A weekend of hard work before the change of weather led to - demanded - a movie. This one, "Wild" from a memoir by Cheryl Strayed (her pen name is dry humor from her actions in the book) came to me via the Sunday newspaper. I had put the section on hiking the Pacific Trail aside to read later - I always want to read about rugged travel - and forgot about it until the following Saturday, when a casual comment about hiking shoes reminded me of the article - which made reference to the movie, which made me get the video.
It was, to me, an odd one, for rugged hiking stories always feature a man, at least in the lead. This was about a lone young woman doing the Pacific Coast Trail - something that in itself took a little of my breath away. Having hitchhiked for months at a time on my own in the 70's, I know how predatory the human world can be, especially for women. As it turned out, she did have some sexual threats, but most were of her imagination - most men treated her well. But, as with many stories of travel, the travel itself was not the focus of the action. Her trip was, instead, the classic "via dolorosa," the painful path, as the Christians put it (referring to Christ's passion), that must be made to absolve a distracted or downright bad life. Her's was breathtakingly of the latter variety.
In the movie, her immoral and self - destructive behavior was blamed on a rough childhood and the death of her beloved mother. It didn't suffice. After the mother's death, she took off on a several year exploit of limitless anonymous sex - including serial encounters in garbage-filled alleys in broad daylight. This eventually led to an encounter with a junkie, who got her into heroin - and more group sex in a junkie flop house. Worse, she was married during those several years, and her husband was not OK with her wanderings - or, as she put it, her straying. He stayed with her an incredible 7 years, but finally got a divorce. They remained friends, amazingly, and it was he who sent her food packages along her trek as she sought to clear out the demons that had led her to that stupid, stupid behavior that, by the end, led her to abort a baby by an unknown father. Yicky stuff, a true shaman's or saint's "via" of sin calling for redemption. From this tempest, the movie that was made was excellent.
It also held special personal relevance for me, although extreme sexual promiscuity and heroin use were not among them (of the former, I might say "alas," because most men can't find that kind of situation. Young women can find it in a heartbeat). I, too, took a "via dolorosa" in my early youth, chronicled in my book, Dream Weaver, not for my sins, but to search for paradise.
For Strayed, her journey was to learn to love herself again, as we find she does in the movie at the end, right on target, where she says, "I found that I did not have to be redeemed, for I was redeemed already at every moment." (my paraphrase) Redeemed, I suppose, by just realizing it, which I agree with. It was for her like Dorothy coming home from Oz.
But for me, my trip was to find OZ, and coming home was the last thing on my mind. My book, as the critics point out with disappointment, did not have a final "come to Jesus" moment, as was dictated by all the rules of best-sellers. Instead, I had only learned that there was no paradise out there, and had not learned, at age 21, that it could be found only in oneself. No, the journey instead did not end there, and has not ended still.
I also learned from the movie that I should not fear my own book. I have not tried to sell it with any passion because in it was told the truth of my own stupidity, of which I have been somewhat ashamed. After "Wild," I find that I was only playing in the minors.
Beyond that, though, two critical thoughts come to my mind of the movie. The first is that, yes, the protagonist comes to her 'Jesus' moment as expected, and we are to believe that she is now and forever redeemed. That, I will bet anything, has not been the case. I bet she still has bad moments, still messes up, still hates herself at times. To say that one is redeemed once and for all is a regrettable fallacy. Even a priest needs to give Mass over and over again, and even a priest needs regular confession. When we walk into the light, we will walk into darkness again. Perhaps what the author meant was that she could always look back into the light and regain her truer and better self, and in that she would be wise. But in the movie, the author's redemption hints at a sort of sainthood, of a permanent fulfillment that, almost always, can only be found in movies and fairy tales.
The second is the lack of reference to God Itself. The author, and I assume the makers of the movie, would never openly admit that this is what the trek was all about - not just finding self, but finding self in a purposeful - in a God driven - universe. To only forgive oneself is hardly an epiphany; instead, one has to forgive oneself in the framework of something greater than oneself. Cheryl Strayed (in the movie) does admit this in a way, for the journey ends at the Bridge of the Gods in Washington State, and so we get a whispered reference to that which is greater - that which takes our sorrows and spills them across the desert and the mountains, where they are diluted and absorbed, until our outward God-given heritage fills and renews once again our self-wounded psyche. (note" a critic of my own book came to a single chapter half way in where I got a long ride through Texas from a Jesus Freak. She so hated his references through me to Jesus that she claimed that from then on, the book was a sop to Christian Fundamentalism. It was not, not in the slightest. The critic only meant to destroy a book with such an encounter in it, to cleanse the world of any reference to God which is so oddly despised by so much of the intelligentsia).
But at least there was the reference, as muted in embarrassment as it was. As to the hiking itself, I would like to take such a hike again, more for simple renewal than for penance, but I've done that before, and it truly is hard. So I console myself that God comes forth not only in the sign of the arousing, but in the presence of stillness. Even so, the via dolorosa calls, bringing one final question to my mind - do I still have the knees for it? FK
It was, to me, an odd one, for rugged hiking stories always feature a man, at least in the lead. This was about a lone young woman doing the Pacific Coast Trail - something that in itself took a little of my breath away. Having hitchhiked for months at a time on my own in the 70's, I know how predatory the human world can be, especially for women. As it turned out, she did have some sexual threats, but most were of her imagination - most men treated her well. But, as with many stories of travel, the travel itself was not the focus of the action. Her trip was, instead, the classic "via dolorosa," the painful path, as the Christians put it (referring to Christ's passion), that must be made to absolve a distracted or downright bad life. Her's was breathtakingly of the latter variety.
In the movie, her immoral and self - destructive behavior was blamed on a rough childhood and the death of her beloved mother. It didn't suffice. After the mother's death, she took off on a several year exploit of limitless anonymous sex - including serial encounters in garbage-filled alleys in broad daylight. This eventually led to an encounter with a junkie, who got her into heroin - and more group sex in a junkie flop house. Worse, she was married during those several years, and her husband was not OK with her wanderings - or, as she put it, her straying. He stayed with her an incredible 7 years, but finally got a divorce. They remained friends, amazingly, and it was he who sent her food packages along her trek as she sought to clear out the demons that had led her to that stupid, stupid behavior that, by the end, led her to abort a baby by an unknown father. Yicky stuff, a true shaman's or saint's "via" of sin calling for redemption. From this tempest, the movie that was made was excellent.
It also held special personal relevance for me, although extreme sexual promiscuity and heroin use were not among them (of the former, I might say "alas," because most men can't find that kind of situation. Young women can find it in a heartbeat). I, too, took a "via dolorosa" in my early youth, chronicled in my book, Dream Weaver, not for my sins, but to search for paradise.
For Strayed, her journey was to learn to love herself again, as we find she does in the movie at the end, right on target, where she says, "I found that I did not have to be redeemed, for I was redeemed already at every moment." (my paraphrase) Redeemed, I suppose, by just realizing it, which I agree with. It was for her like Dorothy coming home from Oz.
But for me, my trip was to find OZ, and coming home was the last thing on my mind. My book, as the critics point out with disappointment, did not have a final "come to Jesus" moment, as was dictated by all the rules of best-sellers. Instead, I had only learned that there was no paradise out there, and had not learned, at age 21, that it could be found only in oneself. No, the journey instead did not end there, and has not ended still.
I also learned from the movie that I should not fear my own book. I have not tried to sell it with any passion because in it was told the truth of my own stupidity, of which I have been somewhat ashamed. After "Wild," I find that I was only playing in the minors.
Beyond that, though, two critical thoughts come to my mind of the movie. The first is that, yes, the protagonist comes to her 'Jesus' moment as expected, and we are to believe that she is now and forever redeemed. That, I will bet anything, has not been the case. I bet she still has bad moments, still messes up, still hates herself at times. To say that one is redeemed once and for all is a regrettable fallacy. Even a priest needs to give Mass over and over again, and even a priest needs regular confession. When we walk into the light, we will walk into darkness again. Perhaps what the author meant was that she could always look back into the light and regain her truer and better self, and in that she would be wise. But in the movie, the author's redemption hints at a sort of sainthood, of a permanent fulfillment that, almost always, can only be found in movies and fairy tales.
The second is the lack of reference to God Itself. The author, and I assume the makers of the movie, would never openly admit that this is what the trek was all about - not just finding self, but finding self in a purposeful - in a God driven - universe. To only forgive oneself is hardly an epiphany; instead, one has to forgive oneself in the framework of something greater than oneself. Cheryl Strayed (in the movie) does admit this in a way, for the journey ends at the Bridge of the Gods in Washington State, and so we get a whispered reference to that which is greater - that which takes our sorrows and spills them across the desert and the mountains, where they are diluted and absorbed, until our outward God-given heritage fills and renews once again our self-wounded psyche. (note" a critic of my own book came to a single chapter half way in where I got a long ride through Texas from a Jesus Freak. She so hated his references through me to Jesus that she claimed that from then on, the book was a sop to Christian Fundamentalism. It was not, not in the slightest. The critic only meant to destroy a book with such an encounter in it, to cleanse the world of any reference to God which is so oddly despised by so much of the intelligentsia).
But at least there was the reference, as muted in embarrassment as it was. As to the hiking itself, I would like to take such a hike again, more for simple renewal than for penance, but I've done that before, and it truly is hard. So I console myself that God comes forth not only in the sign of the arousing, but in the presence of stillness. Even so, the via dolorosa calls, bringing one final question to my mind - do I still have the knees for it? FK
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