Yup, I'm an ADK 1'er

If you’ve climbed all 46 mountains in the Adirondack High Peaks, situated in scenic upstate New York, you earn the title of ADK 46’er. I climbed my first peak, Mt Marcy, with my boyfriend (Paul) and one of his college friends (Will) this past Saturday. It was a 15-mile, 11 hour day hike along a rocky trail immersed in lush forests and rushing creeks. At the bottom of the trail, passing hikers would offer a friendly “hello”; unearthing a sense of comfort I’m not used to feeling in the cities I’ve lived in. Near the top, other hikers coming down from the peak would cheer you on with motivational lines like “You’re almost there” and “You can do it”. 

The funniest, and perhaps most challenging moment, was when I encountered the first pile of rocks thinking I’d reached the top. Seconds late, Paul pointed to the real summit — still about a mile away underneath a sheet of blue gray crowds. 

"Oh, fuck me." I said and pushed my aching legs to the edge of their limits.

When asked later on by Paul’s aunt, whose lovely summer home rests in the town of Silver Bay, just north of Lake George, what my favorite part of the trip was, I could only answer “Reaching the top of the mountain.”

But the journey itself — both to the top and back down — was an amazing learning experience. Though growing up between the stretching plains of suburban Illinois and the flat swamplands of Florida’s gulf coast did little to prepare me for such a lengthy and elevated hike, I felt inspired to rise to the challenge. At the top, we ate tortillas stuffed with mild cheddar cheese and smoked pepper salami. A friendly park ranger took these pics:

After the hike down, we had a beer at the Adirondack Loj. It was the best beer I’d ever tasted, despite being a domestic ale. Cheers to the ADK 1’ers!

 

My Cosmic Shift

We’re all in the middle of some grandiose cosmic shift. It seems like everyone around me is moving on to bigger and better things. Yet, here I am, with one more year left in Smallbz if I’m lucky. 

To be clear, I actually like living in Albany. But I also haven’t had much of an opportunity to travel since living here, other than to NYC (which doesn’t count because it’s two hours away). I like the idea of keeping a cheap home-base here, where I have many, many wonderful friends and traveling to larger cities when Albz really gets too boring (which it often does). 

I’m conflicted because on the one hand, I know that I’m destined to be a writer. But every time I want to write a short story or work on my novel, I am gripped with this overwhelming storm of anxiety. I’m not sure what to do with it. 

I expressed this to a man who gave me a tarot reading at Madame X in NYC a few weekends ago. He told me that I should look into writing screenplays. I pondered the reading for a while. When I stepped outside for a breath of air (since I no longer smoke cigarettes), I looked at an ivory building standing proudly underneath the setting sun. On it’s side, I saw the word “screenwriting”. 

Confusion set in. What about my novel? What about my short stories and poems? Then I thought, who cares? They are all stories and the medium through which people enjoy them does not matter. I am a storyteller and an artist. There are no limits for people like us.