July 27, 2011
My
last night in society ended perfectly after a spectacular day in Denver. Once
the phone’s clock hit midnight, my luck came to a sudden end. I woke up
abruptly like I had many times on the plane. I couldn’t really tell if I was
fully awake or in a daze. But this morning, I remained awake thanks to my
horrendous tummy ache. It still was nagging me for three days now.
Yesterday, we actually
consumed the toxin-filled water from the Platte River. I was giving Will a demo
on how to filter water with the Platypus Gravity Filter. This morning, at the
crack of dawn, I realized the filtration had no impact on that filthy, flowing
water. I only drank two or three sips because my stomach ached from thirst.
I’m unbelievably picky
when it comes to water and its tastes. Typically, I have found taste is affected
by temperature. The Platte River was lukewarm. So I gave up trying to drink
poisonous water and faced being thirsty. When Will dozed off on this patio in
Common Park by the river, I tried a second water fountain that also didn’t
work. Pushed by thirst, I compromised my water standards. Yes, I filled the
water bottle from a park bathroom sink that stank from the shit smeared all
over the stall. The whole quest for water put me in a crappy mood.
Anyways, the river water
didn’t have any immediate influence on my stomach pains. So by 1 a.m. the next
day, I woke up to the sound of Katy Perry playing in my head. Fireworks
and the thought of diarrhea infested my brain to the point where all I could do
was doze off for a few minutes and wake up to the same verse in her songs. I
hate playing mind games. I try so desperately to convince myself that my
stomach’s hurt will exit my body by taking a number two rather than coming back
up the top hatch.
By dawn, the pain had
made its way low enough for me to be convinced I could rid myself of the pain
by taking a number two. (I have a mental line drawn on my tummy that, when pain
crosses below it, I wait patiently for my intestines to kick in.) When I had
waited long enough for daylight to peep through the curtains, I braved the
eight-step trip to the bathroom.
 |
| Platte River |
Diarrhea didn’t resolve
anything. In fact, it opened up more space in my belly for me to feel the pain
lurch around even more. I called it quits after sitting patiently on the toilet
for fifteen minutes as Lisa’s cat ponderously stared at me. (The kitten was
kept in the bathroom so he would not disturb Will and me as we slept. Poor guy.)
So after locking the
kitty back in his lair, I tried to fall asleep. Successful until Will’s
obnoxious alarm went off, I had my eyes closed for about a complete hour. The
alarm somehow restarted and worsened the pain. I mumbled to Will, asking for
the garbage can, which was thankfully brought to me in the nick of time.
I dry heaved twice.
Nothing came but an upward-yank feeling on my groin with each heave. I changed
my position from a shoulder-holding-my-weight stance to a cross-legged yoga
position. The Whole Foods paper bag, which served as a garbage can, was fitted
between my legs as I heaved a third time. Finally something came up. The lights
were off so I couldn’t tell what meal the chunks came from. My eyes were
watering by the fourth heave. Subsequently, my nose began to drip; an
uncontrollable side effect from putting contacts in daily and having my eyes
run with the saline solution. I was ergo, unable to smell the typically nose
piercing smell that puke emits.
This untimely fiasco
forced me to forfeit my eggs and bacon that we excitedly bought the night
before, anticipating our final meal in society. Will, along with Lisa’s dog,
Colby, shared my serving as I drank a stomach-soothing tea prescribed by our
hostess. It worked. But the reality of the day ahead loomed over me; hiking in
the high altitude of the Rocky Mountains.
-
Once in Denver, we were
on Lisa’s time. We eventually got to the trailhead after driving through the
luxurious city of Boulder. Adorned by Colorado University’s red terracotta,
Boulder was quite the launch pad for our adventure. Lisa brought Colby, the best-behaved
Border collie I have met. He endured the windy 10,000 foot ascent next to me in
the back seat. On any other day, my stomach would have been fine. But shortly
after recuperating from this morning’s surprise, the poor thing (my stomach) was
viciously attacked by altitude sickness. In addition to stomach mayhem, I
became dizzy. But once inside the gates of Indian Peaks Backcountry, we pulled
over for a much needed bathroom break.
The ride into the
mountains made me feel like I was five years old. You can fight altitude
sickness, so I am told, with water. Let me point out that my three piece
dilemma that I face while trying to feel better. First off, my stomach was a
mess and was not in the mood for any (liquid) medicine to take up space in its
region in my body. Second, I played some more mind games and drank a water
bottle flavored with a spoonful of pomegranate tea. Third, the combination of
the two prior components made me pee for a minute and fifteen seconds straight
once we finally got 18 year old Jacky-baby to a latrine. My, oh my how nice
that latrine was (especially compared to some of the latrines back home in the
Blue Ridge Parkway…)
Lisa offered me some
alternative, hands-on remedy for my remaining, but subtle pains. Her practice was
an interesting amalgamation of tapping different body parts that possessed high
concentrates of energy. Apparently these areas had nerve endings that sent
messages, like all other nerves, more effectively to my brain.
Lisa happens to be the
managing editor for Integrative Medicine: A Clinician's Journal (as well as senior editor, two separate executive editor
positions, and associate editor for four other periodicals.) She started
tapping my Crown Chakra (which, interestingly enough, in this line of work, she
did not refer to it is as such.) Still, she moved from tapping the center of my
head to a second point located below my eye, next to where my nose meets the
rest of my face; that little crevice there where sleep catches. There were an
additional six places, one of which possessed a lot of energy in my instance;
the collarbone. I repeated some lines while she tapped: “I fully accept and
love my body, even though my tummy hurts me.” Lisa explained that using
positive statements surpassed using negative ones (which, she elaborated, were
initially used in this line of work before a modern shift to positive optimism.)
The tapping of the nerve endings would stop my mind from thinking that my
stomach was sick-or, at least, that was my understanding of her practice. On a
scale of 1-10, my pain dropped from a six to a two after three separate rounds
of tapping. Talk about mind games! |
| At the intersection of trails, looking back towards Boulder |
Lisa and Colby came
about a quarter to a half mile into the trail with Will and me. The late-July
snow forbid her leather, work sandals to go no further. My same hiking tee
shirt and zip off pants I used in the Virginia Appalachia fared just as well in
this thick, avalanche-prone snow! The temperature must have been the
always-perfect-72 degrees with a crisp breeze. Yet, the snow didn’t look like
it was going anywhere any time soon.
We departed from Lisa
and Colby after a few Alp-like background photographs were snapped. Will and I
made our way to the intersection of Mt. Audubon trailhead and our path. Mt.
Audubon somehow loomed over us in the northwest even though we started at the
parking lot at roughly 10,000 feet. To say the height of these mountains was
daunting would be to discredit their awe-inspiring presence; imminent and
inescapable.
I fell immediately back
into the same dull, divided mindset I had on the Appalachian Trail back home in
Virginia. Up until we started a slight descent, I didn’t feel much at all.
Because ascents have me looking at my
feet, my physical and mental energies were channeled elsewhere. Out of nowhere
came a wave full of emotions with the breeze. It touched my body, heart, and
soul in one swift gust of God’s breath. I almost cried. Multiple aspects of my
surroundings, feelings, future, and family formulated this abrupt mood swing.
 |
| Sawtooth Mountain |
To explain, here’s the
origin of the effects on my body. I was undergoing a delayed reaction to the
altitude. When the fact of the matter of trekking at 10,000 feet hit my
lungs, I felt an inverted high from the lightheadedness. On top of my bodily
reaction was my heart’s. Switching from burning to aching in an instant as any
young heart might, I missed my family. It was only the second day from home, or
technically, the first full day. Even
though I was hiking with my best friend and role model, I felt the distance
between the rocky peak I was walking beneath and the rolling Blue Ridge at
home. For the first time ever, I experienced a realer, more forceful sense of
independence and solitude.
The vast mountains, not
hills, stretched high into the clouds forcing me to feel almost abandoned; I
could not physically have what my heart yearned, whereas home fenced everyone
and everything within a reasonable distance. It’s undoubtedly indicative (as the
feeling still weighs my heart even now as I write this) of my departure for
college. With that concept identified, the distance grew even farther as its
inevitable reality is now only 23 days away. In this quick sense of
desperation, I listened to God’s voice in the over-used “Be not afraid, for I
am with you” quote. Being this high in the sky, I am almost certain one of the
archangels whispered the same words Gabriel whispered to Mary into my soul.
-
While my Senior Project
on the AT was titled “Spirituality in the Mountains,” I must confess that the
spirits here are incredibly different from the inhabitants of the Blue Ridge.
Appalachia emanates an innate sense of ancient and tribal spirituality. The
Rockies, from what I can tell from Day 1, maintain an intimidating, but
strikingly beautiful, emotion-stirring animus,
prana.
Different sects of
Christianity describe a similar, but virtually nonexistent-in-today’s-world
term of “fear and awe of the Lord.” And in the Rockies this first night, I
immediately thought of some Augustinian, if not Aquinas’ reasoning paraphrased
as “the Lord God created the heavens, and the earth, and the race of Man.
Because God created us, we are inherently and consequently made with some sort
of essence of God.”[1]
I have no doubt that I feel God’s presence within His creation of both me and
the mountains and to feel that clear unity shared between both of us was primordial.
These first-time-felt
feelings left me as we continued descending. My body was running on a cup of
tea as we eventually stopped to snack. The photos we’ve taken can say more than
the thousands of words I’d struggle to find in order to describe the scenery
here. We, or rather I alone, continued to struggle adjusting to the altitude
while Will checked the map at the many stops my shallow breathing necessitated throughout
the day.
The combination of both
his and my wrongs had us thinking we were much further along than we really
were. My fault was obvious; out of shape (or just poorly adjusting to the new
climate.) His was the repeated checking of the map (which was directly my fault
for having us stop frequently.) Still, the frequent map checking is a disease.
Sometimes short-term, hikers face it when they start out on a trail for the
first time. It’s a very cruel and unusual
disease since we could cure it if we just put the map away….
So with both faults
being committed incessantly and more frequently as we passed our predestine 12
o’clock finish, we stopped for a two-thirty Ramen lunch. We were caught in a
cold drizzle. Very interesting to note: Will said the rains come consecutively
at noon every day, but we lucked out
and got it two and half hours later. It’s probably five-thirty as I finish
writing this after two, if not three hours since we stopped here; two, if not
three miles short of the lake Will initially planned for us to stop at for the
day. There’s some river passing nearby, and we’re almost in the shadow of a
couple mountains. The one huge comfort that consoles me is my book: The Game of Thrones! I look forward to
reading it after I get out of this tent to pee! The rains left, came again, and
now left us with puffy white clouds. Though, those seem to be leaving. The blue
sky fills in the cracks between the puzzle-pieced clouds as the sun begins to
set.
I lied. It’s actually
6:40! Gotta pee!
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[1]
Now back among resources, I was able to do some “lite research” to figure out
what I was trying to say. In the Catechism of the Catholic Church I found the
same idea I was trying to convey in several areas. Firstly, “‘God created man
in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he
created them.’ (Genesis 1:27.) Man occupies a unique place in creation: he is “in
the image of God”; in his own nature he unites the spiritual and material
worlds; he is created “male and female”; God established him in his friendship.”
(CCC, 355.) Secondly, “But this “intimate and vital bond of man to God”
(Gaudium et Spes, 19, 1.) can be forgotten…”(CCC, 29.) That bond is described
as such: “From the very
circumstance of his origin man is already invited to converse with God. For man
would not exist were he not created by Gods love and constantly preserved by
it; and he cannot live fully according to truth unless he freely acknowledges
that love and devotes himself to His Creator.” (GS 19, 1.)
