The Journal of Multimodal Rhetorics

I write this from my cramped apartment in Los Angeles on a hot Saturday in August as wildfires burn across the state in the beloved mountains where I long to be. Instead, I import Canvas modules and respond to students’ discussion posts and plan next week’s course materials and answer emails and spend far, far too much time at my computer. I am going up for tenure in two months. I should be writing more. I have an article sitting on an editor’s desk that he has promised he wants to publish with revisions, but it’s been eight months and he hasn’t told me what those revisions are. I don’t want to pull it so close to my tenure review. So, I am writing this reflection because I am going up for tenure in two months, and I should be writing more instead of waiting. I am tired of waiting.

*

The mountainside looms over me, endlessly rising. I have stopped in the middle of this steep, steep hill, leaning on my trekking poles to ease the weight of my 45-pound backpack, to tell the rest of the group I need a rest. I can barely get the words out before breaking down and sobbing. I feel embarrassed, and I want to tell them that I am fine, I am strong, it’s just that this hill won’t end and my body is so tired after many days climbing endless hills. My friends surround me as I try to explain, and they understand. There are hugs and back pats and encouragement. And then we keep going because we have to climb this hill so that we can climb the next one and then descend the other side to our “X” and set up camp for the night. We have to keep going, so we do. My body is so tired, but I keep going.

*

I spent much of the early pandemic alone and indoors, waiting and worrying in comfortable isolation, trapped by uncertainty in the box of my apartment, protected from a dangerous virus and from the people carrying it. Static. And I realize I am very lucky. I have so many different kinds of privilege: I am white, I have money, I have a tenure-line position in a big city, I am currently able-bodied, I am cisgender and straight, and the pandemic did not cause me significant illness or suffering. I live alone with my dog, and I enjoy my single life. It’s true that I experienced more loneliness during the pandemic, but rather than making me miserable it allowed me the freedom to reflect on my priorities. I began to spend more and more time climbing mountains. I learned that I absolutely love solo backpacking, letting my legs take me as far away from other people as possible. I learned that waking up in my tent and and watching the sun rise over a still alpine lake at 11,000 feet brings me a sort of peace I cannot find anywhere else. I also learned that my anxiety – about wilderness risks, wildlife encounters, falls and injuries, mountain weather – interferes with this peace. So, I decided to spend thirty days in Alaska learning how to manage risk and lead wilderness expeditions.

*

Even as I write this, that voice in my head is yelling at me: “This is not the kind of writing you’re supposed to be doing! Where are your citations! This is not academic! This is selfish! This is not good enough! People won’t take you seriously!”

Fuck that. I’m doing it anyway.

*

The longest day begins and ends with cold rain. We are three days from the end of the course, hiking in groups without instructors in order to test our skills. We have to cover ten miles of backcountry terrain, navigating by map, compass, and landmarks we have learned to recognize over the past weeks, then set up camp at the “X” and hike another four miles the next morning to rendezvous with instructors. The constant rain is miserable, all of our layers are soaked through after the first several hours, and the cold is impossible to ignore. But the weather keeps our breaks short and keeps us moving. We boost each other with loud cries. “We’re doing it!” we yell every hour to remind ourselves that we are, in fact, making progress. After many hours of walking (during the last two hours we are all singing Rent which, somehow, most of us know by heart and which buoys our spirits), we arrive at our X at 9pm. What follows is the most difficult part: we have to set up camp in freezing rain, eat, and not allow anyone to get hypothermia. Because I haven’t been able to feel my fingers since the morning, I don’t think twice before reaching into the glacier-fed stream for large rocks to tie off the guy lines of our kitchen tarp. As we wait for water to boil over the camp stove, we huddle together for warmth, and when that doesn’t work we jump and dance beneath the misty Talkeetna mountains to get the blood moving. I’ve started to shiver uncontrollably by the time the water boils, and the Nalgene full of hot water that I place between my layers feels very much like a lifesaver. After eating ramen bombs (ramen noodles and instant potatoes, plenty of warmth and sodium), we retreat into our tents and warm, dry sleeping bags, first stripping off the wet layers that we will have to put right back on again in the morning. I fall asleep feeling comfortable for the first time all day and grateful that, together, we made it. We did it.    

*

In Alaska, we were always moving. Whether we were packing or unpacking gear, setting up or breaking camp, cooking, or trekking miles over river valleys and up and down talus fields, our movement defined our existence. During the pandemic, the “real world” existed through my screens and always within my apartment walls. In Alaska, we created the “real world” through our movement and our relationships with each other. Nothing else mattered. The few moments of stillness occurred during group debriefs and classes; we sat in a circle to learn about glacier formation or how to read the weather, or to communicate the ups and downs of any given day to the day’s designated leaders. The constant movement of backpacking was a wondrous relief from the static walls and screens of pandemic life, and the accompanying fatigue and objective risks of the wilderness meant that we had to rely on our tiny community in the broad Alaskan expanse. We had to practice “expedition behavior” which meant putting the group first, prioritizing group needs before individual needs. Caring for each other before caring for ourselves. Before Alaska, carework during the pandemic looked like stillness, like being frozen in time within my home in order to protect others. And, while the pandemic allowed me to care for myself – to deliberately reflect on my own life and priorities, to realize my love of solo trekking – Alaska taught me something else. Alaska taught me to keep moving and to rely on my community. I got through the hardest days because of that community. In Alaska, I learned we are always part of our communities, and those communities are what allow us to keep going when we are tired. The ability to push our bodies and our spirits beyond the limits we thought we knew comes not only from within, but from without. From the loud cries of those closest to us: “We’re doing it!”