Day 17

October 27, 2007. Day 17.

Today’s title is, “Not Walking Mount Sanity.”

Day 16

October 26, 2007 Day 16.

I barely got up this morning. I was extremely self-punishing. As I arrived at the mountain I wanted to cry or something, but I couldn’t. I was just numb. I felt like I was on a revolving wheel that wouldn’t stop. Since I didn’t have too many obligations, I rested a bit longer at the top. There just hasn’t been enough time holding still. If this is a meditation, it feels like there’s no silence. No openness. I’m noticing less and less on the mountain instead of more and more. I didn’t even want the climb to cheer me up, I was so convinced of my crabbiness and my right to remain crabby. I felt alienated from the mountain like an abandoned kid who never formed empathy for others. I wouldn’t say I felt as violent as that, but so exhausted and bitter.

I felt lonely, like I missed my life. It’s so weird that I would miss it when I’m living it everyday, but a part of myself is being left behind. Or has this walk turned into a run? Am I chasing a dream or being chased by a demon? I can’t tell.

Anyway, by the time I made it down, I felt briefly cheered up, enough to get me home. But as soon as I saw Dana and started talking about my day, she noticed I sounded flat. I told her I was exhausted and as soon as I heard myself say it, I started bawling. It was not like on the mountain the other day, but gut-wrenching sobs. Snot everywhere, relief. You know the type. It did the trick. I crossed over. I was out of ideas. I asked her for her opinion as to what I should do next. She said, “I have a suggestion…”

I agreed.

Day 15

October 25, 2007, Day 15

Today was the full moon, sort of a surprisingly uneventful experience. I had to walk earlier in the evening tonight so I could make it to a lecture, and because of this I caught the moon rising. However, it was so smoggy, it was hard to see the beautiful magnified harvest moon. Not without irony, I went to a presentation by the well-known art critic, Lucy Lippard. Tonight she spelled out her approach to global warming in a show she curated here in Boulder. There was a good deal of strong work, but there was that overly theoretical kind of art which puts the head before the body. I recognize the difficult task she laid before herself, but I feel like the show missed the mark. I’m glad, however, that scientists and artists worked together on the exhibition, this collaboration seems too long in coming. Remember when “arts and sciences” fell into the same basic category? The intention of John Adams and John Hancock when they founded the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Boston during the American revolution, was to, “cultivate every art and science which may tend to advance the interest, honour, dignity, and happiness of a free, independent, and virtuous people.” Science seems to have taken the role of “advancing,” and art the role of “reflecting.” From the bias of government funding toward the sciences, we seem to appreciate advancing more than reflecting.

I was hoping the full moon would energize me, but I felt really groggy this morning and flat tonight. Somehow there was little magic on the mountain. Sorry Disney.

Did you know Disney world has its own laws and judicial system? They also have an extremely complex video surveillance system in almost every single corner of their theme parks. They even have their own jails. The town, Celebration, in Florida is where the Truman Show was filmed. It’s a real Disney corporate development. Not so far off from the movie itself. I also remember learning that Disney only profited off of one of his movies when he was alive, Snow White. The rest were basically ads to get people to the theme park. Ah Walt, I wonder how you knew the imagination of children so intimately while also knowing how to confuse it. Every Disney movie I watch is so mixed up with virtue and rebellion that I can’t tell how they fit together. It’s an incredible formula. Family values meet conquest.

Apparently the full moon makes me bitter. Or is it sleep deprivation. I can’t believe I have to hike this mountain again tomorrow.

Day 14

October 24, 2007 Day 14

Two weeks! Finally, I have finished the first half of this adventure. After yesterday’s difficulties, I have felt like today was less burdened with emotional suffering. I began imagining ways that I would like to present the documentation of this hike in a gallery setting. I thought it could be entertaining to build a treadmill of some sort and make it function as a crank to turn a scroll of images that tell the story of the walk. In order to see the whole story, one would have to walk. This of course presents the problem of having to rewind the scroll, easily done if the narrative were not linear because the viewer could simply turn around and walk the other way. It’s even poetic in a way. But then what does this scroll look like and how do I keep it from being torn to bits at the end every time. Does it have to be unattached, so it comes loose to prevent it from ripping off, and then rethreaded?

Another idea would be to create a “moving image” ala the early animation machine, the praxinoscope. When looking through the slits in a hand cranked wheel, the images behind were animated. I imagined building one like a large hamster wheel for people to walk in and watch a moving image of my walk. It would repeat, but it could be lovely. I could build a few different ones.

Day 13

October 23, 2007 Day 13

Balmy this morning, beautiful. Quickly I realized I was overdressed.

My hip is acting very strangely. My knees and thighs really ache today. I know if I have to stop, I’ll stop, but I’m hoping the right attention will get me through this stretch. Two weeks tomorrow, the full moon on Thursday, and I’m so concerned about making it through. I walked slowly trying to notice all the subtleties in the discomfort and relax and breathe.

But as all of my faith was vanishing, it came to me that Sanita had vanished as well. Her spirit was completely inaccessible. All that’s left were my sore knees and hips. There was so little power in the morning hike. I was so glad today I saw a Buck (the male deer) with a huge rack of antlers. He hadn’t appeared to me before now, and I took it as a welcome omen on such an uncomfortable morning.

There was nothing but the walking. It reminded me of a quote Rebecca Solnit referred to in her book Wanderlust, “They will discover out of ordinary things the meaning of ordinariness. They will not try to make them extraordinary but will only state their real meaning. But out of this they will devise the extraordinary.” (Kaprow from his Essays on the Blurring of Art and Life (1958)). This walk is revealing its ordinariness.

Finally, this morning, as I reached the bottom of the steep descent before the long slow final mile and a half, I broke down and cried. It surprised me how easily the crying came on and how it sustained for a while. Sometimes I want to cry at moments like that more than I am really able. It was such a relief that it came so easily. Afterward, it was as if I had a new pair of knees. Somehow I cried out whatever was trapped in there. I felt quite cheered up. All day today I felt lighter. I haven’t taken the evening hike yet, but I’m actually looking forward to it. For it’s ordinariness even.

…PM Day 13
Indeed, I even discovered an opening in my psoas muscle as it related to my inner right hip. I found a way to relax the tension from my deep abdominal muscles in such a way that my leg could have mobility and strength independent of my tense core. An incredible break through today! To watch so much physical discomfort disappear with an emotional release. I feel as if my body responded to the close attention. I found a way to accept discomfort without judging myself too heavily for it.

Here’s my sad face after crying…so sad…

Day 12

October 22, 2007 Day 12

OK, the weather was nicer, but man I’m exhausted. I chose not to listen to my ipod today. I’d been playing podcasts of Radiolab and This American Life to get through the last couple of days. But I’m feeling my body shrinking away from the task of climbing. It’s a strange feeling. I suppose it’s from lack of rest, but it’s as if I’m more tired than after the first few days when my body was barely in shape. I had more adrenaline I suppose, but it’s weird how strong I felt after day 3 compared to right now. My right hip is getting tweaky. I’m second guessing all my choices in clothing, footwear, socks, and now even the ipod.

My hope is that with a little more attention to the real feelings my body is experiencing as my sore thighs and knees wheeze up the mountain, I can eventually move past some of this pain and reach another place of endurance. It’s like a second wave of amino acids is leaving my muscle tissue. Or maybe more emotional tension is surfacing. I’d like some advice on what a real physical therapist would tell me, or an acupuncturist. Someone who really understood the energy movement of the body. Anyone out there want to respond?

I’m questioning my motivations for this walk. So early on in my graduate school, it feels like an act of desperation, trying to prove that I have the capacity to make vital work in a completely different direction. I conceived of the idea somewhat out of frustration trying to have enough sense of purpose here. I am drawn to pieces that are about this kind of duration as a form of expression, or even a type of resistance to the lack of time we spend noticing ourselves in daily life. This is another discussion I’ll talk about more later, for now I’m wondering if really I’m just trying to prove something to my new community of friends. It’s the kind of questioning that could drive me crazy. Let it be said in writing that it does go deeper for me, but it’s extremely hard to feel that today. I’m struggling with that American urge to prove that I’m the best at something, that unquenchable drive that puts the prize at the end of the journey.

I’m hiking to get it over with today. I’m avoiding Sanity.

Day 11

October 21, 2007 Day 11

Intense weather today! I heard it pouring rain in the middle of the night and began wondering how it would be up there. I’m finding in general that the weather has been difficult to interpret. Sometimes it looks cold and is quite balmy outside, sometimes it’s looking warm and is intensely crisp and windy. I’m rarely dressed right. But today I dressed perfectly for the snow up top. It started as sleet this morning and by the time I reached the summit, Dana called on my cell phone to ask if I was ok. She said it was hailing golf balls 1500 feet lower. A lucky break to be on the peak of a mountain and have weather less severe than back in town. Beautiful little ice balls were falling and bouncing everywhere like costume pearls were turning into huge marbles below.

Dana and I picked out pumpkins today. It’s so great to go to a pumpkin patch. Each pumpkin is so fantastic, really. They’re the funniest vegetable, and yet so sincere!

By the evening, the snow had melted already and I felt deflated along with it. Not much like an artist. My muscles are getting achy. I went to a housewarming party of some friends and felt my hardrive moving at about 2 RPMs. I wish I weren’t so tired at night. My brain just shuts down after the hike, but I love that feeling too. It’s just sort of a drag for whoever’s around and for trying to get any late night schoolwork done. Not drinking is a life-saver, though or I’d never recover in my sleep.

Day 10

October 20, 2007 Day 10

I napped like three times today. Sunday seems to be the last chance to make rest happen. Still tired on the trail, though. Got home and made pumpkin bread and had leftover enchiladas we made Saturday.

On the hike, I realized I need to learn more about the history of this mountain. There’s one fascinating sign at a lookout over the valley that describes how a Sanitarium was placed at the base of the mountain in the late 1800s to help quarantine and treat patients suffering from Tuberculosis. Then it describes the quarry that was closed in 1969, where rock had been harvested to build some of the buildings on the CU-Boulder campus. The quarry was closed because it had become too dangerous. How dangerous? Did people die here? Who? I keep joking about Mt. Sanity partly because the word Sanitas means health. But “sanity” questions our ability to know when we’re in it.

I passed a guy running down the mountain with a shirt that read, “Run to Live.” Hmm. On the front it said, “Live to Run.” So, “Live to run and run to live.” Is that all there is?

Day 9

October 19, 2007 Day 9

So strange to hike on these weekend days. Saturday used to be when I’d have the time to hike. Now it feels like it should be a day off. I took it slow again, started a little later, right at sunrise rather than just before.

It occurred to me that if I’m going to make an effort to memorize this trail, I will have to begin by recognizing the large landmarks and then slowly fill in the gaps. Right now, I’m surprised how little I can describe the trail to someone. Still, it’s beginning to stick. I’d like to be able to memorize the whole thing and tell it to someone as they go. Right now, I remember this order:

the little bridge, then the first flat after the series of log stairs, then the first smooth rock climb to the Rhino Rock, then the next climb to the Power Lines, then the climb to the fallen tree with the roots of an anteater, then the brutal last 100 feet to the summit. Not very much if I were to do it blindfolded. On the way down there’s the two passages, then bullet hole rock, the lookout, the red soil and the mining road.

I imagined today how fascinating it would be to dictate to myself trail directions in a recording accurate enough to walk blindfolded. After closing my eyes while going downhill for a few feet, I realized the extraordinary feat this would be. I’m still going to consider it as I continue. I like how it plays with the mystery of the place informing my feet.

Then I thought it would be fun to bring a dog and film the whole trail from it’s point of view. That sounds a little more fun.

Day 8

October 18, 2007 Day 8

Today proved to be one of those uninspired times during ritual. Nothing felt special about the day. It felt like a tough hike up a big mountain that I see every day twice a day. The expected thrill has worn off and I’m facing the normality of it all. Intention can only get me so far. It would seem I’m just trying to get a good work out and get home in time for supper and bed. Or home in time after sunrise to get to work. At least today I got to take it really easy. I got to head home and spend a whole day doing the research for a major project. Creating the presentation for a class on Day 6 just about did me in. A frustrating lack of organization while presenting this Wednesday about my work made me feel more confused than ever about my direction in this walking project.

But I suppose this is familiar territory for me. I’ve begun to observe the inevitable standstills during creative projects at the peaks and valleys. The exciting parts are when ideas flood in or when the editors hand is cuts the excess out. During the pauses, nothing happens. I just show up. At least with walking I can walk. It seems impossible to know why, but at least I can walk. Just keep walking, I tell myself.

Today I had coffee. That gremlin can be so lovable sometimes.