(Dodging Cars and Smelling Roses in Time of Plague)

Cuteness Explosion

“Shall we put our feet where they were last time?” Geri asked, smiling.

“You bet.”

We stood hand in hand in Cuesta Park, where we’d first had our view of distant hills which it was hard to believe we’d reach.

To our right was a section of the park where Google Maps showed a tangle of dog-walking trails.  (Here’s a map of Cuesta Park.) To our left were tennis courts, stately lawns and playgrounds.

“I remember stepping out our front door and walking to Hans and Gretel, and then to Bubb Park where we saw the fat squirrels racing along the fence.  And on to here last week.”  I hurried a bit, not wanting Geri’s patience to wear thin.  But she kept grinning.  “And now we walk on, to Cooper Park today.”

We walked only 100 feet and had to stop for a cuteness explosion: three or four gophers stuck gnarly big-toothed heads up from holes and leaned on bony fingers like old gaffers at their back fences.  Their heads swiveled like periscopes as we walked up.  I dug binoculars from my day pack and when magnified, those yellow teeth looked huge.  Of course, Geri took a hundred pictures.

We explored the tangle of trails with dusty dry grass and a city forest and for a moment under a tree felt like we were really “hiking.”  But our way onwards lay out from the “green lawns and playgrounds” end of the park.

We headed back to the parking lot and found our way blocked by a cloud of dust we could barely see through.

A yellow caterpillar mowed the dry wild grass and billowed dirt downwind.  Technically we could have ignored it: thanks to COVID, we both had N-95 masks on.  But I spotted a pattern: big cloud, then clear air while the mower moved to a new section.  I held up my hand while the air was clear and then dropped it, go! as the next cloud rolled.

I can’t run but the CMT will let me do a carefully brisk walk.  Just as we reached the dirt corridor, the cloud cleared away and we crossed to the parking lot in the wave of clarity.

Crossing the Street with CMT

We humans balance ourselves with continuous micro movements of leg muscles.  With CMT the nerves don’t conduct so well and I don’t get the “off balance, course correction needed” feedback in time.

For walking between puffs of dirt only careful timing is needed.  But last year I nearly got hit by a car running a red light because my legs can’t do quick response.

I stood at a T intersection in the evening light waiting for the walk signal.  I was at the top of the T waiting to cross onto the “upright” so I stood on unbroken sidewalk with empty parking spaces all along.

A car to my left drifted up as his light turned red.  The walk signal came and I stepped off the curb.

But the car didn’t stop.  He pulled into the empty parking spaces and came smoothly on through.  I’m not running a red light.  I’m just pulling into an empty parking space…

I still remember those headlights swelling to my left and the utterly helpless feeling.  My legs couldn’t maneuver.  I couldn’t shift my balance and hop back onto the curb.

The car jerked to a rocking halt while I stood like a frozen rabbit.

I know I glared at him as I walked, trembling and cautious, across the street.  The moment I was out of the way, he swept on through the red light as if I hadn’t been there.

Masked

Geri and I walked, masked, through the cultivated section of the park.  Lots of other people were also masked but plenty were not (and the proportion doesn’t seem to change no matter how bad the crisis gets).

Cuesta was manicured with rolled lawns.  Even the dips and valleys had rolled out grass neatly molded to every fold and bump.  We exchanged courteous greetings with many people, smiling with our eyes and nodding a pleasant, “Nice day.”

Here’s an odd thing: some people wouldn’t even look at us, or anyone.  Their eyes were walled fortresses.  For them, “keep safe from COVID” had turned into “everyone is your enemy.”

The paved trails were easy walking for someone with CMT, (except for the “’ard ‘ard ‘ammering” effect).  We would eventually reach Rancho San Antonio park and deal with hills again and I knew that however I sweated on the uphill stretches, it was the downhill that would take the greatest care.

Walking Downhill

Over the years I watched beloved places slip away from me because there were locked behind impossibly steep downhill stretches.  I remember standing at Sunrise Point in Mt. Rainier National Park looking down a little jewel of a lake with cold mist coming off of it and feeling sad that I’d never be able to reach it.

I’d already let go of backpacking.

Before I got the CMT diagnosis, I thought I was just shamefully out of shape.  I carried my old Kelty Serac on a hike through Ohlone Wilderness to Suñol Regional Park.  The “wilderness” turned out to be mostly cow pastures but that’s another story.

Coming down from the hills to the end of the trail in Suñol I could barely walk.  I knew I hadn’t exercised but I’d done backpack trips before; why could I barely inch my way down this moderate hill carrying what was probably a 40-50 pound pack?  I’d carried heavier packs before?

Finally a couple of day hikers saw me and asked, “Hey buddy, you doing okay?”

One of my big struggles in life has been to ask for help when I really do need help.  I had to force myself to say, “Can you, like, tell a ranger that I need some help getting down?  I’m just way out of shape, I guess.”

“We’ll carry your pack for you, will that help?”

“Aw, I hate to ask that.  Maybe but you really don’t have to.”

“No problem, we’re happy to.”  The woman, who was bright and beautiful, the kind of girlfriend I longed at the time to have, took the heavy pack.  “Wow, this really is heavy.  No wonder you’re struggling.”

“Well, it’s never been a problem before.  I don’t know why it’s so bad now.”

I walked beside them, making shame-faced bright conversation and telling jokes and stories as I walked down the rest of the hills with ease.

For months after that I trained with a pack, loading it up with books and heading into the hills, struggling up steep ones and inching down steep ones.  Then I got the CMT diagnosis.

The next time my then-wife and I had to move, I looked at my dear old weathered green backpack, companion of so many hikes, and sadly let it go.

“Yeah,” I thought.  “I’ve come to terms with the fact that I’ll never backpack again.”

To Cooper

I did backpack again and I eventually learned to cope with steep downhills.  But I’ll tell you about that another time.

The grass in Cuesta Park was soft, though I’m a little more likely to fall on uneven ground.  Sometimes to keep a six-foot distance we had to hurry onto the grass or dirt as joggers without masks puffed hard up the center of the path.  After several swerves of this dodgeball it was a relief when we reached the sidewalk.

For one block we walked along a busy noisy 4-lane street and then we could turn onto a quiet side street again.  We passed many rose bushes, white or pinky red or dark as blood.  Careful not to let my nose touch the petals, I sniffed several because looking at a rosebush without smelling it is like looking at a shimmering wonton or a gleaming BBQ rib or a fat summer blackberry without taking a bite.

We reached the unmarked back entrance to Cooper Park: a gate which was just a fat bar on a triangular support and a red gravel path through thistly brown weeds.  A few years ago stepping from pavement onto gravel felt like stepping from a pier onto a rolling sea.  My feet seemed to skid with every step and I walked like I was on lava.  But gravel paths, at least ones with no hills, have gotten easier for me as I’ve stretched and loosened tense places.

In the park proper were a vast emerald lawn, redwood trees and a wide baseball diamond.  A prominent green storage shed for park equipment had a plaque saying it was built as some eagle scout troop project.

We stepped 20 feet off the path and rested on our trash bags under a redwood.

Another short hike along city sidewalks.  20 years ago I would have laughed at such a “hike.”  But even though it’s not about miles, we looked at the map and dreamed.  A couple miles would take us to Heritage Oaks Park.  After that the map sure seemed to show a way over the freeway and a back entrance to Rancho San Antonio Open Space.  And from there, continuous trails all the way to the ridge.

We can do this, we said, with a high five.