Day 6: For Reals, Yo

We wake at 5. I am, again, stunned by the beauty of this box canyon (which we, idiotically, forget to document visually). I check my bloodsugar, and it is way, way high. I've been checking my bloodsugars this trip about once an hour, and I've routinely woken up halfway through the night and checked my bloodsugar, just to make sure it's not too high. Everytime my bloodsugar gets too high, I get dehydrated, and dehydration is something we can't afford on this trip. Still, we wake up on this morning, and even though I'd checked my bloodsugar right before we fell asleep, all the pasta I'd eaten the night before had slowly raised my bloodsugar through the night to about four times its recommended level. I'm weirded out, and take probably too much insulin to compensate. We break camp, I eat some dry granola, and we head out.



One of the coolest things about this trip is the way that I've been able to document how my body has grown stronger. We hike straight up, through switchbacks and up hundreds upon hundreds of feet of terrain, and it is so awesome to be able to chronicle, through every step, how my muscles have changed, how I am able to climb and climb and my legs can keep going, my lungs can keep going. We stare out at the canyon below us and it is lovely and hot and wonderful to be here, to be so close to the top.

We stop at the esplanade level, halfway to the car, and I take off my tank top and stretch out my back. Peter says that he can see different muscles in my back now, that I'm cut, just from the past less than a week of this journey together. My feet still hurt like hell, but I know that at this point that that's the only thing holding me back right now. I could book it if it weren't for my feet. Peter tells me to go ahead, that he'll catch up, and I head off on my own, walking on a path surrounded by sage brush. I recognize the spot where I met Peter six days before, when I felt exhausted and didn't think I could do this trip, where he was happily reading Absurdistan. And now I pass by that tree and know that I have over a thousand feet left to climb, and it's fine. I can do that. And that knowledge--that I am capable and strong--is so perfect and good.

I meet three hikers who are heading down, and give them some advice on finding water on their trek, and tell them Peter will give them even better advice when they meet him. I keep on thinking I can see the top, and even though I know it might not be quite there yet, I am confident in the knowledge that that's okay--that even if it's another hour or two of hiking I can do it.

Do you know how good that knowledge feels? I never knew that before this trip. It is essential. It is so good.

Peter catches up to me about 15 minutes from the top. I continue to lead, with him at my heels, and we watch circling hawks, and smile happily as the sweat drips down our backs and off our heads.



We document my war wounds, and I feel cool.





And I've learned so much from this trip.

That my body is capable.

That I can have faith, and that faith has promise and potential.

That I am strong.

That Peter and I are strong together.

That I am loved by someone who, though I may sometimes think I do not deserve, that I do, in fact deserve. That was made for me, and I for him.

That the desert is beautiful and bountiful.

That toxins can get sweated out of your body as well as your soul.

That hearing Mountain Goats after the song "Dance Music" has been stuck in your head for six days is truly a blessing.

That this was a life-changing event. And you would not trade it for anything.