chip dip, grabbed some chips and stood beside my car just hoovering them in my mouth.

Was it a comfortable journey? No.
Were there moments of joy? A couple.
Was my anxiety worse than it’s been in a long time? Yes.
Would I have been able to do the whole trip a year before? Probably not.
Did I wish to be home about four hundred times? Yes.
Was I covered in bruises, scratches and dirt? For sure.
Was I lonely? Sometimes.
Was I glad I came alone? Sometimes.
Would I do it alone again? Honestly, over a week later I’m still processing it. Even writing this made me anxious. So maybe? I would rather do it with another person.
Do I wish I’d not done it? Def not. I’m glad I persevered…but I also like to think I would have given myself some grace if I’d turned around at ANY POINT.
This was one of the hardest journeys I EVER embarked on ON PURPOSE.
Was it the birthday I wanted? No.
Was it the birthday I built? Yes.

No regrets.

Am I too old to keep changing my life? Well, you know what? I’m going to fucking find out.

S.M. Sept 26th, 2024
Toronto, ON
Canada