Trailhead

The mountains speak to me. Not like they call and beckon me to come to them, like the Lorelei on the Rhine (not sirens, because Myers is a German name)(ok, they do that too but that is another post), but more like when I visit we share thoughts with each other and work through ideas. I love to hike, to climb mountains, to explore. I love these activities because of what I learn about myself as I push myself physically, mentally, and emotionally. I love the adventure of it, the risk of things going all wrong and figuring out a way to make the most of it and press on. But lately I found I love being in the mountains because I am of a different mind when I am there. I process the hike as it happens with the mountains. We roll the ideas and experiences around and around in my head until they gain clarity and insight. Sometimes they are even worth writing down. And so through the years I have always carried a journal in my backpack. I like to write, not that I am good at it, but I only like to write what happens in the mountains. Perhaps because I have found no other muse, but nothing else sparks the desire, nothing else puts me in the mind to see things in a literary way. As I hike through the mountains I do not leave a trail of boot prints, but one of prose.

So why put all this in a blog? I find I need motivation to actually record the conversations with the mountains. I want to create some record, any record, of what for the most part has been the defining moments of who I am. Will a blog motivate me? Probably not. But when I do get the motivation I want a place to put it. Last summer I got the right motivation to regularly record my treks. So I better get this out of the way...

All my best friends are felons. Not going to really dive in right now on what that may say about me (but perhaps it will come up sometime in the future while I hike along), but this provides some important context. I have not always been a great friend and kept in touch with my incarcerated pals as I should. It's hard to know what to say, but all the same I carry some guilt about it and want to do better. When my best hiking bud went to prison last year I realized I finally have something I can write about- our shared love of the mountains. Last summer he had access to emails, although it was limited to 1000 characters. So each week I would send him an email. It was an interesting and productive exercise as a writer to express yourself in those constraints. At times I took the liberty to split the essay into a couple parts, but I still had to make each stand on its own. I will endeavor to keep this up for as long as I can, although he no longer has access to emails, so I am no longer constrained to 1000 characters in a letter. I likely will not keep up the tradition, as I feel the mountains and I do a pretty decent job editing this stuff down before I get off the trail. I will however try to be brief, unless it is a tale that deserves elaboration.

And so while my audience is not necessarily anyone who may stumble across this blog, I do hope some will enjoy what I have to share. It will be a place where I will put whatever comes to mind during current hikes, as well as recording the grand adventures from the days of yore that deserve to be recorded. It will be a journey, but one that I hope will help develop my writing and better focus my experiences as I tread among my friends, the mountains.