The Big Book of Why

There is an art to asking questions. I knew it well when I was a kid.

"Mommy, why is the sky blue?"

"Daddy, what are the dogs doing?"

"Random stranger I just met, why do you smell funny?"

I mean the questions never stopped.  It's a miracle I ever even made it into the public education system. It's a wonder my parents didn't strangle me first. They even bought me a book once to try and shut me up. I mean they bought me a lot of books. I loved to read. But this particular book was titled something like "The Big Book of Why?"

I didn't like it. I didn't like the answers it gave because they were too long and scientific. I've always been more of a fiction girl myself. When it came to cold, hard facts and answers, I wanted someone to explain it to me. I wanted someone to sit down and draw me pictures, engage my interest and entertain me.

I'll clarify too that entertainment and television are not always synonymous. Sure it captured my attention for a little while. The scientist with the crazy hair and goggles was good for a laugh, but none of it stuck. It was interesting but it wasn't enough.

 The answers that science gave were never what I wanted them to be. They were always too cut and dry and matter of fact. I wanted the sky to be blue for some other reason than atmosphere and all that scientific mumbo jumbo. I wanted the sky to be blue because the Smurfs painted it that color or because blue was the sky's favorite color or because the sky's grandmother knitted it this nice, soft blue blanket and the sky didn't want to lose it so it wore it all the time.

Asking questions was more gratifying than having a television or a book just tell me answers I hadn't asked. If you asked different people then you always got different answers and your understanding was always growing and changing.

?????

I don't know exactly when I stopped asking questions, but I'd be willing to bet it was very closely related to the day I learned what straight A's were. That day learning became a game of who can get the highest score instead of who can actually obtain the most knowledge. That was probably the very day I stopped asking questions.

In my little brain it only made sense that if you had questions it meant you didn’t know something. And if you didn’t know something it meant you weren’t smart. I wanted to be smart. I wanted to make my parents proud and to win the competition that was the public school grading system.

Thus began the legacy of forgetting how to learn, of forgetting how to ask questions and be curious. I soaked up, like a sponge, everything the teacher said. If I didn't get something I went home and I figured it out, by myself, in secret, enough to get by. And I am an intelligent girl. Enough to get by, really was better than that. It was enough to "succeed" even.

But the question remains…Did I really LEARN anything?

Of course I have to give credit where credit is due. I did have a hand-full of teachers who were truly teachers. They didn't just spoon-feed answers to unasked questions. They made us work for those answers. Every now and then there was a teacher who sparked my imagination and who got me thinking. Wondering. But I let my laziness get the best of me a little too easily sometimes. Sometimes it was just easier to study for the test and get the A, than to take the effort to learn.

*****

So now I'm out of school. Learning should be irrelevant now, right? I got the straight A’s in college. I earned the degree that essentially says:

I, Sara LittleCloud Knight,

am a top notch test taker,

magnificent memorizer

and an overall brilliant bull-shitter.

I "learned" all I’ll ever need to know right? Unless I decide to go back to grad school. But let’s face it, the

root of my problem is not the lack of knowledge, but the loss of a skill I had once taken for granted.

I want to learn how to ask questions again. I want to learn how to learn again and how to use my imagination like I did when my best friend was a lizard and I slayed dragons in the woods behind the house. I want to learn how to see the sky for all that it is, instead of just blue. 

Shuttle Karma: A Fortuitous Sunday Hike

If I had hitched a ride with the boys all the way to the parking lot in Rockwood, the kayakers in the white Toyota would have passed right by without seeing me and my unlikely plan would have fallen apart.

*****

The plan was simple. The guys would get back from their 27-mile kayak trip two hours later than they said they would. I would get to highway 550 two hours after making this plan, via a trail I hoped was the right one. Josh would check his phone when he got to the car and would know the plan. I would have a ride back to my car. Simple.

*****

The previous day I had offered to shuttle Josh and his friends to Silverton so they could kayak back down the Animas River from there. I’d piddle around Silverton a little while, drive the car back to the take-out for the guys and go find a hike closer to Durango.

So Sunday morning we headed out. I left my little Subi at Rockwood where they would finish up, and I climbed into the Toyota with four of Josh’s kayaking friends.

Allow me to take this moment to clarify that there were 6 of us crammed into an SUV at this point. Four, not small, sardines packed into the back seat and two enviable guys in the front. And, in case you haven’t done the math yet, there were 5 kayaks stacked on top of the car. It felt like a clown situation.

Forty-Five minutes later we were in Silverton. Thankfully! We unfolded from the car, gave our limbs a good shaking and then it was time to get to work. Well, it was time for them to get to work. It was time for me to stand in the crisp Colorado sunshine and stare around at the snow-capped mountains and the rushing water and think to myself how lucky I was to be driving the car back and not sitting in a freezing river all day.

A little while later they were all geared up and I snapped a picture as they proudly posed with their boats by the river. They thanked me one last time for driving them all that way, then they were off like a bunch of colorful ducks, cruising with the current. Happy once again not to be in the water, I promptly bee lined it for the nearest warm latte.

An hour later I was back in the car and headed south. I pulled into Rockwood after a leisurely drive, and I cruised along the winding road to the parking lot where my happy Subi sat waiting. I stashed the Toyota keys in the designated spot and doodled about my merry way.

*****

[Cut to around 2 hours later]

I had been hiking for an hour and a half up a trail called Jones Creek Trail. I had passed from Ponderosa Pine land into the magical realm of the Aspen tree. The sky was blue. The sun was shining down on my quickly crisping shoulders. My feet were caked in dust and I was just about as happy as humanly possible.

The trail opened out into a field of dandelions that I regret not frolicking in. At the other end I found an intersecting trail.  

“Pinkerton Flagstaff Trail”

Well, I had only been hiking an hour and a half and really wanted to keep going. Now I had to decide whether I should go left or right. Well left looked like it went up hill some more, and being the type who can only enjoy down-hill if I know I won’t have to come back up it later, I chose the higher trail and away I went.

As I hiked steadily upward and the mountains began to rise around me in the distance, a little thought kept tugging at the corners of my concentration. The little though presented itself somewhat like this:

Pinkerton Flagstaff is the trail you hiked with Josh back in March.

That trail started at 550.

The trailhead is really close to the takeout where the Toyota is parked.

Did I turn the right way?

If only I had a map I could see which way I should be going on this trail and I could meet up with them and they could give me a ride back to my car, back in Hermosa.

It would be perfect!

So about 30 minutes later I was at a high point on the trail and couldn’t take it anymore. I decided to test my luck with the Verizon gods

 YES! Service!

I sat down on a stump and did something I am NOT proud of. I used my phone’s internet capabilities while out enjoying an adventure in the woods. [Cringe] In my defense though, if I had had a map you can rest assured I wouldn’t have touched that “mobile network” button.

As it turns out, I had turned the wrong way back in the magical meadow of dandelions. That was an easy fix though. What had taken me 30 minutes to walk up, took only 15 to race back down. I was back at the intersection in no time. I took a moment’s breath and one last look back down the Jones Creek trail. Then I was off. I only had a vague idea of how many miles I had ahead of me. I had no idea if I would have a ride once I made it to the end. I just had this gut feeling that I had to follow.

The next hour was pretty much just me praying that the part of the trail I recognized would be around the next bend. I had come out into an open part on a bit of a ridge and was making the climb to the top of the rise when I looked down and had to change my foot’s trajectory mid step to miss the Horny Toad who was sunning on the trail. I stopped and smiled and told him to be more careful in the future about where he chose to laze around. [When you’re hiking alone, you aren’t picky about who or what you’ll talk to.]

I left the lizard behind and as I continued up the trail, something came over me and I knew everything was just going to work.

 Sure enough, about thirty seconds later I came around a bend and up over the top of the hill. I threw my hands up and let out a victorious “WOO HOO!!!” I had found it! I was definitely on the right trail and going in the right direction, and if memory served me right, I only had about an hour left to go.

So, at about 5 o’clock I reached the last couple hundred meters of trail. I up-ended my water bottle and promised myself I’d eat all of the fruit later, and make smoothies for the next week. The last forty-five minutes I had been having fantasies about fruit juice and smoothies, and pretty much anything cold and even remotely water-based.

I came around the last corner and that’s where I met the final piece in the puzzle. Five high-school-aged  boys were climbing on a wall of rock, hidden in the trees. I was so hot and thirsty and had no idea if Josh and his posse were off the river or not, and if they were, if they had even gotten my message.  The boys saw me walking by and said hi. I greeted them in return, and with NO hesitation asked if they had any extra water. I told them I had been hiking for about 4 hours and the sun was brutal. They happily offered me a full bottle of cool, wonderful, refreshing water which I promptly drained.

One of the boys asked if I needed a ride anywhere. At first I declined, saying that my friends should be off the river soon and would stop by and get me. After thinking a minute though, I realized that I would have much better luck getting a ride from the kayakers if I was in Rockwood where the car was. The turn off to Rockwood was only a couple of miles up the road. The boys assured me they were finishing up and would be happy to give me a ride.

*****

If I had hitched a ride with the boys all the way to the parking lot in Rockwood, the kayakers in the white Toyota would have passed right by without seeing me and my unlikely plan would have fallen apart. I didn’t ride all the way to the parking lot though. At the intersection with 550, I thanked the guys for the millionth time, hopped out of the backseat and marched off down the road. I don’t know what made me get out there, but I just knew I didn’t need to go all the way to the parking lot.

I had been walking maybe 5 minutes, probably less when it happened. The white Toyota, piled high with kayaks and packed full of smelly guys, came around the corner. I threw my hands up and smiled as big as I possibly could.

It had worked!

My crazy, impulsive, irrational plan had actually worked! They pulled up beside me and asked if was ok and if I needed a ride. I asked if they could drive me back to my car at Hermosa, and as we drove the 10 or 15 miles back to the trail head,  I filled them in on what had just happened.

Moral of the story:

Instant shuttle karma is a thing.