Birthday Hike 2021

To say 2021 came with high expectations is an understatement. To say that 2021 has met said expectations is also an understatement. It depends on the expectations. The expectations were to continue to slow down time, to hold on to each moment, to live life in the crevices of yearning and achievement, joy and pain.

Birthday in 2021 was all about that. I revisited the NCT up in McConnells Hill State Park. Take the Slippery Gorge Trail which is a 6 mile hike purportedly takes 6 hours for the out and back. It starts with the rocks that form Walnut Basin. Thanks to snow from the last week and the well used trails, the rocks were really icy. I really regretted not taking my husbands advice on the ice-tracks. I did about 3 out and back, took the Kildoo Trail which was gorgeous on the way back. The gurgle of the Allegheny River all through and hide and seek with the sun made for a perfect hike, even though I managed only 3 ish miles in 3 hours.

Frozen Waterfall on the Kildoo Trail

Looking out into the river

Follow the blue blazes for the NCT on Slippery Gorge Trail

Trying to capture the sun

Thank god I didn’t take this trail

Hiking the NCT

I discovered the North Country Scenic Trail – NCT – when I made a camping reservation at the Allegheny (allay-gay-nee) National Forest (ANF) the only National Park property in PA. The NCT like its better know counterparts – AT and PCT – is a cross-country trail system starting from New York to North Dakota and goes through the Midwest.

I camped at Red Bridge Campgrounds. It was a quick drive to the Longhouse parking lot where I started my hike southwest. Nice campgrounds – outhouses and running water (showers were closed).

The ANF is an old forest – that cuts across towns and large chunks of Northern PA. Like a true forest, it’s a blissful refuge of large, tall hemlocks, pines among others. Made for a perfect fall hike.

Timeline

Wow this space has been quiet for over a year. I turned 40 this year and looked back here to a post from my 39th birthday. To say that nothing has changed is probably tinged with truth yet time has moved on and I feel older.

There were things I thought I would have accomplished. Made partner. Taken some trips. Not that much has changed and I find myself increasingly questioning the said timeline. Sure, everyone has their own timeline. I for one was all about keeping to it. I married on the timeline. I became a mother on a timeline. And I was progressing along well on my career.

And then my mother died. That was not part of the timeline.

So what is the timeline? Timeline for what? The next big thing? In between? How come the memories are always of the in between? Then is the in between all that matters? I’m a hiker. Think about the hike. Is it that overlook? That spring? That turnaround point? No. It’s always the in between. It’s the journey. Fuck the timeline.

Birthday post

Happy birthday to me. I want to write this to document how thankful I am to be here today – with mental health. If I look back to the last 15 months since my mother died, I’m thankful that I’m cognizant of how much I have because I valued none of it last year. I hated my life, my friends, my family and my reality because I couldn’t deal with my mothers death. Nobody could get me out of my funk. Nobody could show my life was worth enjoying. I’ve never known to want to die and I know what that feels like.

I’m thankful to many people and many things along the way. Many were hard knocks. Some were nurturing and shoulders to cry on. But everything contributed to feeling like I’ve come through the worst of it. Have I learned all my lessons? Probably not. I’ve learned some though. One hard one was I can’t ever trust how i feel. So i should stop thinking about it so much. And just, fucking let it go. Everything. Let it go. Letting go never felt better. Holding onto so much rage was exhausting. I still have it. That anger won’t die. But it is there for good reason now so i don’t forget the lessons. And I do almost everyday.

So from my last birthday till now it’s been a long year. A long year of rage and sadness. Where will I be next year?

Feb 4 2019

Kicked off the week with a cold run on what was actually an unseasonably warm day in Pittsburgh in February. Haven’t been in the throes of winter for a while during the bday week. Last year we had gorgeous weather in Texas and I took the day off for a hike with the hubs. This year no such luck though, we did get in a snow tubing fun day out on Saturday. I wanted to go skiing but it didn’t work out. So I was itching to go out and run. Well, the weekend progresses like it usually does. And the earliest I could get out was Monday morning. A balmy 38F, with a fog lifting from the sudden onset of heat, and the snow melting but not yet. The ice not wanting to run off into the earth. The fog fighting with the sun and losing out. It was a beautiful morning for a run in Pittsburgh.

My mother’s death turned 15 months old today. And I am grateful I am so much better than I was a year ago on this day. Dreading my looming birthday and not knowing how I’d face the day I was born in the face of her death. I’m still throttling at the thought of my birthday. How can my birthday still roll around when she’s not around? Some things in my head still don’t compute. It just doesn’t make sense.

The embers

“The embers are here to make us remember the fire”

– Arhan, 5

This weekend I thought about Ma a lot. It wasn’t anything in particular other than after a really long time it felt like a normal weekend at home. A weekend that had semblances of how things were with my family before she died. I woke up without feeling angry for a change. Or with undue anxiety. It was a weekend unlike any other, without any commitments after a long time. But somehow because it felt like a time long ago, the first thing I thought about inadvertently was that I had to call her. I hadn’t made that mistake in a long time. I used to a lot soon after she died. But then over time I became so angry and bitter that I was ever cognizant, yeah she’s not there. And that made me more angry.

I’ve been so angry for what it feels like such a long time that I’m an ember inside of myself. And I was about to flicker out.

But then I got tired of it. I got tired of feeling angry with everything. And it was a relief. I felt like I’d been waiting to exhale. It’s not like it’s behind me. But I’ll take this respite.

So several times this weekend I felt the urge to call her. To tell her about the snow that was coming. To tell her how we were preparing. How much her grandson was enjoying. Some inane stuff only she cared about. Ironically I never did feel that urge when I was angry. She would have just been upset. But today, I just wanted to talk. I wanted to talk to her so badly that I needed to get out. I went for a walk in the freezing temps. It was in the low teens. Cold and barren, I thought the freeze would help with the rage inside. And I wished she was there. And for what it’s worth, I saw her through what I’d been through in the last year or so. How close I’d come to losing my mind. And how I didn’t. Something that walked me off the ledge. That made me exhale. Must have been her. It was for her that I’d come close to give it all up. But something pulled me back. And I cried. I cried hot tears down my aching, frozen cheeks. I hadn’t cried like that in months just for her. Not for all the shit in my life but just for her.

So I exhale. And I inhale. And I keep moving on. But I move more easily. Not as heavy and leaden like before. I accept things as they are. And Simple Song by Passenger held me steady till I made it back home from my walk.

….”Well, I know it’s not been easy
But easy ain’t worth singin’ about
Yeah, I know, I know
The time goes slow
But it’s always running out…”

I came home to warmth, a fire and love. All of which have been here waiting for me. And so is she.

Lucky

Focusing more on the small stuff, and trying to parse through the crap and trying to find the nuggets of happiness in the little things is probably the way to go.

Pittsburgh is beautiful no matter the time of the year. There have been some awe-inspiring moments of beauty that have taken me by surprise and actually distracted me from whatever brooding I was stewing in at that time. From the fall colors to the stark beauty of the leaf-shorn trees in the winter and melting snow, I’ve taken sometime to pause and it’s worth journaling so I don’t forget about those moments too within the fog. Not the hours grueling through “work”, or frustrations of parenting or the sheer desolation in marital strain. But those moments of wonder when all I could say was, I’m lucky to be here.

So continuing on that theme in the new year, resolution around restitution of all that has frayed away, I start with a commemoration to the way I feel in Frick Park and every other park I’ve hiked in. I used to hike in Bull creek in Austin for its seclusion within the city, where you could hike a mile into the park and be surrounded by quiet. And now at Frick Park, where I can run a mile up into the hills in the park on a cold, crisp day – barely breaking a sweat and hear nothing but the birds. With soft music and a steady heartbeat again I felt today, I’m lucky to be here. I’d like to piece together more moments like this in this new year, looking not outside into my job, marriage, child, parent, parental loss and family, to live more within these moments when I just want to feel lucky to be here.

14 months and a new year

I’m stuck in a bad movie

That never ends

In which, the mother dies

and it never feels the same again.

2019 could be the year of annihilation. Or it can be the year of redemption. Or it can be the storm before the calm. Or it could be more of the same. Yet somehow it feels like I’m on the brink of disaster. I can’t say. I can’t trust anything anymore. Reality feels distorted. How can I be painfully cognizant of how much things have changed over the last 14 months and yet also be painfully tired of the sameness of the desolation inside my head. I’m unable to pull myself out of the monotony of a dutiful life and I’m unable to find the joy in the larger direction of my life.

So then perhaps 2019 is the year to look at the small stuff. To find peace in the moments between the ruckus and disquiet. That it won’t come easy is obviously and painfully apparent.

Perhaps 2019 is the year to not make any big decisions. Because nothing seems to be based on rational thought. There is only the wilderness of an emotionally bereft, winter-shorn forest inside. I feel strongly about one irrational idea and catapult to another, equally crazy, life-altering idea at the next instant. Anything seems like a possibility to remove the absolute sense of barrenness I feel. But it’s also filled with a sense of dread of oncoming desolation after. So no, 2019 is not about those decisions. It’s about breaking each component apart and seeing within and what meaning that brings to life. And how to rebuild it within those shards of meaning that may emerge out of the fractions that remain. So that’s what it’s about. The deconstruction and reconstruction of all that matters. Restitution.

Airports

Starting the second year of Ma’s loss. There’s nothing as desolate as solo air travel. I do it all the time for work but that’s driven by a purpose. Over the last 15 years after i migrated to the US, I’ve made multitudes of long air trips back home. I feel like if I could make a movie of the moments of my life as captured by those journeys it would say an awful lot about the circularity of my life. The seemingly straight line of life took me a long winding way back to where I felt I started. Life seems like a sum zero of nothing lost and nothing gained. Shunya.

I used to think life traveled in a straight line. I mean we age chronologically but nothing prepared me for the circularity I experienced with my life after my mother’s death. The first flight I took into independence from my family, moving to a new country unraveled in my head when I landed in Newark this time, back from my mother’s first death anniversary. As I walked from the plane towards immigration I was overwhelmed by the thoughts of my old Baba, looking lost and sad to see me off. I thought about the countless times they both saw me off at BOM, especially that last time in June of 2017 when she wanted to drop me. I thought about the first flight and landing in Chicago feeling lost and why i felt the same even though i was purportedly coming home. The sense and the lure of home still prevailed then. But this time I felt like I was walking on shifting sands. There was no home in India anymore. My mother is dead. My father lives in a room of a rented (but beautiful) apartment with my sister. There is no sense of familiarity in those streets. I got lost repeatedly when trying to return to the apartment during my trip. It frustrated me no end.

I feel without context. I feel like my past is enveloping me yet it cannot be further from where I am. Yet i feel like I’m moving in convoluted circles. I have vivid memories of old feelings that feel alien in my life today. That I had suppressed deep inside of me. The feeling I have towards my city of birth – the pain of loss of the city as it was, the thrill and headiness and the thrum of life that ebbs there and is so removed from my quiet life here. I chose this life. I chose the quiet and the predictable. But my mother’s death has opened up questions in my head about these choices I have made. I find myself asking why. What would the alternative have been. Would I have been less unhappy? Would I have been less at peace? What is it that I am seeking? Is it peace or is it the disquiet that was familiar? I don’t know. I have a perfect life. Beautiful family, a deeply loving husband, a successful career etc etc. Why does it all seem so transient?