Wild by Cheryl Strayed: A Cathartic Journey

Reading this book was not easy. I read it in spurts, the same way I prepared this post. It was like climbing a mountain because errands, procrastination and other distractions occupied some of my time. So reading the chapters of the book and typing sentences for the blog was also done in chunks. And this was difficult to comprehend since this book was hardly boring. In fact, it read so real, it was like taking the journey with the author herself while she trekked the Pacific Crest Trail by her lonesome, seeing the sights, feeling the sore muscles, the hunger, the heat, the pain. 

And though her challenging hike on the different mountain ranges of various states was in in no way comparable to the two smaller mountains I have climbed, the same thoughts reverberated on my mind especially when severe fatigue overwhelmed her at the onset of the hike. Her “Why am I doing this?” mental soliloquy was familiar.

“Within forty minutes, the voice inside my head was screaming, What have I gotten myself into? I tried to ignore it, to hum as I hiked, though humming proved too difficult to do while also panting and moaning in agony and trying to remain hunched in that remotely upright position while also propelling myself forward when I felt like a building with legs. So then I tried to simply concentrate on what I heard-my feet thudding against the dry and rocky trail, the brittle leaves and branches of low-lying bushes I passed clattering in the hot wind-but it could not be done. The clamor of What have I gotten myself into? was a mighty shout. It could not be drowned out. The only possible distraction was my vigilant search for rattlesnakes. I expected one around every bend, ready to strike. The landscape was made for them, it seemed. And also for mountain lions and wilderness- savvy serial killers.”

Hers was not only a physical journey but an emotional, spiritual one because after her mother died and after her  divorce, she needed something to put back order in her life. I guess she found catharsis on this arduous trail.

I stopped in my tracks when the thought came into my mind, that hiking the PCT was the hardest thing I've ever done. Immediately, I amended the thought. Watching my mother die and having to live without her, that was the hardest thing I've ever done. Leaving Paul and destroying our marriage and life as I knew it for the simple and inexplicable reason that I felt I had to- that had been hard as well. But hiking the PCT was hard in a different way. In a way that made the other hardest things the tiniest bit less hard. It was strange but true. And perhaps I’d known it in some way from the very beginning. Perhaps the impulse to purchase the PCT guidebook months before had been a primal grab for a cure, for the thread of my life that had been severed.

And I wonder if all hikers are looking for something to distract themselves, by embarking on a sometimes treacherous trek, why do they put themselves on a back-breaking ordeal? Are they trying to prove something to themselves or to others or is the mountain just a symbol? A symbol that they can conquer something more difficult than what they are facing in life. Because even though, the views are spectacular at the summit, the end part of the journey is really the ultimate gift. After scrambling over rocks, shrubs, dirt and enduring long hours of walking at an angle in over a hundred feet of elevation, it is that heady sense of accomplishment that you cling to after. Or maybe it’s just me and some people just like the view.

And I also know what the author meant when she talked about the part of descending a mountain. For me, that was the most difficult part of hiking even on a day hike because after fatigue have settled in your knees ascending, you have to brace yourself this time on each step going down because you can't help but catch  glimpses of a ravine on your side while the large pack strapped on you is weighing you down. Like her, I  made a mistake of carrying a heavy pack on my two hiking occasions and I paid for it a lot. I was so exhausted when I got to the top and someone had to help me carry it down because I was bone tired already. It was a significant lesson I will carry on my next hiking trip. Next time, lighter is better.

I began panting and sweating immediately, dust caking my boots and calves as the trail turned north and began to climb rather than undulate. Each step was a toil, as I ascended higher and higher still, interrupted only by the occasional descent, which was not so much a break in hell as it was the new kind of hell because I had to brace myself against each step, lest gravity’s pull cause me, with my tremendous, uncontrollable weight, to catapult forward and fall.

Then there was the part where she remembered her father and their tumultuous relationship. She remembered it at a time when she lost her boots and she had to decide whether to walk on sandals on a difficult terrain. It was a crucial part of her journey and I liked that portion of her memoir. It was about calling on that warrior within us, to have that grit to go on when we face difficult challenges and if we didn't learn that lesson from our father, we had to learn it for ourselves.

“Wounded?” was all I could manage.

“Yes,” said Pat. “And you’re wounded in the same place. That’s what fathers do if they don’t heal their wounds. They wound their children in the same place.”

“Hmm,” I said, my face blank.

“The father’s job is to teach his children how to be warriors, to give them the confidence to get on the horse and ride into battle when it’s necessary to do so. If you don’t get that from your father, you have to teach yourself.”

“But –I think I have already,” I sputtered. “I’m strong- I face things, I – “

“This isn't about strength,” said Pat. “And you may not be able to see this yet, but perhaps there will come a time- it could be years from now- when you’ll need to get on your horse and ride into battle and you’re going to hesitate. You’re going to falter. To heal the wound your father made, you’re going to have to get on that horse and ride into battle like a warrior.”

But the part that I really liked about this book was when she talked about being a writer. That whatever versions of herself she found herself in, she will always be a writer. I can also relate to that. Because even if I distract myself with other endeavors, my love for words, my yearning to write my thoughts and stories will always be difficult to suppress. I have to write. Moreover, her mention of books like those written by Flannery O’ Connor and William Faulkner which she read at night in her tent was also engaging. Indeed, to become a good writer, you have to read a lot. And a good book will always be a reliable companion anywhere.

…Of all the things I’d done in my life, of all versions of myself I’d lived out, there was one that dad never changed: I was a writer. Someday, I intended to write a novel of my own. I felt ashamed that I hadn't written one already. In the vision I’d had of myself ten years before, I felt sure I’d have published my first book now. I’d written several short stories and made a serious stab at a novel, but I wasn't anywhere close to having a book done. In the tumult of the past year it seemed as if writing had left me forever, but as I hiked, I could feel that novel coming back to me, inserting its voice among the song fragments and advertising jingles in my mind….I had nothing but a long hot day ahead of me anyway, so I sat at my picnic table and wrote until late afternoon.

Overall, this book had been cathartic and enlightening to me too. I understood now why I took up hiking in my late 30s. I know I still struggle with it but I'm still keeping on, researching other "manageable" summits I can try. If the author embarked on her journey after her mother died, I think I started it a few years after my son was diagnosed with autism. I have accepted his condition but conquering mountains have helped me to deal with it better because I feel that no other struggle would be so great after battling severe exhaustion, momentary fear and clambering over rocks and digging through dirt and soil on a side of a mountain.