A Balancing Act, Of Sorts

The hiking pack fell off the scooter for the 3rd time in the past 15 minutes.


     I'd spit out the dirt and grime kicked up by the wheels on this dirt path leading to our next camping spot, if I had any saliva left.  The day started out innocent enough; a steady breeze kept my shirt from adhering to my back as the sun sulked behind a waning sheet of clouds.  It was persistent, however, and inevitably I found myself cursing every bone rattling second on this haphazard road through the mountains as if it were carved out with a jagged ended trowel, all the while that heat lamp up in the big blue giving me a nice crisp on the skin.  Eventually, I started to classify the bumps in the road to avoid boiling over with rage: there are the craters, the boulder graveyards, the stretches of traction robbing loose gravel and dirt, the squiggles which are shaped like the surface of a riffles potato chip, and of course, the scooter swallowing trenches that are unavoidable and crunch up your spine like an accordion.
     Thunk!  I don't even bother checking the mirror, at this point.  I squeeze out of my cramped throne and notice the tent bag and my hiking pack sprawled across the narrow road, again.  I look for a second, and I chuckle a little "Of course!" as I realize I've lost my third water bottle, which is probably rolling  maniacally away as it escapes down the mountain.  Doesn't matter, you have to console yourself.  Slamming my pack and tent back onto the creaking backside of the scooter, I shimmy back into the seat and start her back up, all the while shoving desperately with my legs to get her past the next big hill.
    Maybe this is the last hill.  Of course, I know better, and my scooter groans in answer before I can even muster a response.  I'm not even sure I can even bring her to  our customary 5 miles and hour on this one.  I try my best, however, and eventually come to a stand still on the middle of the hill, prompting me to jump off and give the beast a push, now that my weight wasn't added to the load.  Scorching thighs from the exertion further fuel my frustration, and the nagging thoughts crash my brain uninvited behind my migraine clouded eyes as the sweat droplets pool down the bridge of my nose to the red cushion seat under my head.

 These debilitating thoughts,

Loathe, repulsed by, addicted to,

Thoughts, crippling,

Fraying of nerves...

     An hour of this and we miraculously pull into a spot, and I slump out onto the grass and gravel and mechanically start to tear down the baggage and plop them carelessly onto the ground.  I go through the motions as I strain to continue the thread of conservation with my traveling buddy, yet my heart isn't into banter and it shows through my body language and my almost comic frowning mug.  I curse myself for it, yet I can't shake my gut instinct, immature gloom because it's so sickeningly satisfying,so satisfying, satisfying in it's deceptive warmth.  

     The migraine drives in that final ice pick into my consciousness as I desperately try to bring myself out of this idiotic self paralysis, and I strain to play the fun loving, joke cracking travel buddy I used to be a mere couple of months ago, out on a noble quest, and I succeed only partially.  But with each passing minute the thoughts and feelings continually slam into the inner wall of my brain, berating me for the inconsequential and revolting me in the mistakes of past, and the onslaught rolls over in waves as I make my way to the tent, and the dirt and grime from days of build up saturate my skin and clothes as I slink into my sleeping bag and let sleep take on its nightly shift, praying for some sort of reprieve until morning...

No images, no wait, definitely images, images of shapes, 

shapes of words and words shaping images, they're whizzing by, 

slashing by like a highway in my aching head, 

head overflowing with trivial, inconsequential, 

no wait they are important STOP IT they're not,  

outlines of words, 

words in bold print and angry coloring,  
RAGE in crimson red   
Melancholia in oppressive shades of shadowy tones sometimes blue sometimes that same red but always blue 

a color that finds its way into my thoughts, thoughts of past and present and the 

unknown and the past I slave over with my mind as I comb over my mistakes 

and my faults and my fears for what's to come or what won't come Oh God 

what have I done I lament the familiar the familiar sting and soothing 

balm of home and certainty how long can I last CAN. I. LAST I'm in a spiral spiraling in the sprawl of space of my sanity suffocating my sanity severing my psyche

 Stop it stop it stop 
wake up wake wake u-

    The ear splitting ringing in my head cuts out and I'm warped back into being fully conscious, my eyes still shut, but I decide not to open them for the moment, and let the crust in the corner of my eyelids keep them glued together.  I can feel the morning coming on, but it's stubbornly too frigid to crawl out of my cocoon.  I toss and turn, shifting my weight to get some blood flow back into the arm I had been cradling on the entire night.  There's a tingling in my fingers as circulation works its magic and I eventually decide to come top side.  I glance out the front of the tent entrance and notice once again a  mountain side that looms over our campsite, with the neighboring slopes steep with piled logs and loose boulders.  Deep breath, stretch my chest, another deep inhalation.  Dan is awake.  He asks if I'm going to climb that.  You know what?  I think I will.

     The thoughts are still untamed for the first couple of minutes as I stumble on some loose gravel and stones up the mountain side, straddling toppled over tree limbs awkwardly and trying to find hand holds to steady my ascent.  Eventually, though, the chorus dies down to a pitiful whimper in my head as the steady crunch of twigs beneath my boots take shape in my mind, and then it turns oddly quiet.  I can hear some far off bird with its mildly pleasant cackle reverberating around me.  Sweat droplets haltingly drip off of my reddened face, but I don't mind; the breeze is cooling the sheen of sweat on my forehead.  There is a steady fire in my thighs again, yet it feels good; the burn is a welcome sensation in my waking body.  My eyes aren't clouded by any debilitating migraine; the throbbing in my forehead is a faded whisper.  My heart pounds in my chest as I make a last mad dash to the peak of the climb, eventually scraping stone and moss underneath my feet.  I clamor up the last few feet to the ridge of the cliff, and I look over past the edge to the mountain valley that lays before me. 

      Some people label these unfiltered episodes as "anxiety" or "panic" attacks; something that is jarring in one instance and and then a split second later washed away.  But for me they are, as I stated, a faded whisper, yet still ever present, nonetheless.  It'll still be there wherever I go, and I'm changed for it, whether it be for better or for worse.  With that knowledge forever known to me, I guess the only thing I can do at this point is to soak in the scenery, inflate my lungs with that pine tinged air, and methodically make my descent back to the now tamed madness below.