Seven years ago, it was going up a mountain near Aix-en-Provence. Last Sunday, it was hiking a trail north of Palm Springs.
My pathological fear of heights is foundationally psychological--I can remember it from the age of five. But as I plough into my late sixties, my balance grows increasingly precarious because of my degenerative spine. A walking stick is mandatory equipment for me these last few years, and the reassurance it provides gives me ongoing access to experiences I'd probably have given up by now without it.
(Next up: state-of-the-art knee braces! Which I probably should have bought before the current trip.)
I'd been on Sunday's trail before, and remembered it involved a climb up to the ridge above a broad gravel wash that the trail crossed at the outset. I remembered last time, on a sunny afternoon, encountering a basking rattlesnake in the middle of the turnoff to the ascent--the object of wary fascination to four or five others who were also strategizing how to negotiate our way around it. I didn't remember how long the series of switchbacks would go on--about fifty minutes. And in the overcast cold, we'd naively failed to take into account the rise in altitude, and the consequent drop in temperature on a very windy day.
In short, the whole damn thing was the opposite of fun. Remaining aware that we were passing through a landscape of rare and spectacular views only made it worse. Part of my mind could still register that no other consciousness in the universe but mine was being gifted with this precise experience, at this moment in time.
But fuck that. All I need is the peripheral awareness that space is dropping away a few feet to one side of me, and I become incapable of focusing on anything except the two and a half feet of ground where I'll take my next step, trying to keep my breath slow and even, with every switchback shifting the walking stick from hand to hand to keep it between me and the downward slope--and, in a strong cold wind, trying not to freak out at the lessened stability of my gait.
Because it's Lent--because it's a season that's all about facing the truth that our lives are precarious, transitory, limited, and dependent on a Mystery far greater than our small selves--I found myself thinking, as I trudged along, about desert experiences. Above all, about the episode near the beginning of Matthew's Gospel in which Jesus, during his forty days in the desert, rejects Satan's encouragements to create an illusion of false security for himself.
My pathetic, wimpy progress along a moderately difficult marked trail was hardly a moment of heroic asceticism. But what putting one foot in front of the other for an anxious hour reminded me of was this: that when we strip away all the distractions, our life is about taking one step at a time amidst uncertainty and insecurity, trusting that Something, or Someone, will go on bearing us up. And that the present moment is the only moment we have.
Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav said that all of life is a very narrow bridge, and the main thing is not to be afraid.
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