Monday, September 30, 2013

Writing Cherry Creek Peak: A Hiking Narrative, Part I (Zen, Writing, Teaching, Hiking, Dooms-Day, America)

View from Cherry Creek Peak.  Photo by Rio Brown

1.        A Long-Winded Discussion—Blah, Blah, Blah—on Zen and the Art of Writing

Because everything connects to everything, it’s difficult to know where to begin a narrative.  This one was to start in an onion field one searing September afternoon.  Then it was to begin one saturated night after a week of dense rain.  Now it will begin in my kitchen as five teenagers sit around the table, view Edward Hopper’s Night Hawks on my computer screen, and frantically write noir narratives. 

The only difference: time.  By the time I got around to writing this hiking narrative, I was no longer in the same place mentally.  And that’s okay—it won’t be the same narrative, but it will still be fresh, vivid and real because I’m beginning where I’m at—now.   That, for me, is why outlines, except for certain tasks, don’t work.  They predetermine the outcome and the richness.  The excitement and power of discovering what you have to say happens outside the text.  The energy occurs while you’re planning, not writing, so the reader never gets to participate in the struggle,  the scuffle,  the dance—the work and play it takes to arrive at that one great moment of thought that makes the whole journey worthwhile. 

No one really wants to be told what to think anyway.  But they may not mind being invited into your brain—an act of voyeurism really—as you struggle for some semblance of coherence.  That is the magic of the Kerouac, of the Beats.  It’s not that they wrote better than previous generations; it’s that they were the first, besides William Carlos Williams, to fully invite us to come along. 

Here, as an experiment, I want to follow my three versions of this narrative just a ways.  Not fully, that would take too long, but far enough to see the path bend around an aspen grove and disappear into the mysterious light and shadow.  Then, to stand there, stop a minute, and imagine the final destination.

Version A:

No shade, that’s for sure.  Little slivers of onions poke through chalk-white alkali in rows that stretch across a monopoly board field.  Tumbleweed piled against barbed wire fence attest that the air did once move.  But the solid wall of stand-still air fortified beneath the blazing sun makes breeze seem as remote as rivers on Mars.  Sure the evidence is there.   Things were different in the past, but when weather is as vacant as the conscience of a corporate CEO, who cares what might have been witnessed in some great past?   The air is a standing wall and you’re under it gagging.

So I sit on my butt under a machine-gun sun and cut weeds away from onions with an exacto-blade while Rod explains the art of tagging, of bombing, of making ones mark. I don’t tell him that no matter how beautiful his outlaw murals are, if they’re painted without permission, they’re not more than a dog’s urine claiming territory.  I hold back because Rod is new, and the new ones are always a little unpredictable, even dangerous.  You don’t get sent to a boy’s home for thinking things through. You get there by doing really stupid stuff.

I think if I followed this version, the focus would be on heat and cool, dry and moist, stagnant and dynamic, lost and found.  I would no doubt reflect on my day job of working with youth who are struggling to find more viable versions of themselves, and how we all are, in a sense, doing the same.

Version B:

Oregon Coast.  That’s how it smells, how it feels—the night air soggy and moldy with life, toads rioting joy after a long, dry summer, little green blades jerking up through the mud under a muted moon, everything slightly misty as the steamy air settles down to dew overnight.  Cool, rich, clean—everything.

Only the dry yellow stubs of wild rye and cheat grass bony blue under the moonlight let me know this is not Oregon—well that and the scrub oak and juniper, oh and rabbit brush and snake weed.  But the rain is enough to make one dream of thick green farm fields, cheese and forest—forest and more forest.

I think in this version I would simply focus on the fecundity of life, the richness of being.  I think I would have very little philosophy to share and would just stick to what is there before me, write the moment to the best of my ability, invite the reader to experience a certain place on a certain day.   

 Version C:

This is how it always is.  You can always feel the energy.  There is nothing like it.  It works every time.  Fourth graders, teenagers, adults—it doesn’t matter.  When people are tricked into entering that moment of being there and listening to that other voice, that inner guide, direct them through a narrative that is magically opening before their eyes, writing for the moment becomes a drug, especially for those who disliked it previously. And even though I make it clear beforehand that they are to stop when I say stop, the hands keep going and some begging starts—can we finish the paragraph, can I do this again, I think I have a better way now, it just occurred to me…

Perhaps I should let it go on.  I know, for a while anyway, they will have a hard time recreating the situation for themselves, even though all it takes is a) giving the mind something unexpected to think about (so it doesn’t follow the same old pathways), b) setting up a sense of urgency (so there’s no time for self-censorship) and c) allowing crud to happen (so there’s no worry about what others will think).

In this case, I’ve projected Edward Hoppers Night Hawks onto the computer screen and given the following rules:  1) Keep your hand moving, 2) no erasing, 3) don’t worry about spelling, punctuation, etc., and 4) remember, you’re allowed to write the worst crap in America.  Because these are teenagers, who moments ago were chasing each other around the kitchen, laughing wildly and spewing soda all over the floor, I’ve added a fifth rule, no talking.  That’s it.  That’s all it takes to turn non-writers into writers.  But, except for Natalie Goldberg (who I’ve adapted my rules from), no one seems to know this. 

That is why I know this hiking narrative that I’ve assigned myself will go somewhere.  It has too.  It doesn’t matter which of the three ways I enter.  If I start in a solid moment, describe it well, and say to myself, now I’m going to stumble through the woods until I find point B, which in this case is the other side of Cherry Creek Peak in northern Utah, I will get there.  And I don’t have to worry if it is the best way to get there because there is no best.  No two journeys are alike.  There is only picking up your crap, putting it on your back and hitting the trail.  Some routs might be longer, might be steeper, might about kill you, might get you lost, wandering aimlessly for hours, wondering if you can ever get out of the tangle of thoughts you’ve created for yourself—which is exactly what’s happening here—but if you follow through, the outcome, especially the journey, is always worthwhile.  And since I’m not actually following the other two pathways, I’ll never know if I chose the right one.  And I don’t need to.  This journey will sustain me well enough to be the one.

Although I don’t necessarily endorse this approach to life, for writing, it is the way:  Just grab your crap and go.  

2.        The Types of Thoughts You Can Have While Ambling Through the Woods

The trail begins at the end of a rutted road in damp leafs scattered before a dry creek bed, which I guess, is usually running.  Jeff and Glen talk of heat, weeks of ninety-plus, even here in the Cache Valley, which is normally mild, even in July or August.  Or use to be.  Heat has become the new language of the west, drought and fire it’s most common literary forms.  Things just aren’t the same.  Everyone knows it, yet it is here that global warming is denied most—a propaganda scheme by liberals to undermine God-given liberties.  I don’t get it; it’s like living with cancer eating you and denying the decay.

It makes me sad to live among such grand people, knowing their lifestyles are being eroded by a diseased climate while they deny it.  Not these two, necessarily, although I don’t ask.  Out here, I’m a lone deer among wolves as far as politics go.  I keep my deer-self hidden and howl now and then like a wolf.  Besides, I have a gas-guzzling super van—Crystal Blue Persuasion—so who am I to preach?  It’s like a cannibal preaching vegetarianism.  My excuse is that change, realistically speaking, must be legislated.  My one-in-billions carbon footprint won’t prevent global warming.  Again, another dangerous thought here, as this is the land of libertarianism.  And here, in the open spaces of the west, that feels right: just let everyone do their own thing.  That works well for a few thousand, not so well for billions.

Anyway, today is moist and cool.  Why think about dead, dying, sick forests going up in hurricane flames if you don’t have to?  Stick to the trail, the here and now, the dense oak, maple and box elder forests crammed in a short, narrow canyon with Hindu Kush slopes on three sides.  Okay, I exaggerate some, but even from here, I can tell we will soon be headed up, and up, and up!
Photo by Rio Brown

But for now, I can amble up the spongy, black dirt trail and divide my time up between reading who- loves-who carved into aspen trunks, enjoying the little blue wild flowers and bright green mosses, or I can think about the book that will end my welcome here in the greatest state in the nation—Christ was a Democrat.  It won’t get me any gold stars with my Arizona in-laws either.  But, analyzing the text, it’s true.  And since no one else seems to be pointing out the obvious—Christ wasn’t a racist, didn’t despise the poor, and wasn’t always looking out for the interests of those already in power—perhaps I should point that out, and while I’m at it, remind my fellow Mormons that Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, based on their practices, probably wouldn’t have been big supporters of Rush Limbaugh.

Oh no—I’ve done it now, wiggled my way out of my wolf-suit and shown I’m really a deer.  No, believe me—that’s not true.   Watch me howl!    Ky-yi-yippi-yi, you long-haired Obama supporters ’er gonna die!

Now why would I want to write a book that would rip out my welcome mat to paradise?  Better just focus here on this trail.   Does it really matter if my nearest neighbors glisten when they listen to Rush, when they’d do just about anything to help me, or anyone else they came in contact with, for that matter?  But would they, if they knew I was a Democrat?  That, I guess is the heart of things.  Identity will find a way.  The seed will break open, the sprout will climb up, poke his tender head up through the soil.  For a season, while young, he may even look like all the other young sprouts carpeting the forest floor, but sooner or later, each will announce individual intent—whether he be grass, penstemon, columbine or thistle.   The flute will flower gently.  The guitar will grind grandly.  I’m sick of being who I’m not.  I’m sick of conservatives claiming Christ as their own, chaining morality, beating it into submissiveness like a dog.  To be moral you must be fat, have a receding hairline, a shiny forehead, shop at Wal-Mart and support the NRA.  No dreadlocks, no RASTA, no tofu, no Opera, no egg plant, no wilderness, no bike trail, no hip-hop, no rap, no soul.  But I’m equally tired of liberals writing off religion as ignorance, revelation as insanity and believing in their heart of hearts that every conservative is a Nazi deep down in his soul.

Everywhere I turn, the fabric of America is coming apart.  I want to soar like an eagle, but the higher I go, the better I see the rift spreading, the chasm opening, the void flowering like a galaxy spiraling out between us, a big bang of Nada zipping us away from each other as we become distant dots screaming hateful political propaganda across the eons, which due to the distance, fizzles out in the frozen night. 

A song comes to mind:  There’s always something cooking; nothing in the pot. A song comes to mind:  These are dangerous times.  To think is to dig your own grave.  Better walk gently through the forest, keep down low in the undergrowth, stay in the shadows, be ye deer or wolf. 

Whatever you do, don’t head for the peak, don’t lift your hands to God, don’t yodel from the gut, don’t stand on the pinnacle and scream I AM!  Riffles are loaded.  Triggers are cocked.  No matter who you are—they will shoot you down. 

3.        Rest

Okay.  Wo horsey.  Good golly miss molly.  Where did that come from?  No wonder I need a rest.  Better not put that in the narrative.  Flags, flags, flags for the NSA.  “Rio, get out the trail mix.”

I sit down on a boulder.  The others have been waiting here, maybe fifteen minutes, maybe hours.  I’m lagging, that’s for sure.  But who wouldn’t be?  After that.  Does everyone’s mind spiral out of control that way?  I look around.  Thinning trees, mostly just pines now, some aspen.  Alpine flowers.  It’s clear every way but back is up.  I love the sweet of the M & M’s against the salt of the peanuts.  I love the coolness of the water.  I love that a mind, lost on a runaway train, can sit down and rest, once it’s distracted.  How many family arguments would flutter away if even just one person in the house could just stare at a crumb on the floor or talk to angels long enough for the mind to forget it was right and had to prove it.

That is why, despite the fact it always nearly kills me, I love hiking.  You’re there talking with your own mind for so long, it eventually wears out, and finally, you’re just there in the landscape.

Resting.
A resting point before the long ascent.  Photo by Rio Brown

(The Journey will be continued)

 
 "Outside" by the Fixx, Live 1983