Sunday, September 23, 2007

O that I were and Angel

The round extensions of my body rolling over matted leaves, rocks, and mud. Beds of colored leaves on the trail, an exploding red maple in front of me. The Green Pond trail just below Snowbasin, a mere 25 minutes from my home, transports me to another world. From here clichés are my only tools: amazing, brilliant, awe-inspiring, enormous, epiphanies… Or I could try Thoreau: “I wanted to live deep and suck the marrow of life” and “to be awake is to be alive” and “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to confront only the essential facts of life.” And I did want all of these, wanted to lie down in the earth and roll around in her, taking in the smell of leaves and trees and dirt.

I recognize the ironies—the $2000 full suspension mt bike between my legs and the manicured trails—yet can’t deny the connection. I pop out into a tree cleared ski run—there’s a deer looking up at me. I stop, watch, she turns part way and crosses the ski run; I continue my traverse following along with the deer until we both enter the woods on the other side.

But this doesn't capture it, too staged, too perfect and this ain't no night at the theatre. Maybe this:

After ascending Lost Chance and reconnecting with Needles, I begin the descent, a descent many have paid for by way of the gondola, but in true Thoreauvian manner I climb each one hundred feet of elevation with my own strained muscle and pounding hearts and lungs, just as he found each board and nail. And then I plunge down and across, back up short stints, right pedal down back brake engaged slight S-turn left. On the straightaway gaining speed mud flips up on my legs, face, and back, stinging like the branches hitting my hands and arms. GOD I’M IN LOVE with this, the MOUNTAIN, the recklessness, the ABANDON, the air, the SOUND and ease of my rolling body over sharp rocks and roots.

Like Joseph’s powerful character, Alma, in the Book of Mormon, who declares “O that I were an angel, and could have the wish of mine heart, that I might go forth and speak with the trump of God, with a voice to shake the earth, and cry repentance unto every people!” I too want to shake this mountain with my joy, calling to repentance my own soul and the souls of so many lifeless corpses, hands at 10 and 2, navigating through the lanes of I-15: “Awake my sons and daughters, partake of this bounteous offering from GOD, the leaves and everything in it, the mud and earth, the deer and birds. Behold this is ME, this is GOD.”

5 comments:

spontaneous expressions said...

Thanks for taking us on your ride with you. Beautiful imagery. Interesting combination of the spirituality in nature and the beauty of a metaphor! It made me a little nostaglic!

middlebrow said...

Whoa! You got Thoreau, someone from the book of Mormon, images of rolling in the dirt. And is that marrow you're sucking? How does one suck marrow anyway. Just know, no marrow sucking in our office.

Seriously, a nice bit of prose here. I like the Thoreau on a mountain bike theme. I think Thoreau would definitely own a mountain bike were he alive today.

shane said...

Sounds like a great experience: the intimacy of nature combined with the adrenaline rush of the descent--the "recklessness", that is. I think there is definitely something about recklessness that inspires a deeper understanding of and enhances the weight of any given moment--something about abandoning not only caution but all preconceived ideas except survival that strengthens our connection to reality and to ourselves, or, though I wouldn't use the metaphor myself (even purely as metaphor), to God.
Good post. It makes we want to re-read Thoreau.

Lisa B. said...

Got a little thrill from your excellent writing--all those voices in your own voice, and thank you, thank you for the Book of Mormon quotation/appropriation--it captured how still some of the writing in that book expresses something real for me. Beautiful, ci.

HH said...

Reminds me of the sensations I feel when a weary child lay their troubles at my feet. A new mountain to descend. Rocks, cliffs, and mere gravity throw fear into the ride. Fixed firmly in the seat... absorbing the jolts, and bumps... All the while wondering when the gravel will give way under a tire to send one vaulting frighteningly to pain and humiliation. Thus, reaching safely the end of the trail, leaves all fears forgotten, and an ecstasy in recalling the experience.

I just wish my office had as good a view.

Trav