ClinkShrink climbs things all the time. She crawls up these huge vertical ledgy rocks and then rappels down them like Spiderman. It's very athletic, but not very dignified looking. I think it's how she directs her adrenaline risk-taking protoplasm, because in real life, she lives this life of law-abiding citizen, nun look-a-like, low profile, tuna-for-lunch with white milk, kind of soul who just happens to like working with mentally ill violent felons. It's a disconnect and the Spiderman thing connects-the-dots.
So yesterday, I went hiking. I hiked to the top (well, almost, I got to the bald part of the mountain, minus the skin on the front of my leg, and decided the view from almost-the-top was just fine). It was described as a "very popular 4.7 mile hike with well-marked paths, the easiest of the Adirondacks high peaks." What it didn't say was that it was 2.4 miles straight up, a giant stair-case of boulders, with none of those wimpy switchback things to make for some level hiking. And 2.4 ish miles of scrambling straight back down.
Perhaps 30 people passed me. I was climbing with my youngster--a high school athlete in the midst of training for pre-season, and my husband who has recently lost 30 pounds with a regimen that includes 4-5 miles/day of running. I gained 12 pounds last year, and this summer I let my gym membership lapse for the first time since 1996. Let's just say I was holding up the rear.
ClinkShrink does these things all the time. She's older than I am and she looks like a nun. A skinny, athletic nun, but still.
I was offered water, by a stranger. I was offered a first aid kit, by a stranger. And I was offered Motrin, by a stranger. I came back and crawled into the hot tub with a glass of wine. It was some comfort that husband and kid were also sore and complaining.
Oh, this is a psychiatry blog, you say. Where's the psychiatry? It's August, the shrinks go on vacation, and so for the moment this is a vacation blog.
But I have now climbed the 36th highest peak of the Adirondacks.
5 comments:
What is it that makes a person "look like a nun"? I can't quite fathom what "looks like a nun" means. Short hair and loose clothing?
My mother taught some evening classes at a Catholic college for awhile, and she said she figured that the nuns were the women who didn't dye there hair, and that people probably assumed that she was a nun too. (She's a Buddhist Jew..)
Whose rear were you holding up?
Sorry, I couldn't resist, teehee!
Well, it sounds like you were misled in the description of that "hike", heh.
I used to go on weekends with my dad and younger brother for my dad to check up on a Boy Scout camp every now and then in the Catskills, while it wasn't being used. I'd have fun wandering all over the place up there.
I think my Dad once led some Boy Scouts on a 50 mile hike through the Adirondacks, followed by a canoe trip on the Delaware, or something like that. I've watched some 8mm film of it, of the canoe trip part.
We used to live back East. I even went to Washington, once.
Less blogging.
More jogging.
Dinah is out kayaking and doing a rock scramble while I'm home blogging about psychotherapy. OK, who switched our lives???
Dinah, I understand completely.
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