Feet and Legs or... How One Anti-Social Bastard Found Real Life

As I'm sitting here trying to sort a spiritual experience into shelved little paragraphs for consumption, all I can think about are my feet and legs. My thighs wail when I bend down. I can feel the blisters on my feet compress and spread as I take a step. The patchwork of scrapes on my knees. Minus the seeping burn on my thumb, the torso fared much better, but I can still feel a dull soreness when I rotate my shoulders. This pain will take time to heal.

I truly love that it will. I wryly smile when weary muscles stretch and scream, when sharp pain shoots from my feet, rushing through the nerves and straight to the brain. I beam with pride as I drag my beaten body down sidewalks and streets. All of my pain plucks me from the city and drops me back into the weekend, back to the swirling wind atop Spud Rock.
To running my hands through the tall grass of Mica Meadow. To lying aimlessly on monolithic stone and feeling life all around me, encompass me, permeate my flesh and bone and synthesize me into itself.

It almost seems cheap to just talk about it. The wilderness, Real Life, must be experienced to fully appreciate. But we'll try it anyway.

Last weekend I went on a backpacking trip into the Eastern region of Saguaro National Park. The wilderness there has had a tight grip on my heart since last summer when I went on my very first backpacking trip. Six months prior to my introduction to the woods I had left my first serious, and by any measure godawful, relationship. I had spent my time rediscovering myself and licking my wounds when a coworker suggested that I get out for a long weekend. She recommended Saguaro because it's close to town, perfect for the transportationally–challenged, like myself.

I owe her more than she'll ever know. That trip was transformative. It kickstarted my passion for hiking and a deep love for the wild. I found the last piece of myself in those woods, a piece I had been trying to fashion and shoehorn into the rest of the puzzle. Practically it should have been a disaster. I went during monsoon season with no proper water treatment, a leaky tent, and a 40+ pound pack. But the woods (and the generous Forest Rangers) were kind to me. I had always intended to go back, and after plans for a trip through the Blue Range Primitive Area fell through, an opportunity presented itself.

I had learned much in a year, having gone on a handful of other backpacking trips. I bought a fancy new tent. I had found a cheap and effective means of treating backcountry water. I cut my pack weight to about 30 pounds. But oddly enough the most important piece of gear I packed was probably the most impractical.

For entertainment I brought a biography on Eustace Conway, one of the last American frontiersmen in the country. Eustace lives entirely off his land. He can create a roaring fire from two sticks. He hunts and forages for his food. He sleeps in a small teepee. He travels around the country espousing the benefits of living harmoniously with nature, how through our pursuit of convenience we've created an artificial existence in hollowed brick-and-mortar boxes that rest on the battered corpse of what was once a thriving natural landscape.

It's an inspiring biography but I suppose that I'm biased. You would be, too. City life had been crushing me before I ran away to live in the woods. My work had become unfulfilling and frustrating. A good friendship had been waning. I had been rejected by a rare soul I had felt strongly connected to. Truthfully I rarely feel fully comfortable in most social settings. I tend to shy away from big events and outings that most would consider engaging. So maybe I'm just an antisocial bastard and Eustace is telling me what I want to hear: People suck, civilization sucks, sell all your shit and go live out in the woods forever.

But I doubt it. I lived his words. I would lie in my tent at night, absorbing his knowledge, and experience his reality the following morning. How all of nature melds into a beautiful cycle of life and death, drought and deluge, searing flame and soothing wind. Spud Rock gives the best views of the Rincons and from there I could see the simple truth of Eustace's words. Swaths of new pine growing next to blackened, charred stump. A lone sapling rooted right into a massive boulder. Deep pools of water in streams that would be bone dry in a matter of weeks.

I was alive. I wasn't making a living, I was just living. As I hiked further into the forest I could feel life surrounding me and engulfing me into its cycle. I felt accepted and loved and connected to everything. This was Real Life that you could feel in the wind, hear when the birds took flight, smell in the dense pines, taste in the flowing water. Eustace says that humans live in boxes, that our geometry runs opposite to the natural lifecycle. We work in boxes, we sleep in boxes, we're entertained by the television box, we work on computer boxes, we eat food in boxes. All lifeless, manufactured boxes that do not foster nor encourage Real Life. The Beats tried to find meaning and a sense of self through manual labor. They left academia and the lofty institutions inherited from their families to work on oil rigs and railroads. I had already found myself last summer. I labored over 12 miles and 6,000 feet in elevation to complete myself. This time I was looking for a life to live, and I found it. I found my home.

What can fill you with more confidence than finding where you belong? How can any problems from the boxes seem significant when you've lived a Real Life, even for just a few days? Work will always be frustrating. Friends will always disappoint you. Women will always come and go. None of it matters when you're in nature. Every task is manual labor. Hike to this point. Make camp. Find water. Eat food. Sleep. Hike some more. Work is everywhere and there is a sense of accomplishment in everything. You're a small piece of something magnificent. You’re living with your environment rather than simply in it.

The wilderness is my home. It's everyone's home. We're all from there. Nature still welcomes us with open arms, melding us into the cycle like we never left it at all. Don't just go outside. Go out into the wild. Carry 30 pounds on your back and run up a mountain. Scrape your knees on bedrock when you're dragging water from the river. Get blisters on your feet from hiking too much. Burn your thumbs on a campfire. Make your muscles sore. Climb to the highest point on the mountain and see how small and inconsequential your city is. Go outside, go home, live a Real Life, then go back to your housebox and relish in your pain. Just fucking live.

-- Patrick Ryan