Wednesday, February 18, 2009

On the Derivation of a Word
or Why I Can’t Travel So Far
or A Place Midway Between Here and There

or How Does Halfway Sound ?




Why I Can't Travel So Far

I
The word frightened misses the mark. Scared reminds me of the time I heard creaks in the basement while reading a horror story. How did the doppelganger get into my house?

Petrified, disquieted, unnerved, perhaps cowed.

II

Try another list of synonyms. Start with a different word.

III

Hesitant. Reluctant. These words inch closer to my reality. Some people love taking risks--athletic risks, intellectual risks, monetary risks. I did roller skate down an alley way and come to a rapid stop before hitting a brick wall. In North Carolina I used a towel to slide down a slick rock fed by a small waterfall. After landing in a deep-water filled depression, I imagined myself plunging down Niagara Falls in a barrel. When hiking I love edges and don't hug canyon walls. But I'm not strapping on crampons and scaling rocks.

I do the daily puzzle and the puzzle on airplanes in ink. Is that arrogance or toying with risk?

I'm reluctant to travel to places where I can't pronounce the disease listed as endemic to the region. I don't want to take pills to protect me from malaria. I'm hesitant about going someplace where the water is suspect.

I'm hesitant about heading off into places that require me to travel for hours on end. Give me the Southwest and canyon country. Let me breath the orange, red, pink, and yellow landscape.

I'm good for six or seven hour plane trips.

IV

You know all those travel books written by intrepid adventurers. I devour them. I am the penultimate traveler--on paper. I've encountered devastating heat crossing the Gobi Desert, numbing cold in Antarctica, quicksand lapping at my heels, and a mamba snake, head held high, racing across level ground.

V

Thanks for the invitation— but— I can't make it halfway around the world this spring.

VI

Do you like Utah's canyon country? Fairyland Trail at Bryce?

The land beyond the 100th meridian? “A sign across U.S. Highway 30 in Cozad, Nebraska marks the place where the meridian intersects the routes of the Oregon Trail, Pony Express, transcontinental railroad…”

The Appalachian Trail when it climbs up Mt Katahdan? Walking the Knife's Edge? A jagged arête.

The Great Beach at Pt. Reyes? Searching for polished rocks, watching out for sneaker waves.

Do you enjoy swimming in the icy water off Maine's coast?


Hiking at Capitol Reef "with its twisting canyons, massive domes, monoliths and spires of sandstone"?

Walking through the wildflowers of Mt Rainier? Shooting Star, Alpine Paintbrush, Red Heather, Beargrass…



VI

Let’s find a place midway between there and here.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Let us meet at Pt. Reyes, even if only on paper. We won't worry about sleeper waves.

February 19, 2009  

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