The Queen of PCT

When the author Cheryl Strayed’s mother was diagnosed of cancer that sneaked on a person with healthy habits, she thought it must be her town docs who didn’t know much. While the docs gave the mom a year, she died in 49 days.

Cheryl had imagined a family with her as the substitute mother which didn’t work. After that her whole family came unglued, she was untethered but for her marriage which she pulled out of to ‘gather(ed) up inside of me’ through a hike on the Pacific crest trail.

The mode of walking she chose needs a comment. Her journey is halfway between a pilgrimage like ‘The Santiago’ but there is no one to stamp to validate that you went through all the stops and a road trip like ‘Going back to Bisbee’ by Richard Shelton where the landscape plays a major part with its detailed history. Here the author turns herself into the place that she delves into. Its said that driving is by muscle memory once you learn it but walking being the most natural act, frees your mind to do the thinking. But in the wild, solo the mind also fuels its fears. In this tug of war, what helped the author was the books she carried with her.

On the hike she wonders about the hardness of PCT vs the recent events in her life and thinks that ‘Perhaps the impulse to purchase the PCT guidebook months before had been a primal grab for a cure, for the thread of my life that had been severed’.

The way she begins her hike with an oversized pack that she is unable to lift is hilarious.

She comes across as a person with ‘should have read the guide’ seems ill prepared for the PCT hike. But after one day on the trail she feels experienced. Her hiking pace doubles in a couple of weeks. Her way of confronting the wild animals is calling out their names.

This act of strength is something that everyone applauds while at the same time they wonder about the parents who would let their daughter go it alone in the wild like this. This subject being broached up frequently by the fellow hikers, she has to find the coordinates of her family ties.

Serious hikers of long trails like this and Appalachian mail themselves food that can be picked half way or somewhere along, so dont have to carry all of their food for the journey.
She wanted to do the hike alone and turned down company during the hike. She wanted full responsibility of her survival on the trail. Yet, the vastness amazing her also left her lonely. At stop points she was always glad to have company and meet up with other PCT

Hikers.

The author chose ‘Bridge of the Gods’ as her destination. Bridge which is a symbol for transformation.

‘The bull, I acknowledged grimly, could be in either direction, since I hadn’t seen where he’d run once I closed my eyes. I could only choose between the bull that would take me back and the bull that would take me forward.

And so I walked on.’

We are now in the mountains

and they are in us ..

John Muir, My First summer in the Sierra

Survivor tale

A friend once sent an invitation with ‘save the date’. The first time I learnt of wedding planners was through the JLo movie. Put together, I was interested in knowing an event planner’s job experience of fixing up things.

Jennifer Gilbert with entrepreneurial ideas as a kid and ‘viral party’ throwing skills, was cut out for a career that screams power in her dreams as well as reality. After a life of wanderlust in Europe, a 22yr old, she was ready to fall into a fabulous life until a tragic event put a ‘before and after’ break in her life. The experience not only splintered her but sent her into a cocoon when she is not pumping energy into event planning.

The author can take you to the fanciest of places where its hard to get in – as an event planner. She can take you to the lowest of lows where even in a situation of shock, you wont panic but fight for life like her. After becoming a victim of a random attempted murder, she shared how she felt nothing. The one thing that saw her through was her passion for celebrating the memorable moments in others lives. When her tragic experience was ‘at leasted’ away she learnt to listen to the pains and fears of others, however small they may be, a trait that helped her in her business.The way she ran her event planning business, her experiences with hard to please clients, last moment ‘saving the day’ to make everything perfect even if it does not fall in the bucket of her job duties, its no wonder that she got the recognition for it.

She is written well of her victim guilt, strife being a broken person with no scars on the outside. Ironically when she later writes of her son’s alopecia a condition where nothing’s wrong inside. She has addressed issues like body image which took her a lot of time to overcome through the journey of peeling of her defense layers.

In this book, the author switches well between the personal tone when it comes to the pursuit of happiness through relationships and a survivor tone when she recalls the event and its effect three years later when she has to face all the bad memories again. The book is always optimistic even if the author sometimes thinks that she is the best enemy of her happiness. Control personified, her life experiences have taught her that the she may not have control over the events but she can control who she is after.

It got weary to read of the n love interests. I do understand that given the life changing experience, she had to take many chances at love and life.

I find it surprising that for a type A++ planner, she wouldn’t read up on signs of labor.

A book with similar turning point is Dear Marcus: A Letter to the Man Who Shot Me  by Jerry McGill

The April prompt of  switchback  is: "Thought is made in the mouth"

search led me to pg 87

Unfledged starling

A baby bird chip chips
for food
bobbing its head into
the air in different positions
Its like many baby birds
asking for food

Looking at the new bird
in the metal enclosure
of parking lot shed legs
with a little opening

I wonder if a bird mom
ever lays eggs in a place
where the eggs fit but the
born bird might not be
able to come out

Whenever I went that way
I saw the bird gape out
or heard it

Today I went from the other
side of the pole to see that
the bird's  is
immortalised neck up
stuck between a horizontal
beam and the falling edge of
the shed.
If it found it difficult to pull
it head back how did it
jut in there?

I was going to mark the day
I stop hearing the bird as
its first flight day

First portrait second portrait

I had great expectations from Saramago in 'The Manual of Painting and Calligraphy' after having enjoyed both his memoir 'Small Memories' and 'The notebook'. The title which presages the view of an artist is a subject dear to me. Despite being the right reader, I couldnt key into the book.
I liked the concept of exploration of a subject in another medium (the narrator's primary being painting and secondary writing) as well as another attempt stripping an artistic endeavour of its chance happening outcome (have you ever tried to draw something and realise that you drew something too well but you know you cannot repeat it again ) in the first attempt and actually knowing the subject. I kept myself interested just on this single concept but could not continue after half the book. when I read something new of artists or their work, I am inclined to reading more about it. In this book, there are many references to such works as part of the narrator's travelogue. But the accounts lack conviction.
I notice that the previous books I read were nonfiction and this is fiction. I enjoy nonfiction better. Still I cannot believe that the readability would differ so much. But this has happened in the past where I liked Kazuo Ishiguro's 'Remains of the day' and 'The Artist of the Floating World' but not 'Never Let me go'. In Ishiguro's case it was his latest work that did not come together. But in Saramago's case, I like dhis last works best.

GIGO

At Golconda fort, the echo was routed
If you make the noise at the bottom
someone at the top of the hill
hears the echo
In The King and the drum,
the drum echoed what the barber
told it everyday - The
king has horns.

Passing fancy

If you are planning a baby shower, then you might find these flowers from chart paper fascinating.

The Exquisite Book of Paper Flowers: A Guide to Making Unbelievably Realistic Paper Blooms

A kid attends a baby shower
He is told there will be a
baby
At the party, he wants to
meet the baby.
His mom pats on a pregnant
mom's belly to show the whereabouts
of the baby

At a new year party at his house
when the car door opens
the kid calls out the name
of the baby
He shares his toys with the mom
of the baby
He wonders who is the mom
of the baby
They play a game of saving a
motorcylce from the Optimus by
a 'hide and seek'.

On the rough seas

At first the two stories run parallel in narration. One, a riveting story of five fishermen who set out from Mexico and without knowing drifted to unknown place to be rescued by Taiwanese fishermen after 10 months on sea. The other is the author's own. It begins with the glitter of his success story and then the decline. These two stories join when the author has moved into the publishing business.

Survival stories. What about them attracts people? With someone living to tell the story is hope in adversity. In these kinds of stories, to know what the survivors went through is insightful. The author sets out to find the survivors and present the story to the largest audience possible. To that extent, he puts in all his resources into it.

A big problem that I have with the `intertwining' of stories - both have faith in common, which is what led him to the survival story but the part where he is trying to bridge the gap of how his marriage was saved through this story is not convincing. In fact his involvement with the story put his already strained marriage to a further test.

The author has a flexible writing style to suite the subject's tone. He can handle serious tone of a weighty survival tale, share the ups and downs of his personal life to show the influence of faith towards the better in a lighter vein. In the pursuit of the story, he showed his doubts voiced about it in the media which didn't reduce his interest because of the connection he felt with the survivors.

Whose planet is it?

Recently having read in ‘A Planet of Viruses’, that viruses help in photosynthesis, I was curious if ‘The Man who planted trees’ book by Jim Robbins would have anything on it. It does mention the role of viruses in generating new diseases. Reading ‘Sex on six legs’, where it is all about the intelligent and good things that insects do, this book looks at the other side to see what harm insects do to the trees. Even this book like the six legs book quantizes the good done by its subject in terms of money.

And the subject is ‘Trees’ although it is on ‘The Man who planted Trees’. That man’s mission was to safeguard trees by saving genetics of the oldest trees to store it for future study when better tools are available and by cloning the trees. I realize that this review is partial to the trees.

Fader, zoonotic, wind training, dimensional stability, edge effect, forest migration. There are many terms like these about trees which are unknown to the general public. The author uses his skill of science writing and explains the terms and concepts thereby holding the readers attention and giving them a learners high to keep on going. He is comfortable in donning the hat of explaining science of how insects go about destroying trees, how trees work at cleaning up the air, creating clouds as well as portrayal of David Milarch who came up with the Champion project. I have not heard of this project before. So there you see, why there needs to be a book like this.

It is two books one that serves as a natural history of all major trees and another of the Big Tree project which is a brainchild of David Milarch who was inspired to do this project from a Near Death Experience. Milarch’s project’s course, tribulations and successes are documented. Instead of lamenting about global warming and how we are clueless as to what to do, here’s a ‘done it’ and the author’s ‘Bioplan’ calling for steps that have all been reached at with research in the past few years.

Each tree’s characteristics and their benefit to humans are well described. The author brings across the point about how human actions detrimental to the trees, disable the trees from taking caring of us and the planet by the ways available to it. For example human induced drought kills the trees and deforestation causes floods. A direct relation has been found between trees and their ability to cause rain with the help of a microorganism that can help form clouds. Trees provide home to a wide variety of species. A delicate balance is being tampered with human actions.

The book is based on research done in the last decade. The research as well as the cases mentioned spans the globe. By admitting that there is still so much unknown to the scientists regarding trees functioning but phrasing the unknowns will pique the interest of budding ecoscientists.

The author has managed to keep the readers in the magic of science with not just enhancing our current knowledge about trees but also explaining wherever possible why something is done the way it is done. I found many interesting facts in the book (too many to list). How some trees are hard to date by the ring counting method, when the growth is not from the main stump, how the aerosols emitted by the trees are helpful in preventing and treating cancer and many other medical conditions, how Phytoplanktons that generate 90% of the oxygen need trees to filter polluted water, how the wind event in Canada caused a large population of beetles to move to another forest causing more destruction but that is supposed to be good too in fertilizing the soil.

Few eye opening quotes:
Less diversity means less opportunities for adaptation – Reed Noss.
When the Europeans landed, the forests were so thick its often been said that a squirrel could travel from the Atlantic coast to the Mississippi river without touching the ground.

Hiking with your kid

Looking at the cover picture of 'Up: A mother and daughter's peakbagging adventure', I formed an idea of the author hiking into the real wild. After reading the book I realize that it is as much about the young kid who hiked as much as of the mother who was in all the situations, terrible and exhilarating that you find yourselves on two feet in the mountains with as little or as much comfort that you can carry with you.

I like the motivation of the author Patricia Ellis Herr to provide an environment for her children where they can be immersed in nature. What better than hiking mountains? Hiking, strenuous as it can be, is bound to give you the high of achievement too. Alex, the kid draws the mountain, not content with scaling it. When we see the same person twice on the same hiking route, we wonder and ask if he/she is training for something. So if a hiker sees a kid then there will be some questions and encouragement. I know a kid age 6 who can hike 6 miles. I heard of a kid who was out to visit as many national parks as she can.

When the author realized that her daughter could hike peaks, a flyer about peak bagging the forty eight 4000fters in the Whites got her started on with the goal of attaining it. Their experience hiking together with unexpected events and outcomes is an engaging read. Hiking on the trails is no less of an adventure, especially when you have a kid along. With hiking, starting from losing way, to not having enough supplies, to fickle weather, anything can happen and that’s what makes it interesting in going from point A and returning back to it. Added to this in the nature’s bounty, you get close to clouds and happiness. Then there are the denizens of nature who can stop you on the trail. But you have to go on to the peak or home. As I kept reading of the hikes, I was reminded of the profiles of the mountains that I have hiked and points where we had encounters with animals. The last peak bagging event was interesting to imagine with all the community support shown to Alex.

There will be a comparison with Tiger Mom book. In this book, we get to know the child who is on a mission. The author balanced her presence with her daughter’s persona in the book. The author’s non-hindering parenting style includes the child’s wishes too. I recognized the father Hugh Herr from ‘The Sorcerers and their apprentices’. His story of how he came to have prostheses is illuminating of how an adventure can end on a wrong note.

Holorime

Take as long as you like to do this.

Action in cigarette pack

I came across Still Life with woodpecker book. I had read Skinny legs and all. I remember this book as having a sppon and other inanimate things as characters. When the back of the book said 'pack of Camels' I couldnt brace myself for it.

Jim Robbins
Bark beetle and climate change
Champion tree

bacteria in plants that helps in rain.

A wind event shifted beetle population.

Storms of my grandchildren

Arboretum America
Dame Miriam Rothschild

Shinrin yoku

Redwood cloning


In this book, prostaglandins are said to be triggered when body is fighting fever, their production is inhibited by using acetylsalicyclic acid of aspirin. Moms recognise the prostaglandin from what-triggers-the-contractions

Thoracentesis
Twilight brigade - inspired from an NDE

Trish and Alex

Personal locator beacon

Greatkids Outdoors. Now I want to read that Before they are gone.
Children and Nature
Nature rocks

Time to write by the author of Your creative writing masterclass