How Dreaming Begets Becoming
A dozen years ago, Old Smiley, Barrett, Patrick Brown and I often hiked the trails at Mt. Nebo State Park. Though we'd eventually graduate to 40-mile backpacking expeditions in backcountry wilderness, we took our first-grade lessons in Mt. Nebo's wooded classroom.
Like an old explorer, I sometimes relive past adventures, imagining in reflective moments that the march of time has somehow been halted for me. But Old Smiley has been gone for years, Barrett and Patrick are grown up, and I'd guess that I've made my last true wilderness trek.
But just last week I returned to Mt. Nebo, determined to test my bad knee on the four gentle miles of the Bench Trail. Bolstered only by memories and my good stout stick, I dropped down onto the Bench Trail from the Rim Trail around 10:30.
A frisky chipmunk immediately greeted me, bouncing through the leaves and performing a little ballet across the stones. His mesmerizing antics engrossed me until a slight movement instantly dispatched him to some secret chipmunk hidey-hole.
Previous trips had left me with a fuzzy recollection of a clump of boulders the boys had clambered up and over, but were they on this trail or another? Even old explorers can scramble facts.
Around noon, I nibbled my lunch in a forest quietness broken only by remarkable bird calls. Consisting of a slow sequence of seven sharp two-toned notes, the pattern varied not: high-low-high-low-high-low-high.
When one bird completed his septet, another echoed the same chorus. Then another... and another... until the first began again. This peculiar singsong had not abated when I rejoined the trail around 12:30.
Sadly, no other pirouetting chipmunk declared himself openly, though mysterious thrashings amongst the underbrush aroused my suspicions. But gray squirrels flicking up leaves in search of acorns and hickory nuts offered a worthy substitute.
Though I regularly exercise at the fitness center, tiredness overtook me more quickly than expected. A mile from my goal and weary, I elected an alleged shortcut straight up the side of the hill. But after making a wrong turn and then losing my cell phone and backtracking to find it, I'm not sure I gained anything.
Before the trip, my memory had convinced me that I was still a young man with sufficient get-up-and-go to actually get up and go. But my body corrected that misconception.
Still, by healthy eating and vigorous exercise, a future expedition--perhaps in the real wilderness--might not be completely out of the question. Even for an old explorer who loses track of boulders.
The mind is a perfect time machine, letting me glory both in yesterday without its troubles, and in tomorrow without its limitations. Dreaming begets becoming.
Copyright 2004 James McAlister
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