Who Am I?

Have you ever wondered why you are the way you are?  Just what is this multilayered thing called, your personality?  One of the best parts of getting long in the tooth is the ability to turn around and gaze at your life’s path.  If yours looks like mine, there will have been many twists and turns, multiple dead ends, and road signs warning of hazards ahead.

I must admit that I am quite satisfied with my life lived thus far but, why did it unravel into its present footprint?  All of us are exposed to many influences during our time on earth.  For some, it will be family, for others friends, and for others still, a cataclysmic moment in time.  I have always followed the path less traveled and eagerly pursued solitude.  Why?  I don’t dislike people however; I don’t really care to spend much time around them.  I hunt, ski, and backpack alone.  I’m not a thrill seeker or trying to prove myself in some way.  I like to read and think and both of these pursuits are best served alone.  After much adiue, I believe my choices in literature and film formed me.

For most of my life, I served our nation as a Special Forces (Green Beret) non commissioned officer.  I believe my passion for adventure led me to this choice of careers and was fueled during my youth by the works of Jack London, James Fenimore Cooper, and Ernest Hemingway. I spent many a night under my blanket with a flashlight reading Hemingway’s “Nick Adams Stories”.  My love of solitude and wild places was most certainly flamed by London’s “White Fang and The Call of the Wild”.  My sense of exploration developed with Cooper’s character Hawkeye in Last of the Mohicans.  Interestingly, I’ve read and reread works from these three authors many times over the ensuing years.

I love cinema but here too, I return again and again to five films.  They are, The Outlaw Josey Wales, The Wild Bunch, The Cross of Iron, The Deer Hunter and, The Green Berets.  While tough, Clint Eastwood’s character, Josey Wales never could assimilate into society.  In The Wild Bunch, Pike (William Holden) and Dutch (Ernest Bourgnine) failed to adapt as time passed them by and paid for it with their lives however; I learned from them, the powerful impact that a single group of men can have at a single point in time.  James Coburn’s character “Steiner” in The Cross of Iron taught me that you can exist alone and yet blossom in a team of like minded individuals.  The roles played by Robert Deniro and John Wayne in The Deer Hunter and The Green Berets respectively, taught me that an individual’s true strength of character lies within.

There you have it, I’m a simple rendition of what I hope to one day become.  I must however, ask myself one question.  This will be hard or impossible to answer but, what if I was already the individual I am and therefore merely drawn to these authors and films because they were relevant for me?  Maybe I’ve merely walked around in a circle only to return to the same interrogative - Who Am I?

Individualism

I’ve often wondered why I prefer to be alone?  Am I selfish?  Am I an introvert?  Am I socially unacceptable?  It is for others to decide if I’m socially unacceptable or not however; I do know that I’m definitely not an introvert and I don’t see myself as selfish.  So, why the never ending search for solitude?  I guess I’m still trying to define who I am.

Yesterday, I decided to take a quick ski tour before dawn.  The night sky had cleared after several days of stormy conditions.  The trees were blanketed with a heavy covering of wet snow and it seemed like the forest was alive as I skinned uphill.  The load of snow was too heavy for the trees and as the temperature rose above freezing, my ears were greeted with the loud thud of snow sliding off tree branches and slamming onto the ground below.  My mind relaxed and I focused on my ski tips, my respiratory rate, and the pleasing warmth in my legs as I climbed ever higher.  After an hour, I reached the apex of my climb and stopped to remove my skins and prep for my downhill run.

As I sat on my pack, my mind wandered to Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau and the rest of the Transcendentalist Movement from the mid 1800’s.  I’ve long been a fan of this movement’s philosophical ideas.  My life’s endeavors have been centered on my favorite quote from Emerson - “Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist.”  Therein lies my desire to search for my individual self.  One can only truly learn who they are in the quiet calm of solitude.  Unfortunately, in today’s hectic, media packed noisy world, solitude is hard to find.  The best way, to discover new vistas is to leave humanity behind and discover oneself.

After a quick drink and a final equipment check, I swung my pack, tightened my pack straps and listened for the reassuring click of my boots locking into my bindings.  The sun’s rays were now shining through pine tree boughs and their warmth felt fantastic.  I pushed off and it took a mere 4 minutes to reach the point where I’d started my ascent.  Four minutes immersed in the joy of downhill speed and I once again found myself surrounded by the din of car music, people talking, and dogs barking.  Oh well, I’ll just have to spend this next week daydreaming for the moment when I can once again be alone.

Ski Tour Musings

There is nothing quite like the hum of skis moving uphill on a skin track.  The sound is actually hard to describe.  The alternating  click of left and right boot heels on your binding’s heel plate can become very calming.  Maybe it is because Mother Nature’s wintry robe is so quiet on a windless day.  It is always a good idea to take a quick break and take off some layers after 20 minutes of skinning.  There were quite a few skiers out skinning uphill today and many of them seemed to be in a hurry.  As I put my outer jacket into my pack, I asked myself why they seemed to be pushing it uphill?

So often these days, everyone seems to be in a hurry.  Life is already a temporary existence so why scurry through it?  Of course, maybe they were exercising but shouldn’t you exercise your mind?  When I skin, I like to set a pace in which I keep my perspiration to a minimum, my breathing slow and deep, and my senses on alert.  There is so much to partake of in the mountains.  During one of my water stops, I pulled a pine tree branch up to my nostrils and inhaled deeply.  Here it is, three hours later and I can still smell parfum du pine.  Tiny moments like that are why I venture into the Wild.  As always, the wind lived on the summit.  Gazing westward, I marveled at the dark faced front approaching the Oregon Cascades.  Removing my skins, I switched my ski bindings from tour to ski mode and selected my line.  The snow was hard and quite icy in spots however; nothing feels better than carving precise short radius turns with a pack on your back.  Skiing with a pack forces you to either look really good or awfully awkward.

The rejuvenating effects of immersing oneself in the mountains never lose their impact on my life.  Down in town,  I come across as gregarious however, it is my way of insulating myself from people.  I let very few get to know me.  It is safer that way.  Insinuating myself into Mother Nature’s warm embrace makes me feel safe.  When I was younger, I fooled myself into believing that I could dominate the wilderness.  Now that I’m preparing to travel into my 60’s, I know better.  I was merely lucky in my younger days.  So, these days, I stop to smell the roses but, I must ask myself, do I do this for philosophical reasons or is it only because I’m nowhere near as physically fit as I was thirty years ago?  Maybe, these days I’ve only discovered a new way to fool myself.