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By the end of high school, I’d managed to shape a personality I didn’t really like. Uncertain, insecure and a bit pessimistic. I felt trapped. One day my mother handed me an ad for an American summer camp. So I went. I had the idea that I could lean into whichever version of myself I wanted. Everything was new, everyone was new. I could be new too. I stretched out, took some risks, laughed a lot and acted like a real goose at times. By the end of summer camp I was prowling around with confidence and joy, the whole thing was working. I chipped in with 7 other young adventurers and we bought a real dodgy van from a gravel-surfaced second hand car dealer by the highway. We drove south from New York in the packed van and had a great time. I was one of the two drivers and my ego continued to bloom as I sat bestride the rust coated, carpet lined machine. At one point we settled at a rented holiday house in the Florida Keys. Mid way through the week one of the girls in our group wanted get a tattoo, a stylised sun for her sun tanned ankle - a reminder for the sunless British winter waiting for her at home. I agreed to drive her to the tattoo shop. At the beginning of the drive I had never thought of getting a tattoo, by the end of the hour I could think of no better way to mark my personal evolution. I was now the perfectly confident and rounded extrovert I’d convinced myself was great. A powerful animal roaming the world. All I needed now was an idea of what to get. Who was I? How did I interact with the world? What kind of picture would represent all this? The woman at the desk asked me something like ‘what are you going to get?’ My 19 year old brain spasmed and then spat out a tiger. It was after all, who I was now - also I played for a footy team whose mascot was a tiger, so it kind of added up. Thankfully I kept my senses about me enough to not get a literal tiger cut into my skin. But I did stumble into the symbols book, and selected a puffy Chinese Year of the Tiger character. Colour - sky blue. Of course the main catch is that I’m not a tiger. I wasn’t born in the Year of the Tiger. Very few of the characteristics of the creature actually match who I am at all. At times on that trip I was an inconsiderate and overly self-focussed person. I tried out tiger life and it wasn’t me. Turns out I’m the Year of the Rooster - all noise, feathers and strut, who really just wants to fit into the flock. Happy tiger year to all the tigers out there, and to all the other animals doing their best in the jungle. A rooster who thinks he's a tiger. 
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“HEY GRANDAD” … “GRANDAD!” “Hello?’ “UP HERE GRANDAD” “Where are you Pan?” “I’M IN THE UPSTAIRS WINDOW” “What are you doing?” “I’M HAVING MY QUIET TIME” “Doesn’t sound that quiet to me”   “This track has shades of Yosemite about it,” I said thinking about the water and the steps in front of us. “What’s Yosemite?” asked Paterson.
“Pan let me tell you about a dream I have. One of my dreams is that one day you and me and your mum and your sister will do a big walk up onto the Half Dome in Yosemite National Park. We’ll starts down in the valley, there are big trees down there and long grass in the summer. every way you walk is up. The Half Dome path begins by moving through the trees on the valley floor and then starts to open up. There are a lot of stairs; they start shady, then become hot and sandy, then at the waterfall they get wet. This section has steadily building park views as you climb. After that you walk away from the valley and into the mountains a bit, the views close in and it’s kind of like a normal bush walk for a while. You still have to head upwards, however it's not a steep or hectic. The trail folds and flows steady around the back of the mountain, it’s a long way. Finally the trees, bushes, water and even dirt all drop away and the path leads onto naked rock. The very last section of the climb is a huge curved boulder that is too steep to walk up without holding onto the chains that are stapled into the ridge. From the bottom this looks like a large curving wire that leads up over the smooth cliff and into the sky. Once you’ve done that you’ll be on top of the Half Dome and feel like you can see the whole world. I’d love to go and do it with you and the family one day. Do you have any dreams?” “In my dream I get lost and chased by a Giraffe.” “Ok Pan man, let’s keep walking.”  The mist turns into a sprinkle as I stride away from the door. By the time I’m at the top of the driveway it is rain.
It has been raining in the mountains everyday since we arrived; the bush is thoroughly wet. The few cut stone steps that lead to the top of the path shimmer in the reduced light of the long evening. I’m walking fast and try a trot along the brief flat before the first stair section. I try to look up, the track grabs my attention back. The path is a pure descent from the ridge to the valley floor. Water is everywhere. Rock steps. Sodden bark. Bright ferns span the path in exuberant green, the fronds look like they are having the best week of their life. Every granite rock step is laden with leaves. They are thick and saturated. There have been few footprints in the last weeks and the leaves are king. I look down carefully. The top leaves are slick with the rain that is now dropping haphazardly though the canopy. The middle layer of leaves are stuck together in small clumps, ready to shift and slide as a block. The bottom leaves are breaking down, wet and hot and dense, packed together and beginning to think like dirt. I keep my eyes down as I descend. The steps beside the cliff finish and a dirt path takes over. Dirt and mud and water dance around the occasional boulders. I chance a look up into the trees, my ankle flips and I look down again immediately. “Look down Mike." The light decreases as I move quickly down. The opposite valley wall rushes towards me as I approach the bottom. There is more brown at the bottom, the green becomes serious and heavy. I look down as I push through the leaves and branches reaching across the track. The creek at the valley floor is guarded by a massive granite turtle head. Its gigantic yawning jaw could swallow a small car. I stand still next to the rushing creek and look up. The world is above me, tangled trees and fat foliage, thick sky and cool rain. I stand still on a mossy rock and look up. There is light and air and space up there. The path home is that way, I look down.  Listen, it’s fine to say forget 2021, it was no good, bring on 2022. But. While your 2021 was potentially tough, and I think for many people it was one of the hardest years in recent memory, it was also your year. Nobody else had the same year that you had, potentially no other person has ever had the same year. There is a good chance that in all of human history, recorded or otherwise, the range of unique, disparate and varied thoughts, feelings and happenings that you've just experienced has never before occurred.
Your year was totally unique, and simply for that reason, it was valuable. I don’t think you needed to have enjoyed it, nor do I think you had to have grown from it or even learned a lesson. I do though think that if you wish away a year, move it off and forget it, you are wishing away the only life you’ve got. All you really have to do is recognise it, be in it and bring on 2022. |
AuthorHigh school teacher 
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September 2023
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