Thanks, Maggie
This week has been difficult—not capital-D Difficult, in the absolute sense of the word, but lower-case difficult, as in “I-would-really-like-to-get-this-bullshit-over-with-but-hey-it-could-be-worse” difficulty. 1 I always claim to work best under pressure; I waste my time unless I have no time to waste. But for the first time this quarter, I find myself unable to get it all done: I neglect going to class so I can see my girlfriend, I neglect my girlfriend so I can study, I neglect my studies so I can go to work, and I neglect work so I can go to class. In doing so, I am rewarded with a disappointed girlfriend, boss, and co-workers. I am struggling to understand what should be easy material, and I am chronically sleep-deprived.
Through it all, I am often reminded of a brief conversation I had with a dear friend in my junior year of high school.
The scene is Ms. Hill’s creative writing classroom. Filled with somewhat artsy and often melodramatic teens, the room is abuzz with conversation, as groups of students chat with their friends about prospective topics for poetry and prose.
I am not talking. Not because I lack ideas, but because my mouth is otherwise occupied—specifically, by chewing apples and carrots. “Horsefeed,” it was affectionately called by my friends, and by that point in time I had learned to bring enough to share.
A girl, Maggie, sits down next to me. She is easy-going and strikingly pretty, the cool kind of girl you nickname “Cuntface” and lets you get away with it.
“How ya doing?” Maggie asks, and makes a funny face. “And can I have a carrot?”
“Alright. Yeah, I’m alright,” I say in response to the first question, and I toss her my bag of horsefeed in response to the second.
Maggie drops the funny face and says, curiously, “You’re never very happy, are you?” She grabs a fistful of carrots and skips away, like it’s the most normal thing in the world.
At first I was offended. Who was this girl, who hardly knew me, to judge me like that? But the thing was, she was right. I was never very happy. And I had to wonder: Why?
There was no reason, really. Sure, I had done poorly on a Biology exam earlier that morning—but so what?
Back then, I let the little things get to me. The smallest problem or disappointment would put me in a bad mood. And because life is always full of small problems and disappointments, I was always in a bad mood. I was never happy.
I was never happy.
It was Maggie who made me realize how ridiculous it is to give weight to events of such little significance. I decided then that happiness is something that comes from within, and accordingly, I have come to predicate my happiness upon myself and not the events that surround me, no matter how chaotic – or blissful – they may be.
I believe that whether or not you are happy is your own choice.
And so happy I choose to be.
- Blame the philosophy classes on this one.
While You Weren’t Watching
Since my last substantive journal entry, a bit more than a third of a year ago, I have: worked myself ragged and fallen out of shape; declared myself a philosophy major, and learned all about the souls possessed by inanimate objects, the impossibility of matter, and the necessity of monads; decided that Environmental Law is a field worth devoting my life to, even if it means living out of a cardboard box and dining on uncooked ramen for the rest of my days; been generously selected to work alongside the beautiful Beth Kaelberer as a Senior Orientation Leader for the Muir class of 2009; clawed my way back into shape; spoken on numerous leadership panels, all the while pretending to be far more certain of myself and my future than any reasonable person could fairly expect; hazarded into a relationship with one of my best friends; met Dean Lister, the Absolute division world champion; been detained at the Mexican-American border as a possible drug smuggler; and adopted a new way of life.
My apologies, but sometimes life gets in the way of writing about it.
The Search for Brian Forest
Rain. Hair looks like a rat. Shorts are saturated. The worst ever, my feet are wet. My tolerance for this is wearing thin. Now it is my usual style to brave the rain and act unperturbed, but today I shall swallow my pride and endure the cold no longer.
“I shake my fist at you rain!”
I returned home to change into invincible attire. It was then I walked through the endless mobs of miserable students. I moved upright and confident as others hunched and furrowed their brows. Walking like that had a strange effect on me. My thoughts came organized and clear unlike the usual tangle of ideas and desires. The rain seemed to hit the brim of my cap in rhythm with my thoughts. I made peace with things I had done, but more importantly made plans for tasks to complete in the future. Here, I listened intently. Took the opportunity to pat attention when it mattered. When I was thinking real and clear thoughts. I focused hard on that voice. You know, that voice that speaks in italics. During this searching of sorts there was one idea that surfaced above all others.
The Voice: Adam, you simply must find him.
ME: Impossible. Long gone—dead probably.
The Voice: You have given up. Shameful. Resume your search.
ME: Its actually just not important anymore.
The Voice: You lie to yourself. Can you not remember?
ME: …
The desert is powerful. Its eerie existence resides in the essence of non-life. It is rocky wasteland and red rimrock. The wind stings and does not stop; a place where life stands in extreme clarity against the harsh barren features of the desert. The desert is also transition. Its massive nature is static to those who enter. It is Purgatory.
I found myself in the desert of Death Valley for the second time my last year of high school. I was acting as a member of a logistical support group to a thirty day Outward Bound course acting in the area. A year before, I was in Death Valley, as a participant of that course.
The course focused on finding the balance between nature and self through overcoming challenges in four sections: Backpacking, rock climbing, a three day solo, and an independent hiking section without instructors. I learned much there, Just like that rainy day my thoughts were lucid and honest. Whether it was hanging for a ledge 150 feet in the air, or alone at my solo site for the 3rd night, I knew exactly what I was thinking. I was content. And from there I formulated strong ideas of what I wanted to make of myself in years to come.
However, a year had passed of mundane schoolwork and the anxieties of the urban world. Alas, I had lost that vision, that power of clear thought. Yet through the logistics program I had been given a second chance to return to Death Valley and try to again understand the power it had over me.
As a “Logi” we prepared stations for re-rationing the groups as well as providing assistance in case of emergency. To do this properly, we logies would split into three groups and remain in one location for a period of time. My group consisted of myself, Emily, a classmate, and our leader: Brian Forest. Brian was a smallish Asian man who said he recently traded in his hippy patchwork hat for a baseball cap. Brian was an excellent climber with uncanny strength and springyness. He also still had braces on since middle school because he “never had the time to get them off.” With the ability to do flips while playing hacky sack and the habit of squealing uncontrollably, he easily impressed us all. He told us ridiculous stories of bar fights in Thailand and involving how to say condom in French. His most valuable trait was that Brian, like a restless child, had no notion of settling down. He flitted from one place to the next, from one adventure to the next predicament. He was without inhibition, yet lived in good form. He was Brian, the master chef and lover of Enya.
One morning before dawn, headlights on, we were to move our camp to the next re-supply location. We packed our gear and loaded the van. Per Arlene, the unstable leader of this whole operation, the vans must be drove under five miles an hour on all offroad trips. The van slowly (very slowly) bounced along with Brian at the helm. Brian was doing something.
Oh my.
This had never occurred to me. The wilderness is unique because the further one penetrates the more distant the urban world becomes. But Brian was about to bridge these worlds. Taking the best parts of the urban and adding the best of the wild. Brian attached a cd player to the radio and inserted a disc labeled ‘Desert Mix’. Many argue the power and significance of music, but whatever it has it worked its enchantment then. He hit play and the sun seemed to rise at that very moment splashing red and orange over the desert. Lonely Joshua Trees appeared in their random configurations on both sides of the van previously hidden in darkness. In the distance, were snow-covered mountains, their tips now illuminated by the rising sun. That image has forever been burned into my mind.
Our trip came to a close. In return for our hard work and friendship Brian created three copies of the desert mix. One for my friend Daniel, a logi, Emily, and myself. Surely the information within was secure between the three of us. Wrong. Daniel, bless his heart, is somewhat of a scatterbrain. His copy was lost, never to be found again. But no worries, I would never let my copy to disappear. Not a week later, mine was taken as the result of a freak accident involving a rental car somewhere in Chicago. The cd player consumed it and it somehow vanished into the bowels of the machine. I pleaded with the confused Hertz employee to send the cd to my address upon repair of the vehicle. One day I received a phone call from Hertz telling me the disc was on its way. Ahah! My problems were solved. Strange then, that I never heard from Hertz or the cd again. My relationship with Emily has deteriorated to the point at which recovery of the cd is impossible. Every time I ask her if she has the cd, she calls me shallow and desperate and our friendship grows weaker.
Daniel and I have spent many hours attempting to recreate the cd in its entirety. With much painstaking research and resolve we have completed a version of the desert mix with all of the songs from Brian’s cd. Except one. The most important and magical song, track one of Brian’s desert mix, simply cannot be located. The song cannot be described. Its unique rhythm and sound has no category. Days of our life have been spent searching forums, stores, websites, and magazines. To no avail. That image I have of burned in my mind of the sunrise over the Joshuas is incomplete. The vision lacks the music that went with it. This elusiveness of the song and the string of circumstances that led to its disappearance have left Daniel and I with one choice: To find Brian Forest.
Except that upon searching for him it appears he has vanished. His home phone and cell phone are both disconnected. The alumni association at UC Berkeley has an address and number that amount to nothing. His friends have no idea. His Boss has less of one. In all of our searches, web or in person, his existence seems to taper off. He appears here and there, winning a photography prize for example. Or competing in a climbing competition. But after that evidence of his existence vanishes. There is one theory that with the evidence we have has surfaced. Before his departure, Brian mentioned to us that he was planning on joining a research team for an extensive trip to Antarctica. It must be there that Brian lives, cut off from any communication. It is either that, or he must have died some untimely death traveling on the unstable glaciers of Antarctica.
So I may get distracted with finals or other petty worries of college life, but I promise you reader, that one day, one way or another, I will find Brian Forest. I have been called to locate him. The series of incidents relayed above have not been coincidence. Be it on the streets of a crowded city or deep within the glaciers somewhere on the seventh continent our paths will cross. And when they do, I will regain the vision that was once lost.
Guest entry by the indelible Adam Calo.