I’ll call 2016 what I want, thank you

I saw this article on Facebook this morning, and I thought there were some good points in it, particularly about the people who died being the ones who reflect the breaking of barriers in the era in which they lived, the ones who redefined in some way what it meant to be human. But there is one piece in it that made me roll my eyes, that I’m seeing more and more in discussions about the events of the year, especially on Twitter:

First and perhaps foremost, this wasn’t “2016’s fault.” Years are not human beings. Stop anthropomorphizing them! Bears don’t roam around Jellystone Park stealing pic-a-nic baskets, nor do sponges cook crabby patties and live in a pineapple under the sea. Simply put, calendar years don’t murder people.

You don’t say.

I’m really mystified by how annoyed it makes some people to see others “blame” the year 2016, who think the people doing it are convinced that everything bad that’s happening is literally bounded by the date range of the year. Come on. I would venture to say there is absolutely no one (of sound mind or maturity, at least) who actually thinks everything will be just dandy fine on January 1.

Human beings organize their time in semi-arbitrary chunks for good reason. And having done so, people are going to take note of things that happen in those arbitrary chunks, and they will characterize those arbitrary chunks. If you have ever said “This was a terrible day,” then maybe back off anyone who is “blaming” 2016. Have you ever made New Year’s resolutions, or set New Year’s goals? People get to characterize their own lives, and an enormous number of people were upset by the things that happened between 1/1/16 and 12/31/16. If you weren’t troubled by 2016, good for you! That’s awesome. There is no social mandate to be upset by it. But tons of people were, and for non-crazy reasons. That’s okay.

But lecturing people about hating on 2016 seems a little high-handed to me. If it’s an arbitrary, non-human concept, then it seems like a harmless outlet, and even a healthy bonding mechanism, for grieving or frustration. There is no harm in it. Indeed, the opposite is true: it’s a narrative and rhetorical device that gives common voice to the fear and the grief that comes from what many saw as terribly painful events in 2016. Again, you don’t have to do it yourself. But hectoring other people for it, and going so far as to tell them to “stop anthropomorphizing” the year 2016, as did the author of the otherwise interesting article linked above, is pointless, possibly hypocritical, and even a little obnoxious. I have a suggestion: try a little empathy instead.

Like this elephant, I will be giving the finger — or the trunk, as it were — to the back end of 2016. 2017 may be just as bad, or worse. Or it may be deeply worthwhile. That’s the joy of life: we get to see, until we don’t anymore. Happy New Year.

 

Edited to add: (As often happens, a lot of the discussion happens on Facebook, and you should see the Trailhead’s Facebook page for a well-stated counterpoint to this post. It’s worth reading.)

Butterfly creek: the best of it all

This is the in-between week, the time when we’re supposed to get reflective about the last year before welcoming the new, which this time will consist mostly just of opening the door to usher this crappy year out. Both personally and from a celebrity perspective, 2016 seemed slavishly devoted to draining the world of its best people.  So on principle, I’ve been at odds with this year since it took my grandmother when it was less than two weeks old.

Still, I’m a natural contrarian, and I like to look at an issue from all angles. This year was strangely and quietly productive for me on a number of fronts, so it wasn’t all bad from a personal perspective. So what, then, was the best moment for me in this year of endless hits? For such a rough year, the answer was surprisingly easy. As soon as I asked myself, the answer bubbled up like a fart in a bathtub. The funny thing is that I haven’t even written about this moment; it was so personal and so internal that there was never really a point.

In June I went back to Montana after an eight-year absence with my husband Travis and our dear friend Fred, traveling by way of the Badlands and Yellowstone. We devoted most of our time to Glacier National Park, where we spent several days backpacking in the remote North Fork region. On the second day, between Lower Kintla and Upper Kintla Lakes, the trail pushed through a wide burn, a remnant, I think, from fires in the year 2000. Hiking through burns in summer is always a hot business; you never realize how much sun protection is offered by the forest until you emerge into a stand of bare, charred tree snags. It was a hot day anyway, and the weird otherworldliness of these areas only increases the sense of discomfort.  We were singing 80’s metal hair band songs to ward off the bears we’d been warned were lurking. The path in this section also went up and down and up and down, so we were all sweating and huffing by the time we were halfway through it.

We’d started gulping down our lukewarm water at a rapid clip; I can always tell I’m dehydrated because I’m so eager to drink that some of it splashes out the sides of my bottle and down my chin a little. We stopped for a few seconds to drink, examine a toad standing in the middle of the trail, and see what looked like a checkerspot butterfly chowing on some orange hawkweed. (Butterflies don’t care whether a plant is considered invasive by humans.) We pushed on, singing Poison songs in such ear-splitting, out-of-tune voices we were certain any interested bears would be dissuaded. (“Christ, Bob, more middle-aged hikers butchering Unskinny Bop. Let’s go up the mountain for lunch.”)

Our remaining water was as warm as fresh spit, and barely enough to skim the first mark on the bottle. We considered a side-trip to the lake to replenish our supply. We weren’t in trouble; we knew there was water access twenty or so minutes down the trail at the falls where the lakes met. But we were uncomfortable. A drop of sweat launched itself down the sunscreen field of my forehead, lingering at my temple to tickle just enough to make me raise my hand and smear it across my eyelids. As it always does, the sunscreen burned my eyes. I was wobbling at the edge of “fuck this” territory.

And then, as all good moments do, it broke. The charred snags gave way and the trail spilled us out onto a broad, open slope, down which was flowing a wide, rushing fall of meltwater – nature’s own refrigerated beverage. If you wanted to record a symphony of human gratitude, you could just sit for six or so weeks at the intersection of the trail and this seasonal creek, before the heat of summer dries it up, and listen to the whoops and joy-calls of the overheated hikers who encounter it.

Socks and boots and shirts flew all about as we stripped off.  The chorus changed from anticipated yelps to hollers of thrilled shock as reddened feet and hands were plunged into the icy water. I stuck my wrists and ankles in first, then bathed my cooling band in the water and wrapped it gently around my neck. My blood temperature dropped to a mild simmer. Then our heads went in.

There is something strange about viewing a mountain world from the bottom up. I knelt on the rocks, immersing almost my whole parched head into the stream, noticing for a moment what it felt like to have my long hair trying to go downhill and join the falls, pulling gently on my scalp, all while the mountains had been turned upside down.  It was such a weird and drastic alteration of perspective that it was impossible not to smile. That’s what I love about trips like these: things can go from “Fuck this” to glorious with a single step.

I pulled my head out of the water and righted myself again, and through the streams of water running down my face, I noticed that we had company: butterflies, I saw, were on everything. Fritillaries and checkerspots, all perched on our boots, socks, feet, hands, and heads. Fred had one on his hat.  Travis had one on his toe. Two had landed on his sunglass strap. When he reached for the Steri-Pen to treat the water in the bottles, one had landed on that too. Four of them were congregated on Fred’s shoe. One was on my camera pack, just at the spot where it had bumped along my sweaty back.

Butterflies don’t care where they get their salt and minerals, and they were clearly as happy with our sweat as we were with the cold rush of snowmelt. While we were soaking our heads, they had somehow smelled us and descended on the buffet. Knowing this sort of thing has never diminished the wonder of it for me; instead, it made that seasonal creek, rushing down a broad, open, hot slope, feel like a magical place of abundance for everyone. Water is life. So, apparently, are sweaty hikers.

We stayed for about forty-five minutes before continuing on to a cool patch of forest across the creek and a few more steps down the trail. Fred made lunch, and we moved on to Upper Kintla Lake with new energy, happy and satisfied. Upper Kintla is itself a breathtaking and magical place, and we lay on its banks for a long time, soaking it in.

Even at my desk at the end of December, I can still feel the chill of the water seeping through my hair and into every follicle, and feel the tickle of butterfly feet on my skin.  It’s not the only moment of joy or wonder I experienced this year – far from it. But for whatever reason, it’s the one I remember over and over again, the one that burned itself into my brain.  Author Viktor Frankl talks about the “granaries of memory” that continue to fill as we age. This one is the plumpest, fullest kernel from a year that often seemed merciless.

(More photographic proof of the Butterfly Creek phenomenon on The Trailhead’s Facebook page here.)

The path ahead

Here is the photo. If you’re a regular reader, the words are below.

An alarmingly hot day in the Badlands, and one of the best days of the year.

This has been a difficult year. Death and illness and change has hit hard, and too many people close to me are in active, crushing states of grief. They are always on my mind, as is the reality that I can do very little except lurk in the background, waiting to be there if needed.

We lost a huge number of artists this year, and they took a massive amount of undone art with them to the grave. One of them, Carrie Fisher, holds onto life as I type. I check the news every half hour for an update; she’s the embodiment of how to accept one’s humanity and come to smile at it a little, and squeeze what laughter can be had from it — which, if you’ve read her writing, turns out to be a lot. The world needs more of her, not less.

There is instability looming in the country and the world. Some deny it. Some are eager for it. Others of us see something much darker in it.

I said recently that I don’t quite know how to do life anymore; this has been one of those years where the table has been flipped in so many planes. I’ve also heard it said that in order to be useful in this new age, to have the maximum helpful impact, one must pick something to work on, that focus is key. This is a problem for my split personality: I’m half logical lawyer, lover of analysis and order, and half creative, spinner of tales and imagery. I’ve asked myself which half of my self I should inhabit in the coming days.

Fortunately, the answer is what it’s always been, of course: all of it. It’s tempting to believe that logic and analysis has little place in a world where truth is based on whatever animosities are simmering at the time, where teenagers are getting rich pumping made-up stories into the pipeline, fantasies that are wholly without reality but oh-so-alluring to our resentments.

Or, maybe the world needs more of the logical and analytical, not less — as long as we recognize the limits of it.

The other half of me seems equally useless in this age. Wildlife, a source of wonder and the basis of so much of my creativity, is going extinct at a rapid clip. A huge chunk of the country has decided that it knows more than the scientists who would drag them screaming into modernity, and have concluded that climate change doesn’t really exist. So of what use are my stories and photographs about wild animals and nature?

That, also, is an open question. Maybe the world needs more of that, not less, too, but I don’t know. And I’m not sure it matters, because it’s what I can do and it’s what I have. So that’s what I’ll put into the world. Children’s writer Joan Walsh Anglund, in a quote widely misattributed to Maya Angelou, said that “the bird sings not because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song.”

So that’s the path for me, until I have no more feet or the world has no more trails. One of those things is certain to happen, and the only question is — always — when.