Somewhere Good
I’m sitting on the floor, taking stock of things. This isn’t unusual, living with a dog, getting on her level and giving her belly rubs. I’ve spent a lot of time on the floor in this living room, in part dog inspired, partly those lockdown bad times, the initial sadness of having to stay away from people I loved, the cataclysmic grief experienced losing Luke. I don’t know that cancer brought floor time, definitely couch prone-ness. I wrote on the floor a lot, when I was working towards the end of my novel and after, as I edited it. It’s been a heady place, the floor. If not with the dog, then where I go to sort things out.
Happily, at the moment I’ve actually got my hands on something as I work here— I’m finalizing a packing list I’ve gone over and over for the last several months, less than fifteen pounds worth of gear I’ll be using for eight days for 96 miles of Scotland’s West Highland Way. I’ve never gone on a big through hike. Day hikes and endurance running efforts, yes, but never strung together more than two days with a large pack on my back. I’m going with a running friend— we’ve been planning for about a year. I’ve created a small world of obsession, whether finding the right places to stay (we won’t be wild camping and will be staying in camping huts and inns). I’ve been to REI an embarrassing amount of times. I’ve scoured the internet for the right things to take and have pored over tips form the Ultra Light hiking world, one which seems almost competitive, the keenest editor paring down what you’re carrying, to get as light a backpack as possible. I’m so excited to be leaving my small Brooklyn radius, the streets in my neighborhood and paths in Prospect Park which I’ve passed over thousands of times it seems, dog walking and running both often repetitive in nature.
I’m nervous as well. I tend to get fried and fall into migraines on heavy travel days, body rebelling and telling me I’ve taken on too much. The panic which goes along with that is miserable and memorable, especially when you travel. I’m nervous for my feet, never having asked them to put on miles like that. I’m nervous for my dog, staying at a sitter’s house. I’ve never left Edie with anyone but my family. Most days it’s just me and E being buds, working as a team. I don’t want her to think I’ve left her for good. It’s been over ten years since I was last in Europe, a long international flight a rare thing during this phase of life. But this is what travel is meant to do. I could use some shaking, mentally, the grooves in my routines become trenches, ones which I love, but also ones I could stand to climb out of.
There’s a tie-in to all the abstraction on the floor from before and the things in my hands going into my 43L backpack. I’ve had a harder time with the utility of certain kinds of abstraction since I had cancer. I traded writing for running and lifting when I used to like the balance of all those things at once. I’ve drifted from what I loved in writing fiction. When I got diagnosed, and I mentioned this, I just didn’t find the practice of writing fiction useful to my sense of security, my odds for survival. Doing hard things with my body felt essential, to prove that I still had one that wasn’t totally on the medical assembly line. I’ve had a hard time returning to Substack even, unable to bring my thoughts over to the page. I’ve really enjoyed tinkering in my mind and feel more confident about my ideas while still hopefully humble in the face of not-knowing, than I ever have. But there has seemed like an ocean in between my thoughts and words on a page that I just can’t cross.
This trip will give me tangible things. Not abstraction, but literal boots on the ground, point A to B, Milngavie to Fort William, 96 miles. If I’m not too tired I’d like to take you through parts of the trip, as we go town to town. I’ll try to write when I’m away, little missives from the highlands. I hope it helps my writing overall, easier to do the “and then” of a plot when you’re actually going somewhere. I hope I’m going somewhere good.