aforosiari

It means ascending and descending. In reference to the hike that killed us all, though no one would admit it. The path literally went straight down and straight up and straight down and straight up until we got there. It was one of those hikes where you are so busy trying not to wipe out, doing split-second strategizing about which rock to land on and which branch to grab, so consumed in the steps that when you finally pause and pick your head up the view actually takes your breath away.  I think I’ve been living like this for awhile so I’m accustomed to the focus that such a path demands.

Boti Falls only garnered half a page in our guidebooks so my friends and I were unsure as to what exactly the weekend would look like. But we were eager to do some exploring and this forest preserve with its mountains, waterfalls and palm tree with three trunks sounded just right. We were quite chatty as we began the hike (downhill, a deceiving beginning).  But as we began to realize where we were, all talk (even of our three favorite topics: food, bowel movements, and what things would be like when we got home) ceased. The tour guide led us into a naturally formed cave that stretches four stories tall. He told us that many people used to live in this cave but now only six families remain.

We journeyed on and up to the “umbrella rock” with a gorgeous panoramic view of the surrounding mountains and waterfalls. From there we could see the rest of the cave and the little village that was left of it. For as far as I could see in every direction there was just uninhabited land, hundreds of trees sticking up off the mountains like spiky hair on a seventh-grade boy’s head. I will never again refer to any part of Illinois as the middle of nowhere.  Because now I have been there.

In that moment, as I sat on the umbrella rock staring off at the cave families I experienced a profound sense of loss that I don’t think I’ll ever forget. It was an emotion far from sympathy but not quite envy, perfectly captured in an excerpt from the book I’m reading:

I suffer torments of dissatisfaction and incompletion because of my inability to

enter those areas of life my way of living, education, sex, politics, class bar me

from. It is the malady some of the best people of this time; some can stand the

pressure of it; others crack under it; it is a new sensibility, a half-conscious

attempt towards a new imaginative comprehension. (Doris Lessing, The Golden

Notebook)

I can never know what that is like! That glimpse of a way of life, a mindset, a community so diametrically opposed to every fiber of my being taunted me as I squinted at the cave.  I cannot imagine waking up every morning in the same place, being surrounded by the same six families silhouetted against those lush mountains, knowing that that every day forever will look very much the same.

I recognize my tendency to romanticize that which I know so little about (this has always been a bad habit of mine- hence my obsession with orphans), however I could not help it that day.  I also recognize our society’s tendency to categorize the abroad experience as a sort of cleansing; a purifying in a “simpler” society. Therefore I’ve been trying to stand a mile away from those condescending and arrogant words.  But as it much as it pains me to admit, there seemed a beautifully distilled form of existence in that place. Whether or not it was actually there, the idea is intriguing. And, on that September 11^th day, coming of age in a place with nowhere to go and not much to do and no need for anything outside the mountain ring sounded glorious.  And cruelly and completely unattainable.

            Sometimes, the privilege to be whatever I want to be when I grow up seems quite limiting. Because it means I actually have to be something. Knowing what I know of the world beyond that circle in the mountains, I could never stay there. Of course, I’m not complaining. Being free to choose is the best gift there is, but it doesn’t mean all the choices are available. And a life in the cave with six families forever is certainly not.