The Loop Trail

And now that I’m determined to figure out the reasons behind my actions, now that I’ve committed myself to it and have sequestered myself on a small island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, 2,500 miles from mainland, I find that what I really want to do, what, in fact, I really need to do is get the christ away from this keyboard and drive the mile or so up country to the Makawao State Forest, and hike the six-mile Kahakapao Loop Trail.

I’m at the trailhead now. I’ve just climbed out of the electric car, which by this time I have mastered, when the rain begins.

“Hurry up and open the door,” says the large blond woman headed for the white Jeep parked beside me. “Hurry the fuck up! It’s raining!”

The number one piece of advice Elmore Leonard gives on writing prose is, “Never begin a story with weather.” I read this shortly after I had sent the completed galleys of my one and only published book, the first sentence of which reads, “It begins with rain,” back to the publisher.

Okay. So, great as he is? Fuck him. It’s raining. And I’m walking. I choose to take the loop counter-clockwise today. And up I go. Hello. Hello. Good morning. Nice day. Aloha. Aloha. And now the dog walkers and moms with their kids have thinned out and I’m on my own. On the narrow path. Beneath the cover of those bare naked eucalyptus trees.

I’ve been listening to a lot of Pema Chödrön lately. So now I’m a bodhichitta in training. A very old apprentice. I try to control my mind. Yes. Control my mind. Like Shantideva teaches us to do. I try to make the hike a meditation. I try to breathe and clear my thoughts. To release all the “stories I’ve been telling myself,” as Pema says. They’re all lies anyway. Who said what. What it meant. In which ways they were at fault. In which ways I was at fault. I try to let all this go. Breathe. Love myself. Like Pema loves me. Love the rain. The trees. The way they creak in the wind.

It’s easy to be Pema-like when you’re alone. It’s people who fuck you up.

One young couple has a large, dangerous looking dog off leash. We exchange smiley hellos. And then, as I pass, “Nice wolf,” I say.

And then, down the trail, I worry about that. Did the guy take offense to me calling his dog a wolf? He had grinned and nodded his head at the time. But wasn’t it a bit off cue for me to say that?

I cross paths with an older couple heading up when I’m heading down. “Aloha,” says the woman.

“Hi,” I say. “Isn’t it nice?” Arms held out, motioning to the whole thing. Trees. Rain.

“I like it,” says the guy.

And then, down the trail, I worry about that. Should I have returned their aloha with aloha? I think they were natives. It’s pretty obvious I’m not. I’m of the Captain James Cook variety. Would it be insulting for me to say aloha?

One guy, in passing, asked me how long I have been hiking.

“It’s about six miles in total,” I say.

“Yeah,” he says, “but how long have you been going? An hour?”

“Yeah,” I say. “About that.”

This echoes in my head for a while. I check my phone. It has actually been about an hour and 25 minutes. I should have said, “It’s been a little longer than that.” Or, “It’s been about an hour and 25 minutes.” But then, they’d be going downhill, and it would be quicker for them than it was for me, coming up. So maybe it wasn’t so bad me telling them it was an hour.

Isn’t this pathetic? Isn’t it ridiculous? That I should retrace such trivialities in my mind over and over again while I walk. I try to say the thing that will go down easy with them. The right thing. The thing that will satisfy them. I roll over. That’s my problem. Like a dog. I can’t just say nothing. Like the guy in the Yankees jersey who looked so miserable. He did the opposite of rolling over. He kind of snarled at me. About what you’d expect from a Yankees fan.

On the other hand, why did I tell the guy he had a nice wolf? Wasn’t that a bit provocative? Why couldn’t I just not have said that? Even though that dog did look a lot like a wolf. Same narrow, mean looking snout. Blazing blue eyes. Large size. Shaggy coat.

Behind these people, in my mind, there are other people. My mother. Just out of the hospital. And now back in assisted living. Where she promptly flooded her apartment and the one below hers and the one below that when she forgot to shut off the water while washing dishes and decided to take a nap instead. My customers. My wife. My kids. Whom I have also abandoned.

I try to put it behind me. All this shit I can do nothing about at this time. What good will it do to keep turning it over? Torturing myself with it. I breathe. That’s what I pay attention to. Breathing and walking. That’s all. Breathing. Walking.

I’m about a mile from the trailhead now. I know because I’ve walked this path dozens of times. The trees start to change over to pines here. The air smells like those classic air fresheners everyone used to hang from their rear view mirrors. The rain tapers to mist. I can see breaks in the clouds. A cool wind suddenly comes up from the north. I look at the sky again. And something happens inside me. Like an electric shock. I have this feeling coursing through me. I think it’s joy. I think joy is coursing through me. And here I am. Everything is so goddamn beautiful. I’m not in any pain. Not hungry or thirsty. Don’t need to shit or piss. No especially toxic addictions calling my name. Not alcohol. No form of opium. No cigarettes. Nothing planned for the rest of the day. Or for the rest of the month, for that matter. I’m on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Walking. In the deep woods. Alone. Life will never be better than this. Never again. And the rare thing is, the exceedingly rare thing is, I know it.