Confronting trophy memories at Oregon’s Smith Rock | Ammi Midstokke

There are enough wise quotes about the dangers of comparison, one would think we’d know better. It’s one of those bad habits that are often discouraged, but without guidance on what to replace it with.

I was consumed with it on a recent run around Smith Rock. Smith has been, well, a rock in my life for many years. The geological formation sits in the high desert of central Oregon, where towns of red volcanic ash thrust out of the sage-brush plain, like a misshapen castle surrounded by the glassy moat of the Crooked River.

As a child, we drove by it several times a year on our way to my grandmother’s house. Later, when I became a climber and a single mother (with some correlation), it became a place I could go with my child. We camped on the plain at night, stars so close we could pluck them from the sky, and hiked to marvelous places by daylight to discover all manner of lizards and birds and rock walls for climbing. I can’t say if it was all the sage, but the place was medicinal for me, for my relationship with my child, for the new memories we made together.

The area is so rich with smell, every bend in the trail offers something new: The Western Juniper waft their sweet, woody perfume, the sage breezes by soft and smokey, blossoming flowers tease the air with honey.

Some years ago, I stopped on a drive, just to run a trail that climbs the nearby foothills, then drops behind the rocks, and snakes along the river shore in a perfect loop of pure visual joy and pitter-patter bliss. I was a decade younger, and living on the tempestuous energy of a new romance – the kind that makes you think you can live on air and three hours of sleep at night. And even though we know in our hearts it cannot last, that is not the organ calling the shots in such a circumstance.

It was the same time of year and the phlox carpeted the corners and the deep blue sky was interrupted only by the distant white peaks of snow-covered volcanoes. Being as things were, I took neither food, nor water. The run is seared into my brain as the sensation of freedom. My feet were light, my knees young, my chest exploding with whatever the synthetic form of love is.

After the flame had died, my once-lover scheduled his early departure from the world, and I couldn’t bring myself to return to the same trail. It could never be as wonderful as it was on that naive morning on my way home to him, never fueled by the same bliss and anticipation, never as fast or easy. It would be a painful reminder of the passage of time and the worst kind of comparison we can make: Those of our aging bodies and the unanswerable questions of compared imaginary lives. Could it have been different?

I pushed the thought away as I parked my car. With me, I had my ride-or-die trail buddy, the brown dog, a backpack full of snacks and caffeinated things, water, doggy bags, extra layers, sunscreen. All the things that show how we’ve replaced reckless with responsible, and that’s probably what’s really slowing us down. My creaking body, sore from mere yard work, lumbered down the trail with the scuff-scuff of feet that cannot bother to clear all the stones.

I mourned something as we climbed the hill (at a hike, not a run). It wasn’t only that I would never be that quick on my feet again, but perhaps also that I’d never be that audacious in my affection again. It was the realization that some parts of my life that seemed wonderful are now solidly in the past, and cannot be resurrected, only romanticized. So I had to carry the weight of that up the hill, too.

My friend had never been here before, and our trip had been a journey of sharing places and spaces meaningful to me: The river we floated as children, bike trails discovered anew, the museum of 1960s polyester floral sheets and crocheted hanger covers in my grandmother’s closets. She pointed out the flowers and the peaks on the horizon, and oohed-and-aahed at the river in first light.

It was a spectacular morning. We’d driven through a fire-sky sunrise and arrived just as color was bleeding onto the land. We stopped to look at flowers and take pictures of juniper berries. We chatted about our lives, not just the past, but all the things we still had before us. We have mountains to climb, still, and no small number of them. I listened to her feet. They were definitely pitter-pattering.

I don’t know when I decided, but somehow the choice became clear. I could shift the memory that I’d been suckling at like a hard candy for over a decade. It did not have to sit on my mental shelf like a dusty trophy of glory days. Because this day, this company, and this run were something wonderful and altogether different. Nourishing, fulfilling, safe, and bonding.

It’s so easy to be distracted by what we’ve lost, and fail to notice what we’ve gained.

Some old grief in me alchemized as I nudged the trophy aside to place a new one next to it. There’s no rule that old memories can’t make a little room for new ones.

Ammi Midstokke can be contacted at ammim@spokesman.com