17th July 2013

Just finished reading “Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail” by Cheryl Strayed, an account of a 1,100-mile hike that the author undertook alone along the Pacific Crest Trail (starting from the state of California, finishing about 3 months later in Oregon), after her mother’s death and the disintegration of her life as it was.  In her own words, she did the hike in order to “save herself”. 

Her mother had been dead for 4 years before she embarked on her hike but in those years, she had gone through a divorce (following a slew of infidelities on her part), a brief immersion in the world of heroin, and had witnessed family ties loosen their grip.

She embarks on her long trek fairly ill- prepared, a novice hiker carrying a monster of a pack on her back, wearing a pair of boots too small for her feet, uninformed about the record fall of snow that obliged her to skip part of the trail, sometimes even running out of money, but reaching finishing line elated and proud.    

During the description of her hike – the good, the bad, the x-rated - she also dives into stories about her past, especially stories related to her mother, her life, illness and subsequent death. 

The author hikes mainly alone, however, her memoir is also populated by characters and fellow hikers whose path she crosses along the way, and who inadvertently enrich the storyline.

At various posts on the trail, she picks up resupply boxes she had mailed to herself before she left home, each box containing some cash, some food and books. After she finishes reading each book, she turns it into ash and thus unloads her pack every time ever so slightly. 

The only book she carried all through her trek is a book of poems by Adrienne Rich entitled “The dream of a common language”. The title alone made me look it up on the internet. I came across one poem entitled “Power”. I just love it. 

Here it is:

“Living in the earth-deposits of our history

Today a backhoe divulged out of a crumbling flank of earth
one bottle amber perfect a hundred-year-old
cure for fever or melancholy a tonic
for living on this earth in the winters of this climate.

Today I was reading about Marie Curie:
she must have known she suffered from radiation sickness
her body bombarded for years by the element
she had purified
It seems she denied to the end
the source of the cataracts on her eyes
the cracked and suppurating skin of her finger-ends
till she could no longer hold a test-tube or a pencil

She died a famous woman denying
her wounds
denying
her wounds came from the same source as her power.”

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The book is currently being adapted by Nick Hornby (the author but also screenwriter of About the Boy and Fever Pitch). The title role of the movie will be played by Reese Witherspoon. I personally think it’s a good choice; she even looks like Cheryl Strayed!