hiking backwards

cora and I hiked moore cove this morning. it's been a long time since I've been there: I always write it off as kind of a wimpy hike, one I've done too many times with too many group home kids complaining the whole way. but cora and I desperately needed a good strong dose of the great outdoors after being cooped up for a week, and I knew it was a hike easy enough that she wouldn't ask me to carry her.

cora rarely stops talking. and it isn't even just running dialogue of whatever we're doing, although there's a good bit of that mixed in. she talks about things she's imagining, things she'd like to try, things she's sounding out as she goes along. she doesn't seem to mind a bit if anyone is really listening either. occasionally she'll say "mama. this is really important. listen," but I think even as she's saying it she knows that most of what she says in her long monologues is more for her own entertainment than that of her audience.

so we hiked. cora prattled along as we slipped and slid on the trail. I thought a lot about group home kids we had dragged along the same path and pointed out a rock kids were alway eager to climb. she asked if we had carried her and jamin in the ergo on this trail. we had. she asked how the kids climbed the rock and I showed her. I thought about where those kids must be now, if they remember hating those hikes we forced upon them or if they remember them fondly now. lots of them have kids of their own now, and I wonder if they will ever take their own kids hiking. I thought about the first time I ever hiked moore cove, driving down from asheville with some women I worked with but never really felt connected to. I thought about our visitors last summer and how they haven't gotten to see these waterfalls frozen. I wondered if I had ever seen this waterfall frozen before today. I can't remember.

we were hot by the time we got back to the car. we shed our jackets before buckling in and turned up the music as we hit the road back to town. it was a birthday mix a friend made for me last year, one I had kind of forgotten about in my winter doldrums brain. we listened to "galileo" by the indigo girls and pretended it was spring. we couldn't even get halfway through the song before cora would ask for me to start it over again. and again. and again. I didn't mind. maybe this day will be forever linked to that song in her brain. worse things could happen.

I used to worry I would be old if I was ready to stay in one place. being still would mean I had given up and quit dreaming of something better. hiking moore cove today made all the lives I've lived right here flash like carnival lights in my mind. there is so much still to be done. so much of it can happen right here. there is so much I've already done. and so much of it happened right here.

so not only will I let the next life off the hook, as the indigo girls so poetically recommend, I think I'll let myself off this time around, too. I'll just have to remember to hike moore cove anytime I need a refresher course.  you should come with me sometime. I know cora's game.