A few weeks ago, I ran rim to rim in the Grand Canyon. The effort was a moment to remind myself of the strength of my spirit after a period of enormous loss, chaos and instability, including health setbacks. As I ran from the night into the dazzling first drops of sun gilding the tops of the cliffs, the dawning day called me back in to myself.
My youngest brother, Noah, proposed the adventure. His goal was to run rim to rim to rim (R3)—across the canyon and back again. My goal was rim to rim. I would accompany him for the first half of his effort.
It had been more than a decade since my last ultra run. Yes, I know, technically, rim to rim is not ultra, because it is not longer than a marathon. That said, those 21 miles are challenging. I underprepared. By a lot. One month out, I broke my toe. I wasn’t sure I could even join my brother for the first steps. A few days before we were set to leave, I was fretting about my lack of training, when the universe delivered me a lightning bolt of clarity. You know how to do this. In that moment, I felt a fizz of recognition, the running was the least of it. To be prepared was to believe in myself. I could give the rest over to the universe. I felt a sudden sense of being anchored. I know how to do this. I’ve done ultra runs before. The experience is inscribed in my cells. Yes, in the past I have always trained. A lot. And that wasn’t an option this time, so I will run with what I do have. My knowing.
Don’t get me wrong. I didn’t suddenly think that I had the whole thing in the bag, and it would all be a dawdle. Not at all. Rather, it was an acceptance that I might well turn around and that would be okay, combined with a confidence that I could do it, if all else aligned (weather, health & sleep, being the three primary things that needed to be in alignment).
We started running at 4 a.m. Descending 4500 feet. In the pitch dark. For more than 2 hours.
At one point, my headlamp caught a lone, bare tree, which looked like a staging of Samuel Beckett’s play, Waiting for Godot. I thought about Didi and Gogo, near the end of the play, contemplating whether to hang themselves from the scrawny tree. A current of energy passed through me and a voice in my head said, I want to live. I want to stop waiting for something external to happen, to give me a reason. Life is happening now. This is it.
I relaxed into the pleasure of the run. We reached the bottom in the dark and began to make our way across. I’ve been down into the canyon twice before and come right back up. I had never traversed the canyon floor before. Never been hugged by the canyon walls, as I passed through the sometimes narrow, winding passage to the far rim. The light began to seep into the canyon, long before the first sunshine splashed over the highest rock faces. The North Rim loomed 5000 feet above. It didn’t seem possible that there was a trail leading up the sheer walls. And yet, there it was. Sometimes skinny and precipitous. Sometimes breathlessly steep. With views to astonish.
Tears prickled as I reached the top after 7 grueling hours. I was overcome with the full body pleasure of finishing. Despite all. I’m awesome. I thought. For a moment. Only to watch most runners who came after me turn around (as my brother did) and run back again to the South Rim.
I was so proud of my brother for achieving his desired goal. And, at the same time, all the runners out there covering twice as much distance as me that day made me question my own sense of accomplishment. I only did … I made a halfway effort. In our world of increasingly extreme efforts, in our world where people are routinely pushing their bodies to the very edge of their human limits, what counts? What is enough? What am I allowed to be proud of? Wait a minute, who is doing this allowing? Why can’t I allow myself to be awesome?
And then on the Thursday after the Grand Canyon, I read these words from David Whyte (from his book Consolations. Words I had read before, which took on new resonance: “…taking a new step always begins from the central foundational core of the body, a body we have neglected, beginning well means seating ourselves in the body again, catching up with ourselves and the person we have become since last we tried to begin …” I felt my first steps down the South Kaibab trail again and the intensity of everything that moment contained. The flood of memories of other physical challenges, like this run, that I’ve done in the past. All the ways in which my life and how I see myself have changed since then. All the doubts I was carrying into the canyon about my own capacity. Would my Addison’s Disease be a factor? The run was an opportunity to catch up with myself and the person I have become since last I tried to begin. I discovered a woman who is doing better than she thought. The light of resilience is seeping into her cells. Soon, the only-seemingly-insurmountable cliffs ahead will be painted gold and the trail will show itself. Step by step.
The bow of the canoe at Ruth Roy Lake, a magical, tiny lake
Happy summer! I’m just back from a camping and canoeing vacation, and I am thinking all about how to keep going when I’m sore.
My knee is still troubling me, and seems to be vulnerable to reinjury if I step hard on it. I will need to address whatever is causing this knee grief – my x-ray was negative, so I imagine physiotherapy and an MRI are in my future. But while I wait for those processes, I am trying to get creative and asking for help to keep doing the activities I love.
In order to at least stay moderately active, I’ve taken to wearing a knee brace while walking. What a difference it has made! I was able to enjoy a week of tent camping and a full day interior canoe adventure, by avoiding reinjuring it, and using a cane on unstable surfaces (campground paths, hiking trails).
In doing that, and with the help of my family, I had a totally fun week at Killarney Provincial Park. Yay!
In my happy place – on the water!
One of the joys of camping for me is getting to flex my fire making skills. Note the knee brace!
Out cross country skiing the other morning, I came upon this mother-daughter scene at the intersection leading to one of my favourite trails, a winding climb:
Frustrated daughter, who looked about nine-years-old, laying in the snow across the classic ski track (that’s the two parallel grooves), scuffing one ski into the track. Exasperated mother on skis, standing a couple feet away on the corduroy groomed trail.
As I made the right turn onto my favoured trail, the mother shot me a look of complicity, saying, “…” I don’t know what. I couldn’t hear her, because I wasn’t expecting her to speak to me and my ears were focused on the podcast in my ears. On another day, I might have just smiled, as if I’d heard and carried on with my ski. Instead, I felt myself in the girl’s insistent scuffing. The intensity with which she was destroying the track resonated with my own inner girl’s desire to be and do more. I stopped.
Me: “Pardon me? I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you.”
Mother: “I just don’t understand why she’s upset. She can’t ski up this trail. It’s too steep. I can barely ski it.”
Me (interior monologue): “The trail’s not that steep. Oh Mina, stop being so judgy. Also, the trail is actually pretty steep right at the top.”
Me: “Couldn’t she do the herringbone?”
Mother: “No. She can’t do it. It’s only her third day skiing.”
Hearing this, the daughter’s ski scuffing gets more vigorous and defiant.
Me (interior monologue): “What’s the harm in letting her try?”
Me (to the daughter): “Great skis. Look, they’re the same design as mine.”
I extended one leg and put one ski next to the daughter’s much shorter one, highlighting our matching black and red Atomics. The daughter glanced at me briefly with curiosity and then continued scuffing. With that, I smiled in what I hope was a consoling way at the mother and carried on with my ski.
For the rest of my time on the snow, the feminist brigade inside my head talked over each other in increasingly louder voices.
Why can’t the daughter at least try? What the worst that will happen if she tries and fails? That she will be discouraged? That she will never want to ski again? Never want to go outside again? Well, that seems unlikely. And why do I feel certain that this scene would not be playing out this way if the daughter was a son? Or if the mother were a father? A father would tell his son that he could climb the hill. Yes, true, sometimes that goes too far in the other direction. I don’t think the whole boot camp desensitization approach is the right way either. But isn’t there a supportive, middle ground? Somewhere between get-the-fuck-up-the-hill-on-the-double and oh-no-this-is-too-hard-to-even-try. Are we so fragile as girls that we can’t even be allowed to attempt something seemingly insurmountable? Why can’t she be allowed to try and be frustrated and defeated and supported in that struggle? How will she grow her resilience?
I so wanted to encourage that little girl to take on the hill. I wanted to contradict her mother, take the girl’s hand and let her know that she had all the courage she needed to take on this hill and that I’d be right behind her. And if she didn’t make it, so what, she’d have tried and that’s what counted and next time she’d probably make it.
Mina at the top of Drifter, her favourite high trail at Tahoe Donner Cross Country (and where she was inspired to ski after the encounter with the mother-daughter)
There were other voices in my head, who told me that I had no right to even weigh in on the topic, because I’m not a mother, so what do I know about daughters; plus the just plain civil voice who pointed out it was not my place to say anything.
Yes. And.
I still know a little something about girls. I was once a girl who encountered frustrations. And I am a woman who has learned a lot of new things, some of which I’ve failed at and some of which seemed insurmountable when I took them on, and at which I did okay. I don’t have specific memories of my parents preventing me from or encouraging me to take on difficult tasks. There was a general ethos of try-and-try-again throughout my childhood. My parents also sent to me to an all-girls summer camp, run by a fierce woman who both cared about our safety and encouraged us to try hard things. I balk at lots of things, but I want to make my own decision about when I choose not to try or to stop trying. When I look around, I see how, even now, boys have bigger self-confidence than girls. Boys are quicker to claim that they are good at something (even when they aren’t really). I really (really) want this for girls, too.
I dream of a world where all genders are offered equal opportunity to fall down (literally and metaphorically) and be supported as they get back on their feet. So, I dare to write this piece, as a non-mother, to ask mothers: “Please give your daughters a shot at the hill, even if it feels too steep, even for you.”
