I start the Sonoran desert hike just before 9 am, the rocky peaks of the McDowell mountains a crisp outline against the cloudless blue. The trailhead has its own concrete overhang, complete with bathrooms and a park employee who reels in a trio of blondes: is this your first time here? The first mile is gonna be your hardest, he tells them as I look ahead to bobbing heads snaking through switchbacks, groups of threes and fours sheltered under bucket hats and ballcaps.
He is right. The first mile of the trail is a hard 800-foot climb past buckhorn chollas and mesquite, hedgehog cactus and cottontop. It takes me 30 minutes of breath and sweat. I exchange cordials, the good mornings and the shared sympathies, the "never seen a hiking Corgi" and the "it's easier on him than me". I admire cute hiker outfits and notice all the neon shoes. But I keep my head down a lot, attempting solitude so I can pay attention to my swarming thoughts. Â It wouldn't be you if you didn't question everything, Austin says to me now and again, and often the act of questioning is indulgent, especially when shared. But other times it isolates and exhausts, oscillating between peaks of optimism and pessimism, truth and illusion.
Is it always easier to enjoy something when simply passing through? What's the balance between passing through, staying a while, and staying too long--is there such a thing as "too long" when "forever" is never guaranteed? If evolution is the end-goal for everything we do (where we live, where we work, who we're with, how we spend our time), how exactly do you measure that--how do you weigh the benefits of spontaneity and disruption against the benefits of preservation?
The West calls to me again and again. I asked my dad the other day: I love it here, but would it start to feel old if I lived here every day? Of course, he responded, but you'll still always have the perfect days when you can sit out and enjoy. I've been really good this last year about "enjoying"- I've been really good about saying one day at a time while also feeling confident enough about the present to project into the future. But I have a harder time on "down" days, days like today when I contemplate whether my whole future will feel as disconnected, detached as I'm feeling in this moment. Days where I feel reckless and impulsive, where I search for something to awaken me, change me. How do you "enjoy the present" when all around you, ten feet in front and fifty feet behind, there's footsteps, loud chatter, exhales that invade your space?
As I hike, I think about how coming to Arizona these last few years has been a pilgrimage to celebrate spring--to celebrate change: the last vibrant blooms of the desert and pleasant days before summer sinks into this city's pores, kicking up dust and flames. I think of all the ways my life has changed between each mark on the map, and how I correlate that to the people I've met along the way--how strangers become friends who nurture and inspire and help deliver me to a higher sense of self. I think about this now, surrounded by people I will probably never know. Instead of talking to them, I listen. I hear women talking about exercise routines and stepping on the scale. I hear "I was driving around with an old man and he never once said anything inappropriate." I hear about a guy named Chris who’s "so smooth" with the ladies. And then I hear a woman telling her friend about her coworker who gave birth and hopped on a work call the next day. "People like that impress me," her friend responded, "While I'm like, 'oh I guess I'll take a shower today!'"
I think so often of motherhood these days but still reject it so easily, so brazenly. While others talk about the state of the world, my reasons are much more selfish: I do not want my own life to be in servitude to someone else--not for five years, or ten, or fifteen. I can rationalize child-rearing, admire it--I can envy women who have an instinct for it, a core and driving desire. My brother-in-law believes fatherhood is a man's "next evolution", and I wonder, is motherhood not the same? Isn't evolution the experience of moving from self-centeredness to true empathy, acceptance, love--from moving away from individualism, not toward? Is motherhood a shortcut, just one of many paths?
A little more than a mile into the hike, the trail dips down almost a hundred feet before rising for the finale, the last mile to Tom's Thumb: a giant granite bolder at 3,800 feet with panoramic views. There are a fair number of people at the top, but it’s not overflowing — I have time to stand alone on the big boulder and gaze at the ascent, a thin line from this vantage point that snakes up the grade. I take a few photos and hike back down to a boulder I’d passed on the way up: a perfect snack spot, overlooking the foothills but tucked just far enough off the path that most people pass it by. From the vantage point, I can see for miles and miles--ridges of mountains flank the valleys of civilization between: ancient earth brushes up to new construction and self-driving cars. The breeze is a little chilly even in my long sleeves, so I don’t stay long. I eat my crunchy breakfast cookies and let the crumbs into the wind.
Back on the main path, I eavesdrop as I wait for the people to clear one of the outlooks. There's two guys, probably in their 20s, and a middle-aged woman. Strangers, who just met. They talk about their journeys from the Northeast to the West, how they came from cities of snow to mountains and valleys of sun. "I've been wanting to get back here for 40 years," the woman says. "Arizona makes you feel--"
"It makes you feel happy," the guy interrupts.
On my descent, I veer off the main trail onto the East End Trail, which juts perpendicular from the path and leads deeper and deeper into the McDowell Sonoran Preserve. I think back to 2018 when I was walking the Rainie Falls path in Oregon, and how desperately I felt the desire to never turn around. Today I know no one is waiting for me— no one will call to ask where I am, no one will think I’m selfish for taking my time. I actually don’t feel like walking forever. So I sit down and stretch out my legs. I mini-meditate, breathing in and out in meters for three minutes--a new habit I'm trying to build. A recommended habit exactly because of days like today, when I question over and over how anyone can ever truly know themselves, and how much of the things we say we want or don't want are healthy versus unhealthy reactions to our past. Inhale, the robo-voice tells me against a haptic buzz.
I close my eyes, open them, look around. A green hummingbird shimmers by in fast flight, sipping the nectar of abundant mountain yellow. A lizard rustles through the brush.
Exhale.
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