Straight and flat, the boring parts

On long backpacking hikes in my twenties, we passed the time going up and down mountains by cataloguing the ways we were struggling. Going up, we were breathless and our muscles were shaky; going down, knees and ankles, different muscles. One wasn’t really better or worse than the other, just hard in different ways. We never said much about the hike itself on the few flat portions of trail.

I find myself doing this in the rest of life. I spend a lot of time hoping for and anticipating the uphill sections—the family vacation planned for July, the next kiln opening, finishing the project, beating my mile swim time—and a lot of time dreading and trying to just make it through the downhill sections—sickness, cleaning the bathroom, meetings and reports, uncomfortable conversations with difficult people.  I’m realizing lately that I have underappreciated the occasional straight, flat parts of “the trail.”

Hiking in April after a sluggish and inactive winter, we were on a well-groomed trail with small, intermittent flat stretches built into the switchbacks. Going up, I used those stretches to straighten up and catch my breath and gather my wits and steam for the next uphill bit. Going down, I relaxed and felt relief from the joint-pounding, muscle-quivering descent. These seemingly boring straight flat parts saved me—in both directions.