Choose Your Own Adventure

As M. and I hiked along the Pacific Crest Trail today on Mt. Ashland, he said, "When I was a kid and liked playing in the woods behind the elementary school, I would've freaked about trees like these." It got me thinking: If I look back, I now see indications that maybe I've always been the type of person who would enjoy pushing through knee-tall grasses on a foot-wide, dusty trail on top of a mountain. "There were decision points, I see now," I told him. "You know, like if I'd been in a Choose Your Own Adventure book, I could've turned to a different page."

M. on the PCT near Mt. Ashland in Southern Oregon

We were quiet for a little bit, until I spoke up again. "I turned to the more familiar pages, because this"--I swept my arm at the forest around us--"was completely inaccessible to me. It was as foreign to me as the friggin' Taj Mahal."

My family's first house was on top of a steep hill in Pittsburgh. Across the street was the elementary school I attended, behind which lay several asphalted ball courts enclosed by chain link fencing. My father taught me how to ride a bike on those courts. We were lucky in that we had a yard--three, actually, as lawn formed a sideways U around three sides of our house--and as a kid, of course I'd spend a lot of time out there. From the corner of our yard, I could sightsee fairly well; in one direction, I could see nearly all the way down to the old train car depot, and in another, I could see nearly to my grandparents' street a few blocks away. This was my outdoors.

But none of this should imply that my family were comfort junkies. My parents were adventurous folks, always up for a road trip or a day in a new town, and they were both athletic. They were also adept at working with their hands; out of necessity, they learned to fix cars, hang windows, lay floors, install doors, and build porches. My point, I guess, is that my parents never discouraged me from going out, getting dirty, and exploring the world. In fact, they encouraged it, at least to the extent our urban environment allowed. I never really did, though, because when I was very young, I was terrified of it. Bugs, dogs, cats, deer, dirt, strange smells, food touching each other on my plate--whatever. I was terrified of all of it. I have no idea why; it was just a weird childhood quirk that drove everyone nuts, including me.  And as I got older and could have explored more on my own, I simply... didn't.  Why not?

I think it's about accessibility, not just in the geographical sense, but in the psychological sense. When a person grows up in, say, Southern Oregon, he or she sees mountains on the horizon. Not only are those mountains geographically accessible, but they also become part of the person's mindscape: This is part of the world I know, that person might think, and I am part of the world I know. The mountains and the person, then, are in the same frame, not just on a map, but also on the reel of shared experience. When a person grows up in the urban Rust Belt, he or she sees old train depots on the horizon, or an asphalt ball court. Mountains aren't even within the realistic, actually-experienced frame of reference.

But wait, someone might say. It's not like we live in the 1400s. Certainly you knew mountains existed. Certainly you could travel and see things.

Well, sure. I was a smart student and an observant kid, and of course I knew mountains and forests existed. I knew they existed the same way I knew Argentina existed, or the Berlin Wall existed (because it still did back then), or the friggin' Taj Mahal existed. To Indian people and tourists who saw the Taj Mahal each day, it was a real thing; to me, it was an entry in an encyclopedia. Knowing mountains and forests existed didn't make them any more real to me than a photo in a book was.

And traveling is a privilege not offered to most urban kids. My parents worked hard for us, and they adopted an enlightened view: They wanted their children to have a broad perspective on the world. They grew up with limited opportunity to experience the world beyond their city. My mother even jokes that when she and her sisters would play pretend and "travel" somewhere, it was either the local amusement park or Hollywood--the thought of anywhere else never occurred to them. So my parents, they busted their butts and took us traveling. Most of our vacations were to spots that fit into a city family's mindscape--beaches and theme parks, resorts and lakeside cottages--but some of them offered me chances to explore the back country, and I didn't.

This is where Choosing My Own Adventure comes in. When I look back, I see those missed opportunities. When I look back, I see interactions with people and moments that could have led me to taking a hike, or cross-country skiing, or learning how to mountain bike (I can ride a bike, but not on a mountain...yet). The thing is, at those moments, I didn't know to choose that page. I only knew to choose the page I knew (say that five times fast). It's sort of like... Well, let's stick with the Indian theme. It's sort of like knowing, in the abstract, that Indian food exists, but it's not a type of food your family, or your neighbors, or your friends make at home. You don't know any Indian people or people who make Indian food--in fact, you don't even know someone who knows someone who knows Indian food. Still, because you're not totally clueless, you know this thing called "Indian food" is out there, and you are aware that a lot of people enjoy it. At one point, you're right outside an Indian restaurant, but having no idea what an Indian restaurant is like, you don't realize it. At another point, you're talking to someone who actually works at an Indian restaurant, but because you have no experience with Indian food, the idea doesn't occur to you that you could ask him about trying a few Indian dishes. And obviously, at no point whatsoever would it occur to you to turn to your spouse or your siblings or your parents and say, "I would very much like to try Tikka Masala, maybe a little Chicken Tikka Masala and a little Paneer Tikka Masala, thinkin' I'm going to like the chicken more but wanna give both a try, so if you're free this weekend...."

Then imagine that one day, you're in your thirties, and you've moved somewhere with a ton of Indian restaurants. The idea of Indian food is still abstract to you, but for some inexplicable reason, it's as if you're being beckoned to an Indian restaurant. With no clue what you're doing, you walk into one of the nearby restaurants, sit at the table, and wait for the server to approach you. When he does, you say, "I have no idea what I'm doing here," and he laughs and simply walks away. He comes back with an entire kitchen of food, which he places at your table. You are left scrutinizing the menu, googling Indian words, texting friends, studying blogs, comparing pictures on the internet to the dishes before you, and being generally confused out of your mind.

Yet you're still happy, and moreover, you're encouraged to continue figuring it out.

This has been my experience with the Great Outdoors, and not to sound like a new age hippie living in a half-million-dollar Ashland condo, but I can't help but think God is at work here. I am by no means Grizzly Adams; M. and I are still learning our way in the back country, probably doing things that could kill us and would make true outdoors-people either embarrassed for us or angry with our stupidity. I still am becoming familiar with the world off-the-grid, but I am at home there. I have begun referring to our regular hikes as church, and while I say it jokingly, being in the middle of nowhere is a spiritual experience for me. And like all spiritual journeys, there is infinite room for growth (and thank goodness, because like I said, we are still learning what we're doing).

If M. and I had stayed in the Rust Belt, we would never have pushed ourselves as far into the forest as we have in Oregon. It wouldn't have been for lack of want, but rather, for lack of accessibility. In Northeast Ohio, we had to drive hours to get to a place without cell phone service, or to reach a trail head that didn't have a paved parking lot next to its marker. In Oregon, wilderness is a way of life.

I'd like to see more effort toward bringing that way of life to people who simply can't conceptualize it from their current spaces. I think of how many Rust Belt kids are where I was thirty years ago, and I want to bring them the open air, pumping blood, self-sufficiency and forest magic that I am finding now, as an adult Rust Belt transplant.

I suppose I'm choosing a different adventure now, or maybe just the one I always was meant to.