Kleiner's Blog

1. Missed Turn Black Snake Boulder Omens
2. Red Dot Trail Panting Sweat Soaked Boulder Climb
3. Downward Blue Dot Hot Forest Boulder Hop

Whoever designed the blue dot trail loves trickery.  The website I had used to get my information from made it clear that the blue dot trail promised a much easier descent than the red dot trail’s boulder nightmare would.  The trail was still tough and after all that sweaty climbing paused in the sweet peace relief of Mt. Tammany’s summit, the sweat was back on as the trail began.

The walk
             down
was quieter.  I was
                            able
to think, to consider my 
                                  footsteps
their sweat squish sop sounds
                                           down
down the mountain.
                                                    I thought of the previous three years. How sick I 
                                               was.
                                             Not as sick now, easy breathing, no Benzos - 
                                          walking.

You better pray asshole, You better hope against hope that this will last cause you know it isn’t going to.  You know what is going to happen.  You know that you’ll be me again and there is nothing you can do about it.

Here, I felt the forest.  With every descending footstep, I watched the plants change.  The high Mountain Laurel replaced by ferns and coniferous trees that eventually mixed with oaks and became the Eastern Deciduous Forest that smells of decomposition and home.

Who are you trying to kid Nature Man? You’re scared of dirt, the smell of it, the feel of it, the way it sticks into the lines in your palm – You hate it.  Quit playing tea party with trees.  Remember how you feel about sweat, remember how you cringe, how you’ll rub yourself raw to be rid of it. 

The sweat tingled as it dripped from my nose and I laughed with the sensation. 

Cj stopped ahead of me, another fifty feet lower and said he heard a stream.

I walked faster.

Tomorrow – Part 4: Into the stream, relief.