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Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. 9/3/17

 

I’ve driven some 3200 miles since leaving Virginia. On my way to exhilarate in the Alaska experience. Alaska. The final of fifty states for me to have explored. The gateway opens here in Canada; the incredibly beautiful seaside metropolis of Vancouver. Hugging the coast, surrounded by water, ringed by mountains. To the south, mighty Tahoma, rising over 14,000 feet and mantled in snow and ice, dominates and demands the attention of all who would come to the extreme northwest.

It was some 25 years ago I trekked up its slope. Seeing it from a distance, a vista impossible to ignore, I recall the unending switchbacks that caused me to labor at a necessarily monotonous pace as I carried my pack. It was that trip when I coined a phrase I’ve since oft repeated regarding any task requiring effort; the price of admission.

Even in crossing the mythical river Styx, there is a toll to be paid the ferryman to land on the other side. So too, if there is a goal to be reached, a relationship to be had, a dream hoping for fulfillment, an effort need be applied. It can be no other way. Simply taking; feeling entitled, or demanding others shoulder the burden, in perpetuity, is little more than an excuse to avoid tackling the task at hand. I care not how eloquently one delivers their martyrdom. It is one thing to help someone; a righteous and soulful gift we should each afford one another as need be, but it is quite another to elevate it to a lifestyle, whining that somehow you are ‘owed’ a different life. In one word; Nonsense.

Effort. As the years pass I have chosen to use the word in situations where once I would interchange it indiscriminately with the word ‘work’. Only through trial and tribulation, within and without, did I learn the two are distinct. Effort, for me, does not carry the seemingly negative connotation when applying energy to something of worth, something desired. A simple choice of words, added to my ‘equipment’ as I journeyed, It has made a significant difference in attitude. How I lament not learning it sooner for it has lightened the load carried for far too many years.

I recall packing equipment and clothing those decades ago, doing all I could to limit the pounds, measuring even the ounces, so as to ease the burden. The smallest of camp stoves, removing dried foods from cardboard containment, even cutting the handle of my toothbrush; such was my resolve to keep unnecessary baggage from my knapsack. It was all about losing weight.

As I happily set about the business of reducing my load, it struck me; the task served also to lighten the stressors, the tensions, the baggage incurred as I lived my life. Mental weight. Things not needed and deserving no place as I prepared for the adventures lying just ahead down Frost’s road less travelled, my own “crooked road”. With such distractions cast aside, more room was made available for what mattered; the peace and serenity of the forest, the magnificence of the mountain, the lessons to be learned from each as to how better live this life. Gifts of humility and grace, we are fortunate if they can be applied in our daily living at least so much as can be done.

For myself, it remains as much a struggle as climbing Tahoma. Something I must remain aware of at all times so as not to indiscriminately, unknowingly, toss such things as undue melancholy, self pity and the like, back into the ‘bag’ I carry. Time grows short in the winter of ones life. Care must be given as to what should stay with us. There will always be items requiring contemplation as to what remains; what is discarded. The few that really know me, understand I stumble often when trying to discern when a memory is a treasured gift, or a cause of thickened scar upon my heart.

But today, I shoulder my pack in Vancouver and set my compass to the north and west targeting the Arctic Circle in Alaska. I will remind myself the effort both for the adventure about to unfold, as well as the effort to be aware of the present moment, are not in themselves the destination. It truly is about the journey and the willingness to pay the price of admission.

 

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