I am moving to Brooklyn in a few weeks. This is the end of my Southward travels. My bike is sadly disassembled in a box. This abrupt shift in life plan has led to some very poignant questions: What do you do for a living? What are you going to do with your life? What is your thirty second elevator speech?
Well, to begin with, I haven’t been in an elevator for several years.
I need to revise my resume. Who am I? What have I done in the past few years? I would probably be listed as itinerant or destitute by most federal agencies. I would definitely fit into the category of ‘disgruntled worker’ in an economic census. I have virtually no physical manifestations of what I have been doing with my life. It helps to look back. This is what I was doing on this very day in recent years:
I wrote the following in my journal on a motorcycle trip in India seven years ago on October 16th:
“Left this morning after an okay breakfast. We cruised some beautiful mountain and coastal roads with no idea where we were going. I have finally gotten a real good hang of banking the bike around turns, which is a blast.
Finally we got to highway 17 and we were forced to blow around a police roadblock. It was a thrill. I am now sitting in a beach villa writing since we cannot return until later due to the police roadblocks.
Leaving later had no effect on the police presence, which lead to us blatantly blowing through about 3-4 police roadblocks. The force was apparently stepped up due to the once a year unveiling of the ‘Infant Jesus’ in Culver, which draws people from all over Goa.
Blowing through one police roadblock I actually made eye contact with cop as he stepped in front of my bike and clearly motioned me to the side. I motioned to him that I was pulling over and started pulling to the side, and then hammered down on the throttle and took off.
After consciously avoiding police several more times, we made it back to Baga for the night. We were delayed since Anthony suffered a front tire blowout. We had to go to a shady shack in the woods to get it fixed. The guy there guessed we were from the states right off for the first time, but I believe that it is due to the fact that we were smoking Camels. They patched the tire, but the power had been out all day, thus they said they could not fill it. The power miraculously switched on and off we went.
We got back to Baga and checked in at Traveler’s Guest House. We ate and went out for drinks since it was our last night together.
We were playing pool at the bar and getting pissed, it was a blast. We were the only customers thus the bar tender felt free to produce a hash joint which I promptly smoked with him. I feel asleep after sitting at Maioka for a while again.”
Five years ago I was living in the Central Yucatan in a small village called Xpujil where nobody spoke English and I spoke a modicum of Spanish where I wallowed in post-graduation confusion.
Here is some of what I wrote as I was hitchhiking through Chihuahua two years ago on October 16th:
“We decide to hitchhike to Recusarare Falls and start our walk South out of town to hitchhike from the rotunda. It is a beautiful morning and there are cottonwoods with their leaves changing. We get to the rotunda and there is virtually no traffic; I am worried that I am going to look like an idiot for pushing this plan forward. We are chatting with a local guy after waiting for 30 minutes or so and a family in a pickup rolls by and throws us in back with a brand new big screen TV. Miriam and I have shit eating grins on our face for the whole ride. Once again, the best way to see the world is from the back of someone else’s pickup.
We get dropped off and start our hike down. We are going along a creek bed and through lush stands of ponderosa pine. There is a group of donkeys grazing in one meadow where two small streams converge; I try to pet them but they will have none of it. The trail winds into more rugged terrain and there are many Tarahumara women about, all industriously working on artisan crafts: baskets, scarves, belts, bracelets. All of it good quality. They are selling it, but will not say anything to us but a quiet, muttered ‘buenos dias.’ All with the most piercing black eyes that the indigenous people of Central America have and bright dresses.
After laying out on the rocks in the midday sun to warm up, we head down canyon through a boulder choked canyon with blue pools in between. Everything is mossy and lush, yet littered with the remnants of globalization in the form of Coke bottles and Frito bags. All of this requires a lot of jumping and bouldering. Miriam says in English how doing this makes her feel alive; I couldn’t agree more. I find a super creepy dolls head and put it into my backpack. We finally reach a pretty tricky point and decide to turn back.”
A year ago today I was training to ride my bicycle South.
Eight months ago I arrived in Guatemala and randomly met a girl named Lauren in Guatemala who had taken a four hour car ride with my mom at one point before deciding to travel to Guatemala after hearing about my adventures.
Seven months ago I decided to quit my job, break up with my girlfriend in Utah, and stay in Xela, Guatemala after staying up all night watching a volcano erupt.
Two weeks ago I was training and prepping to ride North through Mexico with Lauren.
Ten days ago Lauren received an email from a friend regarding a job opening that was essentially her dream job.
Seven days ago she accepted the job on the condition that we move to Brooklyn within three weeks.
Here are some excerpts from conversations in the past week:
‘Dad. I wanted to let you know before anyone else that Lauren accepted a job in Brooklyn that starts in a few weeks. We aren’t going to do the bike trip anymore and will be home in a week or so.
So you called to tell me that you are becoming a barrista?’
–
‘I spent a summer living there once. To succeed, to survive, you need to be angry. Don’t worry though, you will become angry just by living there.’
–
‘The East Coast is weird. People there care where you went to highschool, what your parents do for a living. I had a boyfriend’s dad ask me my SAT score the first time that we met, apparently he does it to all of his kids partners.’
–
‘How are you going to live there? How do you have any money left? I think I should explain this to you since you have been in Guatemala so long: having three figures in your bank account shouldn’t make you feel rich.’
–
‘You could probably get a job cleaning the building where Lauren works or maybe making tortillas. Cuatro por cinco!
Yeah…. I am going there like an immigrant with everything that I own strapped to my back and no clue as to the future. I am like a cockroach though, I know how to adapt and survive.’
–
‘I saw this movie with Michael J. Fox where he went to work for a publishing house in New York, something you could do since you like writing, and he rose up to editor from copy boy. He did it by snorting mounds of cocaine and staying up all night.’
–
‘Don’t worry, there are plenty of weird people like you there. Everyone is doing something interesting.’
–
‘Hahahaha. I can’t imagine you there. Good luck adjusting to the sedentary life!’
–
‘I get self conscious when I am there. There are literally flocks of supermodels roaming Manhattan. Flocks of them!’
–
Yesterday I was vexed with anxiety over what I am going to do in Brooklyn, over where I am going with my life. I have not built my life around work like the hypertrophied, ravenous, career professionals for which New York is famous. I have traveled extensively, met incredible people, learned another language, read hundreds of books, and discovered more about myself and humanity than I ever could have imagined. How do I reorient all of this to sound like I am a valuable and diligent worker?
How am I qualified for this position? Honestly, I am probably not.
Today I am reflecting on my life. I have chosen the path that I walk, over and over again, yet all too often I look back in frustration at its sinuous course. I navigate through life with my values as a compass, often leading myself in directions that are confusing to others and myself. I don’t really know where I am going, but as usual I feel good about it. I haven’t had a boring chapter in a long time and I am sure that this one will be no different. It is just a continuation of the adventure, of my life.
The coyote called today from Juarez; he wants the money before the month is out. He threatened the milpa in San Pedro Matagallinas again. The farm isn’t worth anything anymore; the rains never come on time and we can only grow maize. The seeds and fertilizer are expensive. It is home though. Carlitote and Josephinita need new school uniforms, they need books, they need a future. I need tortillas. There is not enough work. There is the rooster though, The Gallo de Oro.
I promised him a peaceful life in the North as we waded across the Rio Grande. It cannot be though; there is a greater fight. He will strut under the lights of the ring once more, squaring off against a sleek, bowled cockerel with filed talons raised behind a bodega in the Bronx. The Gallo de Oro is hard and lean from the free range; he has fought in Hormigas, in Hermosillo, in Tecpatan, in Cholula, in Nogales, in Juarez. The pluck has seemed to have gone out of him with his departure from the ring; he was meant to dance. And so it will be. I am the Gallo de Oro.
I enter the fray, no limit to my potential other than my own ambition. I am working in an office with my face against my palm as the fluorescent lights bleach my soul. I am stressed; my teeth hurt from grinding them at night. I stand up to shovel Chinese food into my mouth as I peer out on the shimmering lights of the city from an office building, exhausted from a frantic night of scribbling out the nonsense that is in my head onto a white board, only to be interrupted as someone taps me on the shoulder to hand me a comically oversized check. I twirl in Time Square, reveling in the brilliant light of the utmost manifestation of the material dream. I see Thomas Pynchon cross the street in front of my car; he is just another human. I read ticker tapes that reflect my prudence and intelligence of my investments, numbers that hint that I may be able to get a little place in the Hamptons someday.
2010-2011. It started to snow in early October and did not cease until the following summer; the storms were relentless and were drawn to the Wasatch mountains in Utah from the Southwest, from the Northwest. At this point in my life I did very little other than ski; I spent five or six days a week working as a ski patroller and every other moment I could in the backcountry of the Cottonwood Canyons. I skied all but a few days between Halloween and Easter, trying to take advantage of a once in a lifetime winter. The amount of snow that fell can be quantified in the number of cups of coffee that I drank per day, which topped out at roughly 12 before I decided that I had a problem. I would wake up before 5am for both avalanche control and days in the backcountry; I tried to keep going, always knowing that it was bound to stop at some point. But there were so many lines and chutes that I had been lustfully eyeing for years, waiting for the right moment to approach.
Monte Cristo, The Hypodermic Needle, Mount Dromedary, Thunder Bowl, lines off Mount Superior; memories of deep powder shimmering under a blue sky, of hours of trailbreaking, of stable conditions, of standing atop monochrome monoliths remain as pleasant, but hazy recollections. Although there is one foray into the backcountry that has endured as it is of a different character; it has a tinge of danger and disaster. The mind understandably works this way; its self preservation instinct is better served by searing threats to life and limb into the memory than the tranquil and pleasant.
The Northwest Couloir of the Pfeifferhorn. Steep. Narrow. Classic. An hourglass shape, the upper end of which feeds you into a constriction that terminates with a cliff, typically requiring a rappel, before opening into a vertiginous apron. The line consists of a 1000 foot descent with an average pitch of 50 degrees. The approach to the remote 11,326 foot peak is long and committing. The couloir itself is noted for its often treacherous conditions, something that I hoped to avoid by skiing it after the right storm.
In the middle of February a storm was approaching that promised to drop a significant amount of snow on top of what was a stable snowpack. My friend Joel and I had decided that we were going to make an attempt on the Pfeifferhorn the following day; for me this meant calling in sick to work, something that I didn’t lose any sleep over. Joel and I had undertaken a few different adventures together and our demeanors were well matched. Joel has a love of skiing that is matched with fearlessness and intelligence, despite his Australian origin. His ability to carefully navigate the perilous backcountry with savvy can lead to nothing other than thoughts of a snowbound version of Mick Dundee.
Pfeifferhorn in the background.
I woke in the morning darkness to take a look at the weather stations around the Wasatch and the avalanche report; it looked like it was going to be a perfect day. The Northwest flow had dropped a foot of snow without any terrifying wind or other irregularities from what we could gather.
We parked in Little Cottonwood Canyon and started skinning towards Red Pine Lake in the predawn glow, slowly making our way upwards with our headlamps aglow. We broke trail through the fresh light snow, sweating despite the morning chill. The surface began to shimmer as the sun broke over the crest of the range, the pristine blanket covering every surface took on a blinding pure whiteness. We assessed the conditions perpetually; everything seemed stable and lacking in spatial variability. The peak was within sight, intimidatingly looming over us, growing with each lunge forward.
Looking at Mount Dromedary
Touring in the Wasatch gives me a feeling of remoteness and peril despite the hum of cars in the canyon below and the thunder of Howitzer artillery up the canyon. It is a different world beyond the road; it is harsh and unforgiving.
There is a very little that I remember from the approach despite the many hours that elapsed; I often go into a strange meditative state as I step and breathe. We bootpacked the shoulder before standing on top and peering out upon the rugged and serene landscape as a gentle wind swept over and chilled us. It was noon. We put on our harnesses. I prepped my daisy chains to clip into the anchors, and checked the rope.
‘Do you feel good about it?’ I asked Joel as we looked over the seemingly vertical precipice that lay in front of us.
‘It looks a little icy and scoured, but I feel good about it. You?’
‘Yeah, it just looks like the entrance to any couloir.’
‘Who is going first?’ Joel asked me.
‘Uhhhmm….I’ll go? I’ll back off if it gets sketchy.’ These moments are always strange. You are putting yourself up against your own judgments about the conditions. The first person is the canary.
Joel turned on his helmet cam and I cautiously stepped into the couloir. Adrenaline coursed through my veins, a temperamental chemical that can either go the way of fear or focus; I channeled it as I moved out towards the right shoulder of the couloir to check its condition. The sound of my edges grinding against the icy surface filled the air as I cut across; it was slightly terrifying. I stopped to take a deep breath at the shoulder, which held some snow, but I decided to traverse back and forth across the couloir rather than trying to make turns. There was nothing that a normal human being would identify as skiing yet.
The slope got steeper and the walls began to close in. The couloir at this point consisted of nothing but sheer ice, something that is typical in the upper end of couloirs. I meticulously worked my edges on the surface; I tried my best to keep my doubts and concerns at bay. The anchors were within sight, as was the powder field below. The cliff did not look substantial and a fall, as long as I didn’t hit any rocks, would mean nothing but landing in the soft cushion of fresh snow that covered the lower end.
I worked my way down into the choke point, moving with slow deliberateness. I muttered gratefully about how sharp my skis were and yelled my plan up to Joel. As I neared the choke point my ability to hold an edge was progressively compromised by its concave shape, I was only holding an edge with my tips and tails. I committed too far before realizing that I was precariously balanced above a cliff on ice, unprepared to take a fall. Moments slipped away as I held my edges at a ridiculous angle perpendicular to the 50 degree slope and stared at the anchors that were several feet beyond my grasp, with a rope someone had left behind strung through. My legs started to burn and quiver as I schemed to get out of this predicament. There was no boot packing or side stepping back up; the ice and shape of the surface made these options out of the question. The cliff was just an icy ten foot waterfall and there should be perfect snow below. There seemed to be only one option; I quickly thrust my hand out for the rappel anchors and rope, hoping to quickly clip my harness in after I got a grip. Ice is best understood from a tipping point perspective, you have purchase until you don’t; it isn’t something that is gradual or forgiving. I felt the tails of my skis give out as I reached forward over the tips of the skis. The rope was doubled over through the anchors. I only managed to grab one end.
I didn’t have enough time to fully appreciate what was happening or I was simply to disoriented by the way in which it happened. As my tails lost their edge I fell backwards, meaning I was on my back with my head downslope as I went over the icy, rocky chokepoint. My arm ricocheted off of several rocks as I tumbled and gained speed. The whiteness that I had appraised from above as comforting, soft snow received me with the harsh thud of blue ice. I began to gain speed, feeling the irregular surface of the ice below me grating against my back. I tried to stop myself with my skis, tried to catch an edge, but they simply exploded off my feet. My head remained downslope; I starfished outwards, swinging my arms and legs wildly in an effort to create friction.
I tilted my head backwards and saw myself headed towards rocks at a speed that I would place at around 30 miles per hour. My mind didn’t panic as there wasn’t time. Huuuuuuuuuuu Ahhhhhhhhhhhh Huh huh Huh Oh I remember making some guttural animal sounds as I continued futilely flailing. Everything unfolded rapidly, but with an intense and clear focus. The last thought I remember: I never thought I would actually see my own death or that it would be so easy. The rocks came near, but contour of the couloir cradled me, carrying me safely past. As soon as this disaster was averted I found myself rotating through the air, white, blue, white blue. I hit a wind lip built up on a minor fork in the lower portion of the apron headfirst. I cartwheeled nearly to the bottom of the ski line before stopping. I remember having some sort of strange moment as absolute silence enveloped me; the world had stopped turning. I slowly stood up and looked in fascination at the hundreds of feet that I had descended in seconds. There were no alarm signals yet, just shock. I looked down to see red slowly spattering the snow below me; blood was running off of my arm that stilled griped the rope that I pulled through the anchors.
I didn’t have time to look at where the blood was coming from before the panic set in. Joel! The shape of the couloir meant that he was only able to watch me disappear over the lip from his vantage. I needed to get within ear shot of him; I needed to let him know I was alright and that he shouldn’t descend. I was gasping, fighting to get enough air as I kicked my boots into the ice, adrenaline pushing me upwards.
I caught sight of him standing at the choke point; he had gotten ahold of the anchors. We shouted back and forth, although I don’t think we were close enough to understand one another. Suddenly he jumped off the lip of the cliff and hit the sheet of ice. He had a Black Diamond Whippet Self-Arrest ski pole that he drove into the ice with his weight until it was ripped from his hands. I stared on in silent horror as I watched him gain speed, taking the same ride that I had just miraculously survived, and pass within a few feet of me at incredible speed. There was no sound other than the roar of his synthetic ski gear over the ice.
I found myself running down back towards the same point where I had found repose. Joel had managed to pass another 20 feet beyond my mark and lay in a heap with his avalanche airbag deployed.
‘Are you alright?’ I shouted down.
‘You need to go get my ski.’
‘Where is it?’
‘It is stuck in the choke point.’
I accepted this gravely and started upwards without asking any other questions. My arm began to stiffen and get cold from the blood that ran down it. My lungs and legs burned as I tried to work quickly under the assumption that Joel had probably sustained some kind of injury. I was running on nothing but adrenaline at this point, although I started to shake with a freshly conditioned Pavlovian fear as I approached the cliff once more, carefully toe pointing as I went. I grabbed Joel’s whippet that had been ripped from his hands and then began ascending the blue ice below the cliff.
I saw the ski jutting out from a crack in the rock above my head and understood why Joel jumped. I kicked out and carved handholds to ascend the final icy pitch to the ski. I carved out a sturdy handhold as I stood perched over the icy abyss and began to swing the ski pole at the ski to try and dislodge the ski. On my third strike it broke loose and began a chattering bouncing ride downwards towards Joel. I yelled in vain with the hope that it would miss Joel.
I began my descent, working my way across slope to recover poles and skis that were incredibly separated by hundreds of feet. One of my skis had come down vertical and with such force, that only a few inches protruded from the snow and ice. I eventually reached Joel again and collapse into the snow next to him.
‘Holy shit! Are you alright? What’s going on?’ I let out in release.
‘I am good, but I am not sure if I can move my knee, I think I tore something. We need to get out of here though, get me that ski and we will see what I can do.’
I finally looked at my arm. It had swollen to what seemed like twice its normal size and had a significant injury exposed at the elbow from hitting rocks that managed to rip through three layers of clothing. I was convinced it was broken, but accepted it with calm resignation. Everything was not all seriousness though; we were laughing hysterically within minutes, lost in shock and adrenaline.
‘I cannot believe we are alive. Did that really just fucking happen? To both of us?’
‘Are you jealous that I made it further than you?’
A significant amount of time had elapsed in this whole episode; we were well into the afternoon. We still had a run out down Maybird Gulch that was not short or simple. Joel tried moving his knee and had some range of motion and not too much instability. I helped him into his skis and watched in gratitude as he was able to carefully begin working his way downwards. An inability to ski would have likely meant spending an evening out.
Joel, with an injured knee, skied with skill that left me astonished. We reached the car in the twilight, both shivering and drained, mentally and physically. I took off my gloves and looked on in horror at my bloody hand and the pinky finger that was completely black and waxen with frostbite.
‘Whoops!’ I hold out the claw to Joel and start laughing.
We descended the canyon and recounted our respective stories over a pitcher of beer, looking haggard and talking manically, oblivious to the other people in the bar. We realized what had been our undoing: the storm system had arrived from the Northwest, the direction that the couloir faces. It had come in slightly warm with brief rain that had served to bond the fresh snow to the existing snowpack everywhere else. In the Northwest Couloir it had frozen rapidly, due to the direction of the couloir and the wind, and merely created a sheet of ice that attracted no snow. Joel clarified another part of the story, he had lost one of his skis as he tried to kick his ski into the sheet of ice to get purchased; it chattered down the couloir and became lodged in a crack midway through the cliff. Joel decided to jump and try to dislodge it with his ski pole before taking his downward journey. He realized that we needed that ski to get out of the backcountry and there simply was no decent way of getting it.
Joel had to go to the hospital the next day and found out that he had indeed torn a ligament in his knee. I returned to work and tried to continue on like nothing had happened despite my inability to move my elbow joint. I had no insurance, so going to the hospital had to be avoided. I hid my broken wing out of fear of getting caught in my lie and out of a certain degree of shame over what had happened. I did not want to recount the tale, but after a few questions from people on my patrol team, I spun the tale with a grin. Stories eventually just become a piece of you, telling them helps the process along.
I have since developed a deep seated fear of slippery surfaces above precipices; a fear that I find to be completely rational. I have been on an endless summer since that winter finished. Joel has gone on to more ridiculous feats, including supporting his ski habits through the practice of law.
I don’t even know where to begin with this day, somehow the idea of flying back to America has produced a fight or flight response; it seems as if I have already chosen flight once. So this story is about flight, through and through. I am going to be honest about my life: it hasn’t been normal for a long time, if ever. I don’t have any identifiable career path. I don’t have health insurance. I don’t have any money saved for the future. I have paid rent for a total of ten months in the past six years; I have essentially lived out of my backpack and car. I have been flying for a long time. I set off into the Sonoran desert two years ago by myself with a backpack. I felt like I needed to experience the world, to countenance the world as my bare self. I am not sure if I can explain this impulse to anyone who has never had it. I came home to Utah after six and a half months, worked for six months and then I found myself crossing the border ten months ago into the unknown, or at this point, slightly familiar on a bicycle.
I am not actually coming back to America yet, just visiting for a month, but I feel like a dog when it sees suitcases sitting by the door. The pacing and salivating start as synaptic maps light up in recognition of similar circumstances, physical stress manifests with an unclear referent. All signs point to change, point to uncertainty. Is the kennel going to come out?
Lago de Atitlan, Guatemala
The kennel? What is this all about? When I think about America, it evokes images of frantic energy, flashing lights, insufficient time and people that seem lost. I like tranquility and having time to do read, write, relax, meditate, converse, hike, run, ride my bike, cook. I like being challenged, physically, mentally, culturally, linguistically. The concept of America is somehow synonymous with a kennel that will deprive me of the freedom to do these things and losing the ability to do what I love obviously worries me. It is the time demand, time that seems invaluable to me, time that is finite and all that I have, flowing past continually.
When I think about all of this and it is like when the kennel is brought out, suddenly the whining and panting begin, the urge to urinate on expensive rugs rises quickly. I want to run out of the house, into the street, into the unknown.
Lago de Atitlan, Guatemala
I wake up to swim, sip coffee, meditate, take an excessively long hot shower, and ruminate on the banks of the emerald expanse of the lake. I watch all of the advancing and dispersing waves from the water taxis ripple the surface, they wink at me when they meet, the sunlight glancing off the shifting angle of their surface. I rudely appraise them as the mug touches my lips.
I am languidly sipping my coffee with subtle alarms going off in the depths of my mind telling me to get it together, but I literally think like this: You are being irrationally anxious Alex. It will all work out, don’t stress out. If you act patient, calm and tranquil, then everything will be fine.
This works until I nonchalantly check my email and see that my flight leaves two hours earlier than I thought. The alarms are bellowing and my adrenaline is spiking, yet I casually pack my things despite the sweat pouring down my body.
I glide across the lake in a water taxi; I look outward, wishing all of the stunning scenery would pass by faster as it assails me with its resplendent beauty. I speed walk towards the bus stop, peeing on a fence that lines the road. The driver of the next bus mashes the pedal to build momentum for steep climbs, bracing himself against the window for the sinuous sections.
Buses in San Marcos
The ayudante is in a perpetual state of manic motion, scrambling on the exterior and swinging through the interior; I can only liken it to how Curious George would behave if the man in the yellow hat had given him several grams of cocaine before putting him in the cage and loading him on a bus, but Curious had courageously chewed his way through the steel bars and begun to frantically evade hallucinated men in yellow hats pursuing him.
There is still plenty of time. OH MY GOD THERE IS DEFINITELY NOT PLENTY OF TIME. I keep telling myself that it will be alright, that I am being irrationally anxious to fret each time the driver stops to pick up a
Hood ornament on a different bus.
person that materializes out of a cornfield or slows down to send a text message. An hour before the flight takes off, 22km outside the city the police decide to stop the bus and have a roadside discussion with the driver. Be calm. Be calm. BE CALM? The fucking $800 international flight leaves in an hour. I was supposed to be there, what, five hours before to have x-rays taken of my genitals? To be asked asinine questions and have my pathetic possessions pawed by the prying fingers of the ever expanding surveillance state? To….AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH……
No, I don’t want your charity cookies or any of those fucking ice cream cones that somehow never melt and always look perfect! Aguas? Jugos? Frutas? No. Aguas? Jugos? Frutas? NO! STILL NO!
Inside a Chicken Bus
All of the chi infused into my 12 chakras by bathing myself in the healing and tranquil energy portal that is Lago de Atitlan has precipitated into fulminating anxiety when mixed with the reagent reality. We drop into the smog and traffic of Guatemala City and I get off the bus in front of a Walmart where I hail a cab. I manually force my charkas into order and calmly tell the driver that my flight leaves in 45 minutes and that I am therefore in a slight hurry.
He whistles. ‘Do you lose your ticket if you don’t make it?’
‘I am not sure.’ I sit thinking for a minute as he weaves through traffic.
‘I think I will make the flight as Guatemalans are friendlier, more helpful people than Americans.’ I am definitely trying to convince myself here, while offering a compliment.
I run out of the cab, thrusting sweaty money that I had been palming for the past 15 minutes into his hand. There is no one at the ticketing desks, although the screens still flash information regarding my flight that leaves in 30 minutes. I find out where the United Airline’s offices are located, run there, run past the door, run back and burst in amidst frantic gesticulations and panicked Spanish, likely conveying a level of urgency that would be expected of someone transporting a freshly harvested organ. After trying to persuade me to take a flight the following day, he accepts that I am not going to leave him alone unless I try to make this flight.
‘Can you carry those bags onto the plane?’ He asks quickly as we both look towards my massive bag stuffed with two handmade wool blankets and a kilogram of mole negro. I feel like this is a question that he should answer, not me, but I am definitely not going to say no.
‘Uh.. Yeah.’ I say this with one eyebrow raised and my head tilted.
‘Do you have any liquids in your bag?’
‘Uh…No.’ The mole negro is somewhere between a liquid and a solid.
‘Okay, let’s go get you checked in.’
We run downstairs and he frantically pushes buttons. I get to security and there is almost no line, I fill out my documentation haphazardly and approach the desk. The customs official calmly scans my passport and glances at my documentation. I see a red popup box start flashing on her computer screen that says something about ‘Illegal Resident Alien.’ My hear drops, but she closes the popup and slams down the stamp. I am sent on my way.
I load my bags onto the conveyor belt and step through the metal detector. I watch the face on the woman monitoring the screen as my bags pass through. Come on, come on, come on. She halts the belt. She calls someone else over. Both of my bags are seized and pulled off to the side.
‘Are these your bags?’
‘Yes.’
‘Can I see your passport and ticket please?’
Fuck! 20 minutes. The mole! The waterbottle! All of the strange shit that I am carrying back!
After glancing at my ticket she looks up with a shocked expression on her face.
‘Sir! Your flight leaves in just a few minutes! You need to go! Run!’ She hands me my bags and sends me running. I want to kiss her and the ground of this amazing country.
I run through the tile floored terminal, my cowboy boots clomping and echoing through a place that is already not Guatemala. I already had my documents checked to make sure I was acceptable to enter this organized, capitalized, surveilled, clean, hierarchical world. I am not even the last person to board. I stare out the window as the smog and disorganized sprawl disappear as we ascend into the clouds.
There are TVs on every seat now, 100 channels of satellite TV that you can pay for with a credit card. It glares in my face. I resist looking at it, but it will not let me turn it off. Insurance, resorts, things, services. I briefly think about how one day they might just figure out that they should charge you to turn it off, to make the commercials stop, to have peace and quiet in your mind.
The ground is visible; there is something wild about this, something that alters perspective, not just visually. There was a time not very long ago when humanity had never looked down upon itself from planes, from space. Nobody had seen the earth from this vantage. It looks like an outpost destined to be reclaimed as nature patiently bides its time against the impudent intrusion. Everything in Houston, Texas glimmers with steel and glass. There are tall buildings at the center, where it is the most dense and the least green, before gradually becoming less dense along the spokes of concrete that radiate out from the center. These arteries are flowing with cars, but occasionally clot with traffic, flowing away from the heart, the pulse and flow will shift the following morning. In, out, in, out.
The identical houses on the outskirts remind me of a kindergarten project where we made a big model of a town and all of the houses and buildings were milk cartons. An empire boldly built out of milk cartons, one that lasts just until someone realizes that plastic bags or tetra packs are superior. It was just a project, just something that we had to do so that we could learn, but it held no importance beyond that, just a phase. Look what we can do! It was destroyed at the end of the year as we had no use for it anymore; we all moved on to do something else, we grew up and did something a little less crude, a little better, something with more meaning and more permanence.
Traveling lifts you out of the routine into the completely novel; everything is vivid, sounds are louder, smells are stronger, light is more beautiful. I marvel at the people, the fashion, the seriousness, the technology, the opulence. The smell of cookies and perfume pervades throughout.
Going through customs to enter the United States is one of my most outwardly despised, but inwardly relished activities. I make up my flight number on the entry form as I can’t find my ticket. As I wait in line I hear a security official speaking aggressively to someone. I look over to see a Muslim woman wearing a hijab being singled out and escorted away. She follows obediently, but her four year old son is not compliant. He is at the perfect height to run under all the elastic line dividers, laughing and dancing as he goes. The government official sternly orders him around to no avail, the mother looks on with indifference. He paces and tries to maintain his cool as the kid taunts him from just beyond his reach. This goes on for several minutes, the kid oblivious to all of the cold technology watching him, to the global inequalities, problems, terrorism, security, bureaucracy, religions… They finally corral him and then they are led away. He is wearing a diaper that I imagine to be full of feces that he similarly accepts with utter indifference.
I reach the customs official, he has a shaved head and greets me with stern formality. This conversation is authentic and occurred in front of a massive line of people, but seems like a hilarious parody of many that I have had previously.
‘What were you doing in Mexico and Guatemala?’
‘Riding my bicycle South.’
‘What do you have some sort of goal or mission? Are you out to prove something?’
‘Nope, just riding my bicycle because I like to ride.’
‘Yeah sure. That is cool and all. Yeah. Maybe you will have some story to tell your grand kids if you make it, if you don’t die. You need to start thinking though, you need to think about safety, you only get one life and you need to be careful, be careful with it.’
‘Yeah, but if we only get one life, then we need to live it, right? We only get one shot, one experience. I want to make it a good one.’
‘None of it matters if you are dead.’
‘Hmmm…..’ I figure I will be the one to end the discussion, better not to escalate.
‘Just be careful. You are all set.’
Salt Lake City
Many people feel the need to comment on my lifestyle in inappropriate contexts, as if they are threatened by it. This man and I view life as incredibly important, but reach different conclusions given this premise. This man concludes that he should avoid risks and sit behind a desk, calling it a life lived. I think that I do need to slow down, find peace and contentedness in a more stable life; I feel some exhaustion, some wear and tear, but my philosophy will never be shared with this man. I think about the neatly groomed dog in the SkyMall catalogue wearing a ThunderVest that ‘eliminates 90% of house pet anxiety,’ that looks like its eyes are bulging out as the vest forcefully constricts its breathing to calm it.
What is a life lived? It sounds like me and this guy are both suffering from the same delusion: that any of it matters. You can fight it until the bitter end, you can give in early, you can cryogenically freeze yourself, you can make monuments in your honor, you can leave a prodigious brood, you can write incessantly, you can just float along. Embrace the cage, howl at the moon, eat Alpo, eat butcher shop scraps, get neutered, chase bitches in heat, have a huge litter, hump a table leg, chase rodents, bark at the television, get rabies, get fleas, get groomed, stick your head out the car window, get put down by the man you worship or get hit by a car.
Salt Lake City
I refuse to live a story that has already been written, a story that is not my own and has a dubious ending. I think that life, that our one chance to live an incredible life, to sculpt our experience like a piece of art is bewildering, but it is the gift I have been given.
Then I land and it is turbulent; I am a mess of anxiety and indecision. What the fuck am I doing with my life? Does everyone here know something that I don’t? What am I going to do in the future? How will I afford to live? Why do all of these people have so many shiny things than me? I have no plan. Where am I going to live? Are all of these people just going to laugh at my dreaming, at my sincerity as some type naivety? Does anything that I have done matter? What is wrong with me? I am as lost as ever. I cannot believe all of the specious bullshit that I pontificate from a cloud pulpit that disperses as soon as the wind blows. I make choices and then get unhappy with the results? Anxiety about things you cannot change? What am I, a child?
I fight for a while, until I accept it all and let it go. We ultimately have the choice of how we perceive everything, of how we react. The mind can make hell out of paradise and find light on the darkest of nights. Life is a free gift that we should gratefully accept and do whatever we want with.
Salt Lake City
America is clean, safe, violent, opulent, unequal, prepackaged, natural, processed, beautiful, frantic, serene, creative, homogenized, paved, wild, free, a prison, corrupt, stable, transparent, a monster, a beacon of hope, growing, faltering, surveilling, protecting, bellicose, racist, integrated, religious, materialistic. America is a concept that emerges from the people who live here, it is all of these things.
Everything, all of it fades when I am immersed in the love of my friends and family. After all of this I am slightly less domesticated, a little more wise and none the richer.
This scene, this day, has run through my head thousands of times. Over and over again, every action, every moment, trying to understand it all. It is one of those moments that unexpectedly and indelibly changes your life. It fades though, for better and worse, like any other event in one’s life. It seems important to me to write this down, for both personal catharsis and remembrance.
South towards Cottonwoods, 2011.
March in the Wasatch Mountains is invariably perfect; the mountains are either being blanketed in fluffy powder by heavy spring storms or bathing in the spring sunshine. I worked as a ski patroller for several years Park City, Utah and always looked forward to March, a month that arrives like dawn after the gloomy frigid night that is February. Work starts picking up, but everyone’s mind is on summer and the levity of silly season builds.
I ended up doing this job as a result of a strange series of events, but in hindsight it seems like something that had to happen; how could I not have worked a job that involved throwing dynamite to set off avalanches with the sunrise, getting paid to ski, and helping people under physically challenging conditions? I got an EMT certification in college on a whim and it became the credential that helped me get every job that I had after college for several years as I was unwilling to go into the mundane grind with obeisance.
Park City, Utah 2011
The people that I worked with ski patrolling will never be far from my mind, as they were some of the best people I have ever met, especially the team that I worked with for my first year. We maintained a perfect balance between getting our work done safely and efficiently, freezing our faces in grinning rictuses with the fine spray of S-turns made through untracked champagne powder, barbequing, and witty banter while sipping coffee.
March 12th, 2010 was a Friday, the end of the work week for my team. The sun broke on a high pressure day with no fresh snow, a cold morning under a deep blue sky. I rode up the chair in the morning to the station where I was working, eying up the overnight grooming job and feeling the sting of the mountain air on my face. The main run descending from our shack had been groomed and glistened in the morning sun; it is a steep straight shot that doglegs to the right near the bottom. From our shack I could look out onto the rest of the Wasatch range, over into the Cottonwood canyons and into Park City itself. There is a ritual each and every day: each day we all arrived at the shack an hour before any customers rode up the chair and dispersed to check our area at face numbing speeds. We followed up with coffee time in the shack, a time of discourse on subjects ranging from relationships, to bicycles, to This American Life, to backcountry skiing, to summer jobs, to who brought what food to cook for the day. This is the most tranquil time of the day.
We alternated taking laps through our area during the day, but everything had been idyllic all week, no accidents. Spring was in full effect; the restaurant deck was full of people lazing in Adirondack chairs with layers of clothing draped nearby, sipping beers and reveling in the sun. We fired up our barbeque and sat outside our shack maintaining a running commentary regarding every person who stepped off the chair lift as we ate tubular meat products of uncertain origin. Life as a ski patroller is challenging, a blase attitude towards everything is created by the universally acknowledged reality amongst every individual patroller that nobody, including coworkers, is as cool or righteous as you are. There is nowhere to go from here; it can paralyze you unless you arduously keep this insidious attitude at bay, as relationships with other human beings become nearly impossible. After eating and ruminating deeply on this concept, I decided to take a few laps with another patroller named Mike R. before we finished out the day.
Wasatch Mountains, Utah 2011
We were hiking up a nearby ridge discussing where we should drop into the trees for a session of combat skiing, a form of ski destroying, sadistic skiing under bad conditions that becomes a weird fetish for anyone required to ski under any and all conditions. I let my skis hang over the edge, ready to drop in when a call came in over the radio from a patroller, Mike T., notifying us that he had just witnessed an accident on a nearby run. The call seemed routine and there were a few other people who were in position to second respond to the call, but we decided nonetheless to wait and see what resources were needed before dropping off the ridge.
A moment later a panic tinged call came in for every resource that we had available, except for a defibrillator. Mike R., and I chattered our skis down the irregular and hard ridge as quickly as possible. I arrived at the shack first, in perfect time to grab some of the equipment that the other patrollers were unloading out of the shack and begin descending. My heart was already pounding; something was very wrong.
I took the fast groomed run down from our shack as quick as I possibly could while carrying a backboard and a trauma pack; I fought to maintain control as the backboard jerked me from side to side as it caught wind with each turn. I was worried that I would overshoot the spot where the accident was, as it was called run left, in the trees. There was no missing it though; I saw a few people standing on the side of the run, popped off my skis and launched down into the trees where a young man looked up at me with blank eyes, copious amounts of blood staining his face and the snow around him. He had lost control near the start of the dogleg and collided with a tree. EMT training is about teaching you routine, as you need the ingrained steps to be able to approach a situation like this. Mike T. and I haltingly ran through a rapid, adrenaline spiking assessment; there was something resembling breath, a very faint wheezing and a weak, virtually nonexistent pulse. He had severe blunt force trauma to his head and chest. I remember thinking that this can’t be happening, this isn’t happening. I remained surprisingly calm in a detached way, watching myself go through the motions.
We called in a code red; patrol’s signal for anyone in respiratory or cardiac distress. We began CPR. Claire, someone who was accustomed to situations like this, had arrived with a defibrillator, quickly followed by Mike R. and Randy with a toboggan. Claire took charge of the situation and everyone quickly integrated themselves, continuing CPR, as I fumbled with the defibrillator. With shaking hands I attached the electrodes of the defibrillator, which mechanically announced in a neutral voice ‘No shock advised.’ I futilely pressed the little button with a lightning bolt several more times. It all seemed like it was happening slowly and through a lens smeared with Vaseline.
We alternated giving CPR, breath and compressions; I looked down into the pale face of someone who looked just like me, my same age, before giving each breathe, felt the laterally unequal response from his ribs with each compression, only pausing when surprised by the quick arrival of the helicopter. Amidst much yelling and exertion, postholed up to our hips, the five of us lifted him onto a backboard – he was incredibly heavy in a way that seems inexplicable – and out of the tree well. We loaded him into a toboggan with Claire kneeling over him continuing CPR. I frantically dug the toes of my boots in, running alongside and giving Mike R. an unnecessary push downslope towards the helicopter and more advanced care.
Then it was completely quiet. I looked around for the first time and immediately realized that the group gathered was his ski buddies. I shifted my gaze down to the snow, I didn’t say anything, couldn’t say anything, in the end nobody did. Randy, Mike T. and I started picking up all of the equipment that was scattered about, aimlessly moving it from place to place in transfixed shock. I looked at my hands, my fingers wore ripped rubber gloves coated in blood, they seemed suddenly frozen with cold. I became needlessly preoccupied with the loss of my work gloves, aimlessly searching, ultimately to no avail. We slowly skied down the run without saying anything; as if we wouldn’t have to deal with what lay at the bottom if the run never ended.
We came across the helicopter in the middle of a run and looked on momentarily as the flight medic and nurse worked diligently, using last ditch efforts as a few patrollers assisted. It set in at that moment; I took off my skis, turned my back, and began walking up the run towards the chairlift, to get back to the shack and finish the menial tasks that mark the end of each day; there was nothing else left to do. I seemed to be in some sort of postictal state; everything seemed surreal and obscenely lit by the afternoon sun.
Randy, Mike and I rode the chair back to the shack together. I looked over at them and then tears ran down my face for the rest of the ride up. I began shivering, the cold cutting to my core. It began, the unrest, the replaying, the constant oscillation between many different thoughts; trying to grasp it all; trying to convince myself that I, that we, had done the best we could; pitying him, me, us all; images painfully bursting forth, provoking unrest. For a long time I just wanted it all to stop, but it comes from somewhere deep, like the tears, somewhere so deep that it isn’t controllable; it just washes over, completely taking over.
Death is there like the sun, taken for granted, ignored, but occasionally we become aware, forced to acknowledge its blinding brightness, its ubiquity; in these moments it passes through the temporal, transparent pettiness that characterizes our lives, to illuminate more profound, substantive truths about existence. It transmutes our perception as we watch its light suffuse everything that abounds. It is what defines life; it is the very fountain of beauty and love.
When we cry about death it seems to be equally about those who remain as those who were lost; none of us truly understand it. There might be something to learn from it though.
I started down a path many years ago of trying to understand my mind, a need that arose out of necessity. I was mired in the past, in the future, in desire, in aversion, in uncertainty, analyzing, dreading, wallowing, churning, drifting, dreaming; all of this genuinely impeded my ability to lead a good life, to find peace and genuine happiness. My consciousness appears to need a constant stream or feed by its very nature, something that either comes from within or without. For years I ran from my mind into distraction through substances, through entertainment, through quite frankly anything that could occupy my consciousness, permitted me a momentary modicum of freedom. This type of escapism begins a misery generating cycle of its very own, one of never ending craving and aversion.
It seemed to be an axiom from looking at the world around me that this is the way our minds work; that this is existence. I was living my life groping through a labyrinth after phantasmagorical carrots, until one day it all suddenly appeared Sisyphean and unbearable.
On this day a strange journey akin to unraveling or slow dissolution began; it was not clear in the moment, but something broke in my mind. The initial question, the very moment in which something ruptured, sent dendritic and incisive questions echoing through my mind; questions that could no longer be contained, the opening of a Pandora’s box. In this moment I began palpate the labyrinth of my own mind for the first time.
My own journey into the depths of my mind is exactly that; there is only a vague outline that can be conveyed through intellectual understanding, but I am going to write about a recent foray into my mind nonetheless.
There are many avenues to explore the mind; altered states of consciousness and meditation seem to be the most incisive. There are many different conceptions of what mediation is, it may or may not involve the following: hovering; extreme suffering; abhorrent boredom; flowing robes; removal of all body hair; lighting oneself on fire; mental dissociation to the point of a dronelike existence; mindless acceptance of precepts delivered through a hierarchical structure, such as a cult; enlightenment to the true relation between mind and matter, permitting oneself to live a liberated existence; robe soiling ecstasy; indulgent Western self importance; dissolution of spaciotemporality and a consequent renunciation of all that is material leading to one living in a cave with unacknowledged colonies of spiders breeding in one’s arm pits.
I remember the first time that I tried meditating seven years ago after delving into beat literature for the first time: I sat on the floor allowing my mind to range freely from small preoccupations such as looming assignments, an argument I had with my girlfriend, my lack of money before spiraling quickly into uncertainty regarding what I wanted to do with my life. My pulse quickened, my stomach knotted and sweat prickled my forehead before I arose with a panicked start, running away. Always running to the next thing.
2009 Lost Coast, California
There came a day when I was committed to a job and a life; I had to find peace within these confines. I had learned more about meditation, about the mind, in the years following my initial foray into idle sitting. I decided to start meditating seriously, to start a daily practice after reading a book entitled Full Catastrophe Living by Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn written about the Stress Reduction Clinic and the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. There is a completely nonsecular field within traditional Western medicine, called Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction, a treatment used for terminal illness, chronic pain, addictions, anxiety, depression, hypertension, stress, psoriasis… many ailments that affect humans have been treated and seen positive results with MBSR. The approach is similarly practicable for anyone interested in living a better life, to anyone who would like to be more mindful of each moment, which should be anyone and everyone.
The difficulties that I encountered previously were still extant, yet I began countenancing them for 45 minutes a day, regardless of what my life circumstances were, which often meant getting up as early as 3:30AM to sit in the cold, darkness. I was faithful with this practice for four months before it faltered with some job/life changes. My mind changed though; my stress evaporated; I found myself experiencing everything more richly; my food tasted better; I saw beauty where there was nothing before; I found myself living calmly and tranquilly; I found myself watching my mind in wonder rather than pursuing the same objects or sensations, a process that had become perceptibly futile.
2009 Lost Coast, California
Often times I have turned back towards meditation as a way to swim out past the breakers and look back at the agitated ebb and flow of my mind and my life, no longer unconsciously caught in the tumult. I found myself seemingly riding away from my life last November towards something uncertain. In the months before the trip I was looking forward to the idea of spending eight hours a day on my bicycle with my thoughts. The reality of meditation, whether on a bike or sitting on the floor, is that it isn’t always pleasant. Every memory, every possible future contingency, every relationship, every desire, every aversion arose over the four months I was riding. Everything disintegrated, again. I launched off in another direction.
2009 Sam McDonald County Park, California
I found myself in Guatemala perpetually ill from parasites, with a demanding job, a new relationship, dwindling money, and an uncertain future. A familiar darkness was assiduously creeping in from the sides, slowly blotting out the brightness of each day. I watched myself searchingly flailing. As I was riding through Mexico I met several people who had taken a ten day silent Vipassana meditation course, it sat there lingering in the back of my mind. I started my meditation practice again this summer and decided to register for one of the courses in Oaxaca de Juarez, Mexico.
Vipassana International operates on a donation only basis teaching the meditation technique used by Gautama Buddha through meditation centers and courses organized around the world. Attendees of the course are required to refrain from any form of communication amongst themselves, but are able to question the assistant teacher regarding the technique or the volunteer coordinators regarding health issues or issues with the facility. Attendees are asked to forsake all religious practices, of any form, for the duration of the course. Attendees are required to stay within the confines of the facility. No electronics, books, or writing implements are permitted. The course is divided by gender. Ultimately, one is asked to accept five basic precepts and to work diligently within teachings of the technique for the duration of the course.
1. To abstain from killing any living creature.
2. To abstain from stealing.
3. To abstain from sexual misconduct.
4. To abstain from false speech.
5. To abstain from intoxicants.
The technique is simple in a sense, but complicated as it not something one can learn or appreciate through discourse; it requires work. The intensive nature of the course – 10 hours a day of pure meditation for ten days – is required to demonstrate the veracity of the teachings on a personal, experiential basis. The course, in its best light, merely offers guidance as one goes through a personal, yet surprisingly universal, experience of self exploration.
The schedule:
4:00am – Wake up call.
4:30-6:30am – Solo meditation in hall or residence.
6:30am – Breakfast
8:00-9:00am – Group meditation in hall.
9:15-11:00am – Solo meditation in hall or residence.
11:00am-1:00pm – Lunch and rest.
1:00-2:30pm – Solo meditation in hall or residence.
2:30-3:30pm – Group meditation in hall.
3:30-5:00pm – Solo meditation in hall or residence.
5:00-6:00pm – Tea and rest.
6:00-7:00pm – Group meditation in hall.
7:00-8:00pm – Discourse on technique and Buddhist philosophy.
8:15-9:00pm – Group meditation in hall or residence.
The first three days are spent working with Anapanasati meditation, a form of breathing focused meditation used to prepare oneself for work within the Vipassana technique for the rest of the course. Both forms of meditation are essentially the cultivating mindfulness, of impartial, concentrated self observation.
I looked forward to the course with nervous anticipation, seemingly preoccupied with the challenges that would arise to my current life, realizations that could disrupt the precarious balance of my life or the lancing of a heretofore latent misery that would begin suppurating…or something.
We arrived at the convent where we would be imprisoned for the next ten days with roughly 100 strangers. I talked briefly met a few people before silence descended. The rest of this is a weird collection of jumbled observations and experiences from my addled mind.
Day 1
Cataract Canyon, Utah 2012
The gong rings and I step out into a frigid and lightless desert morning. I feel like a boxer ready for a fight; this is a mistake. We have a 7m by 10m courtyard where we can walk, I pace under the star speckled sky before retiring into the meditation hall. The day passes in struggle as I try to maintain a rigid posture in half lotus with the piece of me that is asking why I am doing this, doubting whether I can, constantly redirecting my attention to my back and legs that burn ardently, and striving to quell the uprising of thousands of thoughts relating to life.
Here the illusion of cohesive, flowing thought is apparent; for me it is a meaningless wallowing. There is no catharsis, no one directing, a shifting and muddled stream. I am deeply focused one second, shaking and sweating as I focus on the breath passing through my nostrils, and then a throbbing pain in my back grabs my attention and then a thought arises regarding a problem that I have at work which forks into questions about my future, which catalyzes questions about my relationship, which makes me wish I could talk to Lauren, which makes me realize these are going to be ten long days….My consciousness is easily diverted by this wayward thought that morphs into another and another. I feel my breathing quicken, the sweat run down my skin, my blood pressure rising, my stomach tightening. I bring focus back to my breathing assiduously as soon as I realize it has been lost, which sometimes takes a minute and becomes more difficult as the physical agitation seems to build and remain.
Day 2
2009 Wild Cat Ridge, Wasatch Mountains, Utah
I stretch constantly each time I leave meditation. I pace in the courtyard wondering when or if the pain will abate. I fight through several sessions, waiting in quiet desperation for the gong to ring before sprawling out on the floor in release. I am aware that the very craving, the desire for the pain to cease is exponentially increasing my suffering. Minutes seem to endure for hours; time appears to be completely nebulous.
There is one man who has bronchitis and coughs incessantly without covering his mouth; he is a challenge to my equanimity and meditation in many ways.
Day 3
The pain, although I have realized that the very notion of calling it pain is part of the problem, is more manageable. I am learning how to objectively view it and not let it drive my thoughts.
I lay out in the courtyard in the afternoon, feeling the sun on my face. I focus on the sensation and it grows; it becomes stronger with each passing second until it almost overwhelms me. It feels like my face is on fire, I realize that the sun is on fire, it is on fire right now and then I get the urge to remind everyone by running around screaming ‘THE SUN IS ON FIRE!’ I lie on the ground chortling, imagining that everyone would completely lose their meditative state and equanimity, the retreat devolving into sheer chaos as everyone ran frantically screaming in panicked horror at the realization of the true nature of the sun. The afternoon is characterized by levity, everything suddenly becomes funny. I stop fighting and ruminating.
Day 4
2013 Volcan Santiaguito, Guatemala
Vipassana meditation is introduced. The technique consists of learning how to objectively observe all of the sensations that the body is continually generating in every area where there are nerves. The theory: all thoughts are catalyzed by sensations, often times they never even enter into our consciousness as such rather only as thoughts generated as a byproduct. Our mind’s very nature is to react to these sensations, to characterize them as positive or negative. This process leads to the creation of cravings for positive sensations and aversions to negative sensations, our minds try to hold on to these sensations. The most fundamental law of matter is that it changes and therefore every sensation inevitably arises and disappears. Craving and aversion towards something constantly in flux leads to suffering. Through Vipassana meditation one can observe this process and begin to break this cycle through impartially observing sensations and the world around us in the proper light of change; to let it all arise and pass away.
I lose my concentration for a long time in the afternoon as I intentionally fart as loudly as I can and then childishly laugh about it.
Day 5
The morning passes pleasantly, the pain completely disappears for half an hour or so and is replaced by a feeling of flowing energy throughout my body. I feel an immediate release as I understand this as some sort of breakthrough. In the afternoon I painfully realize just how perceptive the concept of craving and aversion really is, as the pain returns with the next sitting. I become preoccupied with it, my attention being pulled to the strong sensation. It gains strength and I am quickly mired in aversion to the pain and in frustration that the pleasant sensations of before have gone. The hours drag on.
I suddenly see myself in the midst of this process. I take a deep breath and then the following dialogue happens in my head:
‘This pain feels like it is eating away at my soul, eating away at me. Maybe I should take a break.’
‘That is just the ego speaking, the pain doesn’t really exist, it isn’t going to hurt you. It will arise and pass, let the ego get whipped for a bit.’
‘Listen to you talking to yourself you fucking idiot!’
Then I sat with a blank mind wondering where all of this comes from. You, me, I, ego, who, what? Where does this come from? Is there something cohesive behind all of this? I worry that I have begun a spiral into some sort of madness only previously experienced with drugs.
Day 6
2009 Sam McDonald County Park, California
I work diligently. I pace in the courtyard in between meditation sessions thinking about the ego, the ego that drives me, this conception of Alex, this delusion of a cohesive person. I sum up meditation in my mind in the following way:
‘Meditation is you fighting with yourself until one of you gets tired.’
My mind now easily remains concentrated for longer periods of time; it is losing its reactionary nature. I no longer wince in Pavlovian response to the ring of the gong. My breathing remains steady; I sweat less; there is no more shaking.
Day 7
My practice continues to deepen, time easily slipping away along with the dominion of the pain in my back. As this state reigns, memories freely rise from my childhood that have not surfaced in over a decade, from previous relationships, from friends and family lost, from the recessed folds of the mind. There is a slight melancholy with all of this as I feel like it all slipped away without me every appreciating it, without me ever knowing, and I can never have it back. Ultimately, I realize that I want to live more mindfully, more aware, more present with what I currently have in my life as there is nothing more.
In the afternoon I am sitting and a mosquito passes my ear. I observe the following passing: I hear the sound of the mosquito passing my ear, which causes my muscles to tighten and my breath to sharpen, which gives rise to a negative thought regarding the mosquito, which derails my focus and simultaneously gives rise to other negative thoughts. I calmly return to my breath and then the sensations in my body.
Day 8
2013 Eggs in a Bowl, Xela, Guatemala
I am sitting in the early morning meditation session, sitting in deep concentration. I am accustomed to feeling subtle sensations all over my body and this is generally what I experience. I am scanning up and down my body trying to feel sensation in every part. Suddenly I am observing myself rocking side to side, my entire body moving. Woah, what does this mean? Is this some sort of profound moment? Am I reaching enlightenment? Am I now a god? My attention shifts to the ground below me that is rocking, moving back and forth. I hear a distant siren wailing. EARTHQUAKE! I realize that everyone is silently running out of the meditation hall and I do the same. It is important to react to some sensations. This was the first earthquake that I have ever felt in my life, although I have been present for hundreds.
As I lay in bed at night a beautiful particolored moth flies into the room and I watch its circles spiral in around the fluorescent light bulb dangling from the ceiling in the middle of the room. It frantically flies in circles around this singularity, careening into the bulb, likely injuring itself. Moths use what is called transverse orientation, which is using a bright fixed celestial object as a point of navigation. There essentially were no artificial lights until recently and their terrestrial location means that moths that are circling them perceive themselves as flying in a straight line. They are unable to see that they are flying in circles as they are inherently trapped within the confines of their perception. There is a profound concept here. I turn out the light.
I wake a few hours later and the moth is beating its wings against the window above my head. I gently catch it in my hat and then release it out of the window.
Day 9
Each person will see a direct correlation between the effort that they put in and the progress that they make with the technique. I dedicate myself to working purposefully, earnestly for the entire day. My concentration builds throughout the day; I do not stop meditating when I take breaks; my mind is undiffused, fixated. I walk outside after one sitting and find myself staring unwaveringly at the wall until the gong rings again. I feel subtle sensations rippling through my body, there is no more pain. I still have constant proprioception and body awareness. I pass hours feeling them flowing up and down before moving onto sensations that are passing internally. I feel air passing through my trachea and into my lungs. I feel movement in my bowels, methane pushing through my serpentine guts. I feel behind my eyeball. I feel my inner ear cavity. I feel my heart beating and each pulse of blood drumming on my finger tips, on my cranium. I feel strange sensations throughout the inside of my body.
Then the form to my body gradually disappears. I pass through my legs, my torso, my arms, and ultimately my head and they only exist as subtle sensation without form. I no longer have any awareness of the position of my limbs, of any sort of separation from the matter that surrounds me. There exists only some sort of indescribable faint sensation with no location. I am aware of this process as it unfolds, but it is not something that evaporates with this awareness. My mind is pure awareness; I sit with a blank mind for an indeterminate amount of time until the phrase ‘surgir y desaparecer’ begins repeating in my mind, appear and disappear. The gong rings.
I perceive all of my possible lives. Not specific jobs, or wives, or houses, or places, rather where I will end up if I let myself be dominated by greed, by drugs, by lust, by fear, by hate. I see where these motives, if decisions are made over and over again with them in mind, will lead me; it is nothing but misery. I have a hard time sleeping.
Day 10
The pain returns faintly in the morning and I lose my strict adherence to the technique. I play with the sensations in my body and visualize the chopping of my body into small pieces or the amputation of limbs, sensations from these areas disappears as I do this. It is strange and amusing.
After breakfast we will break the silence, something that I anticipate will not make much of a difference. I imagine everyone slowly coming back to life, some process of gradual reentry. Instead, the compound erupts with conversation and laughter the moment that we finish. I hear myself talking and it is loud, it vibrates and echoes in my ears.
We discuss our experiences, our reasons for being there, what we have learned. I have never discussed my feelings before with a group of 40 year old men.
Summation
2013 Sierra Mixe, Oaxaca, Mexico
This is my life. This is my insane mind.
We have nothing but the actually moment that is passing; the past is exactly what it is and the future will soon be as well. This is not a trite expression exhorting Dionysian dissolution; it is quite the opposite. I am earnestly expressing an idea that I have circled around like a moth around a lightbulb for years. It could be artificial light, but it seems real to me. Through cultivation of moment to moment awareness, one can be aware of all that is passing within one’s body, everything exterior, and how this relates to the past/present in order to mindfully make decisions that enrich the series of moments and sensations that our minds artificially string together into a cohesive narrative that we call our life. We can learn to live in and appreciate the present, which is ultimately all that we have.
Our moment to moment decisions are the footsteps determining the direction of the path that we walk, the one upon which we look back and project into the future. Wisdom is being aware of how these decisions are made and being able to perceive where they will ultimately carry us.
I emphatically believe in meditation, travel, education, conversation, essentially in challenging oneself and one’s values continually, as a means to cultivate mindfulness, nonjudgement, renunciation, and acceptance in our daily lives. The exercise of these virtues is taught by most philosophies and religions as they are recognized as a means free ourselves from the suffering created by an existence in a material world that is morally neutral, in constant flux, and ostensibly devoid of purpose. In each of our lives we currently embody these ideals to varying degrees.
I would recommend a Vipassana course to anyone who is interested in meditation or living a better life, but I feel the need to attach several asterisks. Vipassana teaches a universal concept, but situates it in context that, despite all of the proclamations to the contrary, is dogmatic and secular. The most damaging dogmatic concept is that one can only reach ‘enlightenment’ or ‘freedom’ through strict adherence and practice of the principles of Vipassana. There is the presentation of many Buddhist concepts as truisms that are wholly incompatible with other religions, despite claims to the contrary. In one sentence the founder of Vipassana International will rail against ritual or rites, but will staunchly adhere to esoteric and culturally relative concepts such as never pointing the bottoms of your feet towards the place where your teacher sits, regardless of whether the person is there at that moment. There is chanting in Pali, a dead and therefore inaccessible language for the layman, at the beginning and end of every group meditation session; chanting to which the majority of the people chant ‘sadhu’ three times in blind obedience and acceptance. It is no longer presented as something universal in this form; there is absolutely no reason that the teachings cannot be completely abstracted from Buddhism and religion in general. Approach it with an open mind; take what you like and throw away the rest.
Start learning about yourself, about your mind, about humanity, about existence. As far as meditation and the mind goes, accept nothing that cannot be self realized. The only reason to mediate is that it will improve your life, if this is not the case, then don’t do it.
