Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Nature, I told King Calm in the thick of Frisbee golf today, is best experienced in screensaver format, and to this assertion I hold. My ninth-grade social studies teacher once expounded on the idea of culturally specific hells: whereas creatures of warmer climes envision a roiling inferno, for instance, Eskimos believe in a terribly cold place. I’m neither an Eskimo nor a fan of the sun, more of a devout proponent of air conditioning, and so my personal torment resembles precisely a 12-“hole” trek through the woods.

Secretly I had hoped the layout would be similar to a golf course, since the game certainly shares the etymology, albeit with unkempt grass and maybe a rattier clubhouse. It’s free to play, though, and accordingly it’s a hike through a forest, with concrete slabs as tee boxes, ancient caches of empty beer bottles, strange plants, trunks scattered every which way, and inclines greater than 45 degrees. Nature, in a word. A place filled with the weeping of birds and gnashing of branches.

And you know what? After adjusting my mindset, the hiking part was exactly what I had always imagined hiking would be like, path barely discernible, ambient insect noise interspersed with silence, sun flitting through the trees. Pound Cake used to reprimand me for not being more experiential. She would argue that any experience, this one included, is a treasure trove of self-discovery, during which I would clutch my compass and walking stick resolutely at a fork in the path, perhaps in the throes of revelation or something.

I would contend there are no truly unique experiences these days, simply by virtue of physical law and the amount of experiences documented, and most events can be imagined accurately. It’s a hike, you know? Not a realm of infinite possibility. There will be dirt, bugs, and a predictable spread. Best-case scenario? Some chick clothed entirely in AMEX giftcards dislodges from a tree limb up high and falls into my arms. Worst-case? A bear in a frock with a scorching case of the clap leaps out of the shrubbery and mauls me.