John Muir Moments

I've read a number of the books by John Muir, his walk to the Gulf, his travels in the Sierra Mountains of California, and other adventures. And while I have long forgotten much of his writings, one story sticks in my mind about moments we often face in life and have to decide whether the past, known as it is, or the future, the gamble it is, is better.

It's about being stuck. A moment when going forward or going back freezes the person. The story John Muir told was about a canyon he was exploring in the Sierra Mountains. He started up a creek following the bed to the headwaters where he stood before a cliff to the higher plateau above the basin.

He faced the choice to go back downstream and into another canyon or find a route up the cliff to the higher elevations which was he real goal. He choose the latter when he found a crack in the cliff face he could climb. So he started up the cliff face and then climbed into the crack and climbed higher.

The crack, however, slowly widened as he climbed until he was using he feet and back to slowly inch his way up. The crack appeared to widen more where it was clear he might not be tall enough to reach across it and still climb higher, and so he stopped and rested. He faced a moment he had to choose.

He had to choose to go back down, however dangerous that would be with the likelihood he would fall from being tired and sore. Or he could risk going up, and hope the crack didn't widen beyond hold and climbing with the top of his back and neck and the ball of his feet and toes. He stayed there quite a while until he didn't to go up.

And sure enough the crack didn't widen at all and he reached the top, climbed over the ledge and stood on the top of the plateau over looking the creek below with the Sierra mountains above him, an easier climb anywhere he wanted to go. And he did.

I call these John Muir moments when and where we're stuck. Sometimes the transistion of someone will reach a moment like this where you know going back isn't the answer but you don't like the immediate prospects of the future. You're stuck in time between who you were and who you want to become.

These often occur when events, circumstances or situations put us where there aren't any easy or good answers or directions. In a transistion, which could be from or about a host of things, people or whatever making us feel nothing will help, going back or forward and we feel standing still is worse than the choices.

Often it's one of those moments the whole world around us sucks and we're at the center of it, the vortex being spun around with nothing clear, just a whirl of things we can't decide where to go. Except we know going back isn't the answer and going forward holds nothing good. At least at the moment.

We know beyond the moment we'll be ok, or we hope, because that's the unknown, will things widen and we fall all the way down with no chance to go back to who we were and find it harder to go forward. That's the problem, the future holds not assurances, only our hope and our willingness to try.

And we know the reality of transistions of transgender people, the reality isn't all that good. The majority of transistions don't go well and many fail, and only some will succeed. The stories of the folks who succeed are always good to know, but all carry the one caveat we can't lose or erase, who we were.

We all carry that one thing we can never erase from our history, our birth. Everything else changes, except that and it's always that which allows people to add that one word we hate after the transistion, "transgender" or "transsexual." The undeniable reality. And facing that will also be a John Muir moment, to let it drift by as the wind or hate it with the label someone sticks on us.

It's unfair and not right, but it is reality of our times. All the other John Muir moments can be overcome, save the one we always have inside us. And all the freedom reaching the top won't change it. We can simply leave it as our history and get on with our life, knowing we succeeded even over this.