Climbing Hills

I enjoy climbing hills, literally. I'm a marathon walker; I can walk miles and miles and at a good clip, and given the choice between a long gentle walk or a steep hill to climb, I prefer to exert more energy and sweat over the hill.

I've never really had the desire to scale mountains and go on steep hiking expeditions, but recently, I'm enjoying the challenges that come along with slopes, canyons, rocky terrain and all sorts of soil underfoot.

Today I walked up Lida Street, just west and above the Rose Bowl; my ultimate destination: Art Center College of Design. I wanted to see the city from a different vantage point and visit the place where years ago, after attending a Saturday art class at the campus, I stood on a small lawn and watched a stag, his mate and their baby walk down a narrow, steep trail and up another one. His antlers and eyes were trained on us humans on the lawn, a mere thirty feet from him, and I could feel how anxious he was to be taking his family so close to people. The silent tension was so pervasive, I could do nothing but stand motionless as they stepped purposefully and quickly into the safety of the brush.

Walking from neighborhood street onto an ever higher ascent, the sidewalk hidden under a foot of pressed pine needles, I rounded the corner, and then another steeper curve, and then turned left into the driveway. Up ahead, on one of the bluffs before the black cantilevered college, I see what used to be a driveway and a trail head that leads out onto the edge of the cliff. Stepping onto the trail, I see it leads quite a ways down and at the end there's a makeshift tepee, pieced together carefully from old branches and tree trunks.

With every step I've been enjoying the labored breath, the sweat, the burning in my calf muscles and I've been pondering over my life, as I always do when I walk. I note rabbit droppings and deer prints in the dirt, holes in the sand where tarantulas may burrow. I go inside the tepee where there are two logs surrounding a miniature tepee model. As I crouch there I feel as though I'm in a sacred space, the sun beating down on me, I get the sense that there's some special energy in the structure. The space and time collide and had I been on a bike or more likely a car, I wouldn't have seen this special hut at all. At the top of the hill, I've lost sweat and calories and found a special air underneath the powerful sun. It all comes from climbing hills.

Lost Generation

After reading a Los Angeles Times article in an ongoing series about the unemployed in California, I felt depressed and also slightly relieved.

According to the LA Times, for people ages 18-24 the jobless rate in California is 18.01%, roughly double that of average unemployment rate for all job seekers in the country. Note that the unemployment rate only counts those who are receiving unemployment checks and actively seeking work; the rate skews more hopeful than realistic because it doesn't count those not receiving unemployment checks (as I was when I was laid off in Oregon more than a year and half ago; my company didn't have unemployment benefits and Oregon doesn't force employers to utilize the tax benefit) those who are underemployed, meaning they are capable of much more demanding, challenging, and/ or higher paid work, and those who are employed but only working part time and making ends meet with credit cards, mom and dad or roommates.

18.01% is a bad number for unemployment, but I also remind myself that during the Great Depression the numbers were worse. I still have a roof over my head and I'm not living in a shanty just yet. Like a monk, I try to humble myself, keeping in mind all the gifts and benefits I have in my life. Some aren't so lucky. Many are not as lucky as I. Still, I can't shake the feeling that I have a few more excruciating years to go before I start making any good money, before I can work in a capacity that makes me happy. I can't shake the feeling that I am part of a millions-strong Lost Generation; a generation that will make less money and have less stability than their parents and grand parents. I can't shake the feeling that I am part of a generation that has already been stripped of its voice and power, defenseless to Wall Street executives and the wealthy 1% that control everything, if only to create more war to make themselves more money.

This, I try not to think about. I just try to be humble and to feel blessed that I have a roof over my head and a cat curled up on my bed.