In the White Tanks Mountains, on the Waddell Trail, there is a mesquite tree down in a wash that someone decorates for Christmas every year. It must drive the park rangers crazy. I don’t know who does this but as I corner that ridge, the ornaments pop up in the middle of a stark gray rocky riverbed to provide an enchanting cognitive dissonance, and I so look forward to it.
My strength is unpredictable right now and therefore my hiking opportunities, but somehow I’ll make it out there this year. Christmas is confusing for me this season. We are supposed to use this time dwelling on birth and hope but I’d be lying if I said I haven’t been grappling with my mortality instead.
Christmas reminds me of how often my family says that I need Jesus, but they don’t know how pivotal a role His words have played in my life. I suspect that what the family really means is that they want to see me in church, but I don’t like it there. That’s not to say I have a deep connection with the divine during every hike (unless you count how grateful I am to finally see the car), but many, many times I do and that fuels my feelings and my actions as I move through life. It’s not an altar but there’s something about the rhythmic crunch of my boots in the sand that lends itself quite well to this, as does the not so subtle hint of danger.
If I’ve dragged Mike out far enough and early enough, the close yipping of coyotes tells us that we might be surrounded. Is there something even bigger tracking us as well? Probably, but I wouldn’t mind if my last memory is the scent of creosote-the best scent in the world. Better that than the smell of the treatment room, no?
I frequently find myself in places with signs that say, “Have Your Bear Spray Handy”, and “Mountain Lion Crossing”. I’ve always figured that if not from something with claws it would be a clumsy tumble over a cliff that finally ends me. But after all the dumb shit that I’ve done, to be taken out by cancer? No fucking way.
It is prime hiking weather in the low desert right now and I cannot wait to get back on the trails. But first, I must complete what I hope is my last treatment. My body has been poisoned over and over for six months and I am so, so tired. I even tried to get out of this final appointment, but my doctor is right. I am fortunate that there is such a treatment at all.
So, I view this Christmas season as a (re)birth of hope and of my will to fight with renewed faith in my team and in my body and in those words.