It was my last full day in Sedona. After a dear friend had a last-minute change in plans and was unable to travel, I’d spent the last few days exploring on my own. While I’ve traveled extensively by myself, I’ve always met up with folks wherever I’m going. This was my first time being somewhere, just me. Fortunately, M and I visited Sedona in April 2018, so I was familiar with the area, and I’d spent the prior weekend there with friends. But I was still quite intimidated by the solo 3-1/2 days.

I woke up that morning and considered my plans for the day. I really wanted to hike Wilson Mtn., a long, tough hike a guy at the hike shop told me about on Friday. It would be my first time on this trail, and a challenging enough hike that I knew I wouldn’t see many people on a Wednesday early in March. While I’ve hiked extensively, the only solo hiking (or trail running) I’ve done has been in places where I live – the lake outside of town where we live now, the mountains just west of Fort Collins where we lived several years ago. Hiking alone somewhere new is intimidating to me for some reason, even though I’m good with a map and know how to look after myself. To build up my courage, I hiked a beautiful and familiar trail on Tuesday, exploring four miles of new trails at the end. In the back of my mind I knew I was testing the waters for Wednesday. Poking at the edges of my comfort zone.

As I eat my breakfast Wednesday morning, I know I’m going to Wilson. I’ll regret it if I don’t. So many things that are a stretch for me I end up doing not so much because I WANT to do them, but because I’ll hate myself if I don’t. Not hiking this trail, a trail that is within my physical capabilities, because I’m afraid I’ll get lost (absurd) or that I’ll get eaten by a mountain lion (it’s more likely that I’ll be abducted by aliens), would leave me with a kind of self-loathing that would make getting out of bed the next morning very difficult. And I had a plane to catch. So I packed up my stuff and drove to the trailhead.

Most of the hike I thought about my dad. That very day happened to be the one year anniversary of his leaving his mortal body for whatever waits for us in the beyond. His death revealed to me that the most horrible things can happen and yet we endure. Life really does go on, whether you want it to or not. I always knew that my dad and I were a lot alike, but it wasn’t until he passed that I realized what a comfort it had been to have someone close to me who experienced the world much the same way that I do. I would talk to him about work stuff and barely have to explain how I’d responded to a situation because he just knew. Because my instincts, my perspective, was most often his instincts, his perspective. My mom and I were driving back from picking up dinner this past Christmas Eve and she was talking about a problem she was trying to solve. I told her that I was really, really good at coming up with a solution three days from now, so I’d get back to her on Friday. I needed time to think about things before the good stuff bubbled up. She looked at me with a half smile and said “you’re just like your father”.

The farther I hiked, the higher I climbed I felt myself getting closer to him. Not because I believe he’s perched on some throne in the sky, but because it was just me, the trail, and my thoughts. The noise of the trip, the noise of the past month, slowly fell away. I saw one other person in the 4.5 mile hike to the top. I let the effort quiet my over-active imagination and only once thought I heard something in the brush (an actual miracle, really). The view from the top was as spectacular as the hike-shop dude promised. There was some snow still, and snow on the San Franciscos of Flagstaff which were prominent in the distance. It reminded me that it was still March, even as the sunshine and warmth of Sedona lured me into thinking otherwise.

I spent longer than usual taking in the view, making small talk with an older couple from Utah. I took too many photos – as always – and hiked to the other side to see the canyon. Part of me wanted to stay up there forever, as I knew that this hike was essentially the end of the trip. And waiting for me at home was reality and whole bunch of uncertainty around COVID-19, which was just starting to reach its tentacles into the country. I didn’t want to come down from this quiet place, this haven of solitude. My fear of hiking alone felt ridiculous to me now, small and insignificant, as most of my irrational fears do once I’m forced to address them.

While I’m still brokenhearted that my friend couldn’t travel, the silver lining was rewriting a story I frequently tell myself…that I’m unadaptable and that fear controls too much of my life. There was so much about this trip that was uncontrollable but I handled it and made the best of it. I took up space in a way I’m not used to, and that felt really powerful. I went for a burger and a beer after my hike on Tuesday because it was hot, I was starving, and I’m a fucking adult. I found THE breakfast joint on Thursday morning and took up a table by myself while they were on a wait (yes, I tipped my server very well). I helped quite a few people on my hike on Tuesday when they got turned around because of their inadequate maps, or in the case of the guy who was leading his family on a loop hike into a box canyon (impossible) – was on a completely different trail than he thought. Being out in the world by myself meant that I was a pile of mush by the time I got back to my Airbnb late in the afternoon each day – being a human is A LOT of work sometimes, but that was ok. I like what I learned about myself. I liked the person I was for those 3-1/2 days. I want to embody her more. I’ll always be someone who thinks deeply and is slow to act. But this trip showed me that sometimes I can think deeply AND act at the same time. I can be paralyzed by fear and still do the thing. That’s the energy I’m carrying into this decade.

And as for my dad, a year has passed now. A year of birthdays, holidays, little moments. The world ends, but it doesn’t. As I’ve said before, I really don’t understand anymore about grief than I did prior to all of this. I know it will swallow you whole if you let it. I learned that I could feel tremendous loss and deep gratitude at the same time. I think that’s much of what being fully human is, holding seemingly opposing thoughts and feelings together at the same time and knowing both are real and true. I know that there will never be enough time. That’s what I know the most. My dad could’ve lived to 90 yrs old (he was 65) and it wouldn’t have been enough. There won’t be enough sunrises and sunsets, beautiful trails in beautiful places. It is our duty, our responsibility, to soak up every ounce.