June 17, Day 2. Turtlehead.

Monday, June 17. Hikeathon Day 2. I hiked 16.33 mikes along the trails at Turtleback and Turtlehead Preserves, and climbed 3115 ft. 

Dear Trail Friends

I woke early this morning and thought it was just a few minutes before my alarm (set for 3:45am). But as I headed for the car I discovered it was only 3:15am, so I had woken at 2:40am and misread my watch. It didn’t make sense to go back to bed, so I headed for the trail, and started hiking at 3:40am. 

One good thing about my mistake was that I got to see the full moon - first on my drive over and then to my surprise at Turtlehead. (Photo 1)

The other good thing is that much of the Turtleback trail is an old road, much easier to follow in the dark than most of the trails I’ll be walking. 

Turtlehead has a pretty amazing view. On one side I could see the moon preparing to set, on the other the rising sun. (Photo 2). I didn’t feel so bad about misreading my watch when I stood there looking first one way, then the other. 

I was happy to be walking through beauty contemplating summer, but I was also exhausted. I remember that even on the trail (the “real” trail, when I went out for weeks or months at a time backpacking), after months of training (and I admit I did not train for this hikeathon), the second day tended to be really tough, so that I wondered if I could do this after all. Usually the first day was “wow, this isn’t as hard as I expected” and by the third day it was “this is hard but I can do it.” But the second day was “where in the world did I ever get the idea that I could do this?”

But you know, trail friend, there is something sweet, almost delicious, in being totally exhausted. When I sat down for a late lunch at the Ship Peak viewpoint (usually I think of 10:30 am as a very early lunch, but not when I’ve already been hiking for 6 1/2 hours) my body just melted into thatcplace and that moment of being. I just didn’t have the energy to resist the beauty of what was all around me.  I watched flowers and butterflies, gazed at the peaceful view, (photo 3) and enjoyed the total emptiness of mind that is physical exhaustion’s sweetest gift. I also had a phone conversation with my brother Scott about our ongoing concern for our sister Bonnie - and I felt a whole lot more detached and reflective than I usually do talking about our sister’s very difficult life and the challenges we face trying to respond lovingly but maintain self-care as well. It was wonderful to feel held by the beauty, and to feel my love for both Scott and Bonnie supported by the beauty and my empty mind.  Come to think of it, I think the empty mind of physical exhaustion is for me tranquil in the way I imagine that decades of Buddhist practice bring tranquility.  My mind just doesn’t head down the habitual neural pathways of fear and catastrophe. Maybe that’s why I live the trail so much.  It’s a mind altering drug (that teaches me how to love it so much)!

I meditated as I walked today about summer. I realized two of my earliest memories were probably summer memories - sitting on earth in the garden with my mother while she plants seeds and uses seed envelopes as signs, and releasing into the world a monarch butterfly (whom we raised from a caterpillar and who  has just emerged from her chrysalis and crawled onto my finger). My mother was in medical school but she had summmers off to be with her children. 

I also remember spending summers with my mother after the divorce, especially at her house in rural Lakeside with its grove of peach trees, corn field (with cantaloupes growing between the rows of corn), vegetable garden, dog, donkey and horse. I thought of that summer even at the time as a kind of paradise. 

It was fun to think of shuffling my memories like a deck of cards and then sorting them by season. It felt like a different kind of life review from one that focuses on chronology and narrative thread. 

Walking beside the blossoming Ocean Spray, I was struck by how it glowed in the morning light. We had a big Ocean Spray (tree? Shrub?) growing near our garage/guesthouse (which doubled for many years as both my office and our summer home, when we used to move out and rent the “big house” as a vacation home). As I watched the flowers I thought of the association of Aphrodite and sea foam (which Chris says may have been invented by Hesiod and have no basis in earlier myth - but I do picture her arriving on a clam shell as in Boticelli’s painting, and the Oceab Speay blossoms today seemed worthy of ushering in the goddess of love). 

So I seem stuck with this metaphor - yesterday the sea of ferns, today waves and waves of shining Ocean Spray. There does seem to be a deep association for me between the feeling of summer and bodies of water that beckon, as Aphrodite beckons, to pleasure and love. Photos 4, 5 and 6 are trying to capture the morning light on the Ocean Spray, and the sense of waves. 

I’m not sure I have much more to say today. I am still pleasantly exhausted but grateful as always for this opportunity to reflect and share. Thank you for walking with me and I look forward to seeing you on the trail tomorrow. I think we will probably be walking on trails that focus on water tomorrow (lakes, creeks, a glimpse of the sea). 

Until then, I hope you are enjoying this summer day. (Okay - summer doesn’t officially begin until Friday, the last day of my hikeathon. But since I dedicated this hike to summer, I am already feeling summer all around me. Bear with me that it’s not quite literally true. )