Get Up and Walk

I have done nothing all summer but wait for myself to be myself again.

Georgia O’Keefe

As many of you may recall if you have been reading my blog for awhile, last spring as soon as the mud had dried up and the road was passable, I spent several months getting my beautiful log home in the Okanogan Highlands ready to sell. As you probably know if you have ever moved. . .and you likely have multiple times. . . it is a daunting task, mine made more difficult by the challenge of going through my husband’s belongings after his death last fall. I climbed ladders, packed boxes, lifted boxes, took loads to the landfill, took loads to the second hand store, and finally when it had been cleared out, I helped lift furniture into the back of my pickup truck and move it to wherever it needed to go .

It came then as no surprise when, shortly after finishing this big project, I injured my back. It felt rather like a horse had kicked me while I was walking my dog Bruno. I literally buckled to the ground and sat for awhile doing nothing, contemplating what to do next, as there is no cell phone coverage near my home.

I got up and walked. It is what I know how to do, and as every backpacker knows there are times when we simply have to walk through the pain. I even finished the two mile walk I had planned but regretted it when I got home, for the pain was extreme, and I did little for the next few days but sit around and wait for it to go away.

It did not, and it was the worst possible timing, for it was early May, and the entire summer lay ahead of me, my favorite time of year. The trails near my home were starting to be free of snow and beckoned to me, but I was not able to hike. When I am feeling down, the one thing that will consistently lift my spirits is to hike, to walk, to feel my arms swinging by side, my feet hitting the trail. It is the way I know everything is all right in my life. There are still trails, and I can walk on them.

I cannot ever remember a summer like this one, gazing at the mountains near my home, unable to get to their summits, unable even to walk the gentle rail trail near my home. “This too shall pass,” I kept telling myself, but that did not happen until I had completed a couple of months of physical therapy and received an injection in my spine.

Now it is November, and already the switch to Standard Time has occurred. I usually go for a walk after dinner in the evening, but now I am confined to a treadmill at home or walk during the day, bundled up in a down coat and hat, for the cold weather has arrived along with the time change.

These days when I sit and ponder the many changes that have taken place in my life over the past year, I ask myself this simple question, “Who am I?” The answer to that changes as I get older. I am no longer a backpacker. Those days of wandering over mountain passes and setting up camp by a river are over for me, for I do not want to risk further back injury. I am still a hiker and a walker and many other things. I am a traveller, an adventurer, a seeker.

More important, my life has been forever changed by my many years on mountain trails. Backpacking has created a toughness in me which has always been a source of great pride. I get up and walk when I am down. This past year has given me plenty of opportunity to do exactly that.