Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed

A memoir bridges the gap between people, finding connection in the ways we are different yet still the same. Wild, the incredibly vulnerable story of a young woman's hike on the Pacific Crest Trail, is such a bridge. We have all had a burden that was too heavy to bear, found ourselves lost in a wilderness of grief, and come out the other side with a measure of healing.

This tale begins with a hiking boot, tragically lost, close to the end of a long and intense journey. A slow-motion boot tumbling from the top of a ledge - down, down, down until it cannot possibly be retrieved. Despair is evident and we find ourselves wondering with true curiosity and concern - what will she do? What would I do? Left to ponder this, we are taken to the beginning of this story. Back to the time a young woman decided to hike through California and Oregon, alone.

When Cheryl Strayed was in her mid-20s, her youthful mother lost a battle to cancer, swift and vicious. A life that had once had some semblance of order and understanding began to unravel. She was no longer able to hold her siblings together as a family or even stay in her own unseasoned marriage. Raw and bitter pain surfaced and played out in adultery, drugs and reckless behavior. A divorce, an abortion, and an impulsive choice to hike the newly completed Pacific Crest Trail tumbled together in a collection of decisive moments.

On the trail, Cheryl is weighed down by an immense sorrow and a 70 pound backpack nicknamed "Monster." She carries other things at the outset of her trek, quite soon leaving them behind: binoculars, foldable saw, worn-out memories, former perspectives, sections of beloved books, burned at their completion to lighten the burdensome load. She describes herself as "the woman with the hole in her heart." That hole, emptiness itself, is the most cumbersome of all.

The history of the trail is woven in a beautiful tapestry of Cheryl's tumultuous past, frayed and ragged present, and hopes for a simple and unadorned peace. The details that stitch this tale together are specific, honest, and raw. Dauntless, candidness is what connects reader and writer. Cheryl develops a narrative that reminds us that "fear, to a great extent, is the story we tell ourselves."

The pilgrimage beyond grief, to our truest selves, is borne of wanting. "The wanting was the wilderness and I had to find my own way out of the woods." Cheryl finished her 1,100 mile-long hike at the Bridge of the Gods in Oregon. Along the way, there were gifts from others: peaches, T-shirts, showers, rides, and escapes from imminent danger, but the gift she gave herself was the adventure, the discovery of the woman her mother had raised her to be, "from lost to found."

Her gift to us?

It is this memoir.

This article was originally published in The Canon City Daily Record.

Photo Credit: http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51IyLG-dL5L._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg 

"Reading Comprehension: Text No. 1" by Alejandro Zambra

This story can be found in the July 6, 2015 issue of The New Yorker magazine.  

My comments can also be found on The Mookse and the Gripes.
 
First Line: "After so many study guides, so many practice tests and proficiency and achievement tests, it would have been impossible for us not to learn something, but we forgot everything almost right away and, I'm afraid, for good."

Last Line: "You all weren't educated; you were trained."

Something is missing here for me on this one.   It feels like a memoir/essay that moves clumsily into an anecdote, then crashing with a “thud” into a slightly humorous satire.

 

This tale is set-up perfectly for an honors English to take and dissect into form and feature.  The quiz at the end is a parody of the theme – a gimmick to be sure – but one that will introduce students to a new author and will offer opportunities to compare and contrast education across cultures.

But for me?  At this point in my life?  I have heard great things about the creativity and skill of Alejandro Zambra, and I am disappointed that “Reading Comprehension: Text No. 1” was my introduction to his work. 

I was not reading a story here.  I was reading an English Comp paper written by a student who decided to be clever – and even a bit trite. 

Not every writing by a well-praised writer can be praiseworthy.  But in this magazine?  Surrounded by accolades in an interview and laden with commendation in an interview?  This piece does not warrant the laurel leaves.

Photo credit:  http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/31WsBJrMvxL._UX250_.jpg

 

Connor Doran

Amy Doran walked onto the gymnasium floor at an elementary school on a Friday morning.  “I’m here to share a story.”  The story was about her son, Connor, and his dream to appear on America’s Got Talent back in 2010.  He wanted to show America his indoor kites, but she hemmed and hawed, trying to push him off.  Connor has epilepsy, and Amy was nervous about all the things that could go wrong chasing this dream.  He was insistent and eventually his mother gave in.  She sent his video to NBC studios.  Producers proclaimed him “stellar”, inviting him to audition in Portland, Oregon. 

Flying a kite requires wind and a lot of space outdoors.  So, how does this happen indoors?  Amy told the students, “instead of flying with the wind, these kites fly with movement.”  Connor blew away the judges on America’s Got Talent.  The kite sailed up and down, over and around, to his elegant and musical movements.  It was art, like a dance.  A unanimous “yes” vote sent him to the next round in Las Vegas. 

When Connor was eventually eliminated in Las Vegas, he had already received an invitation to fly his kites at the Washington Mall in Washington, DC for 8,000 people.  This dream snowballed, becoming bigger and bigger.  And then the producers of the show called again, inviting Connor and his mom back for the wild card round.  He placed 12^th in a field of 90,000.  And for the last five years, he has been traveling all over the United States and Canada, spreading awareness of epilepsy, encouraging people to follow their dreams, and flying his kites.

Over 125,000 Americans are diagnosed with epilepsy each year.  Epilepsy is a group of disorders of the nervous system, marked by recurrent seizures (http://www.webmd.com/epilepsy/).  Connor was diagnosed at the age of 4, having 30-40 seizures a day.  Amy explained epilepsy and its attending seizures to the students, saying that “the brain gets too busy and it takes a break.  It needs to reboot.”  With medication, Connor has been seizure-free for five years.

Their Dare to Dream Program takes them many places, sharing their story of resilience and hope.  “If you have a dream, do it.  Don’t let anyone say you can’t.  Be nice to yourself and work hard.”  Amy told them to be determined in the face of naysayers, saying she learned by watching Connor’s resolve in the face of her “no”.

The elementary students were moved by the connection Connor has with his Revolution quad-line indoor kite.  The performance brought smiles of awe.  But Connor, having achieved a dream, wanted the children to know that it is okay to have more than one dream - and to continue to chase others, even when some have been realized.

Connor can also be found at connordoran.com.

"The Flower" by Louise Erdrich

This story can be found in the June 30, 2015 issue of The New Yorker magazine.  

My comments on this story can also be found at The Mookse and the Gripes.

First Line: "Outside an isolated Ojibwe country trading post in the year 1839, Mink was making an incessant racket."

Last Line: "Much to far for a head to roll."

Again, I am a new reader to a New Yorker author.   I have heard the name before and even picked up one of Erdrich’s books (The Master Butchers Singing Club).  I had found the title fascinating, but was not pulled in enough at the beginning to continue reading. 

I am sitting with those same feelings here after reading “The Flower”.  And I must begin with the title!  I understand why “The Flower” was on the list for this story, but it seems more of a working title to me.  And the piece itself?  There were good ideas, pretty little nuggets, woven together, but then sealed with a rather flat and predictable ending – an ending meant to sew in the loose threads and keep some of the vicious things within quite neat and tidy.

But I wanted more.

At eleven years old, “Flower” is abandoned by her mother: sold to the trading post owner, into sexual slavery, for alcohol.  The clerk, Wolfred, merely seventeen, recognizes the child’s beauty and tries to hide the attractiveness from Mackinnon.  Eventually Wolfred comes to recognize, instead, the signs of her subjugation to the ruthless man’s demands.   

“For the first time in his life, Wolfred began to see the things of which he was capable.

“Wolfred sorted through his options…”  

And this is when the story has a promise of becoming fun…  the head of a dead man rolling around, drums appearing out of nowhere, a grotesque poisoning, violent killing and re-killing, trips outside of the body and into the night air, dividing the self in parts and hiding some in trees… 

And then it just ends.  There’s some more plot to bring us to an end point– missionaries and boarding school, names and proposals - but it is heavy and wooden after all of the earlier animation. 

I read in “The Page-turner” that this was written – collected - from bits and pieces of Erdrich’s upcoming novel.  It was disappointing to realize that this was not a story unto its own, but I was a bit relieved, too.  Maybe I will find something by Erdrich that I will enjoy from beginning to end.

Photo taken from www.famoouswiki.com/image/20295/13742/louise-erdrich.html.