#pct2018

Looking into the distance, past the Richmond skyline, I want to feel small. I watch the low clouds drift, imagining that below them the earth folds into peaks and valleys, interrupting the deliberately placed boxes lying flat on concrete beds. I envision being back in Colorado, where the mountains tell you which direction you are facing; massive landmarks providing a sense of direction. My body in relation to the land felt so apparent there, each motion felt significant; the landscape served as a reminder that I am a small component of a grand whole. I wondered if I would become numb to the privilege of being near the mountains, seeing them every day. I couldn’t imagine that the feeling of amazement would recede into the distance, buried in the panoramic view.

 I believe that becoming acquainted with landscape and observing it through many different vantage points can yield a sharper conscious of oneself and one’s position in the world. A sensory experience in the landscape can encourage emotional release, elicit empathetic responses, and establish a greater appreciation for the environment. When one is in a state of awe, awareness is heightened, the world suddenly becomes larger, curiosity is piqued, and questions begin to form, resulting in a visceral, transformative experience. Piff et al. analyze the experience of awe as a collective emotion, explaining:

  “…experiences of awe are unified by a core theme: perceptions of vastness that dramatically expand the observer’s usual frame of reference in some dimension or domain,” and that “… awe directs attention to entities vaster than the self and more collective dimensions of personal identity, and reduces the significance the individual attaches to personal concerns and goals.”

 There are many reasons that others and I experience awe when amidst the landscape. Recognizing a diverse, abundant, true life force, that is both microscopic and infinite in size –an entity that proceeds regardless of the attention it receives, and remains indifferent to person-awareness of it –presents respectful, fascinating and terrifying questions of the unknown. This mindfulness and unbiased awareness of landscape can heighten a sense of oneness with the environment, which I believe to be crucial in these tumultuous times.

 This union that I feel with the landscape has presented me with the question: How is it that I feel mindfully connected to an entity that is mindless to my mindfulness?

 My lifetime is an insignificant fraction of our 4.5 billion-year-old planet, where my body takes the space of a mere speck on its surface and makes observations through a very specific, biased, limited point of view that is both instinctual and shaped by human culture. I have witnessed innumerable injustices against the environment, and my perspective is bound by individual limitations, situated within the full grasp of human existence. The bulk of information I receive is through human-invented media, in which people have defined environmental decline and acceleration through bias. This, along with the impossibility of knowing everything, without the language and means of engagement to fully understand the environment and its inhabitants, can inevitably cause a distorted, narrow perspective of the environment.

 It is crucial to acknowledge, understand, and expand this narrow perspective to promote appreciation for fragile, exploited ecosystems, and ultimately, the well-being of our earth as a whole. The mistreatment of the environment and the domineering, human-centric presence of capitalist control is rooted deep in the western, cultural relationship to land. Therefore, this dominance which often controls land use and ownership must be dismantled through the very ways in which humans engage with and relate to the landscape.

  I, like many, fear for the future of natural ecosystems and the environment. There is urgency in speaking to environmental issues, in defense of a living entity that does not knowingly, immediately defend itself. The war on the environment has escalated increasingly in America; shores are open to drilling, national parks protections are being lifted, sprawls are expanding, culturally sacred lands are being desecrated, water sources are being contaminated, among many other devastations. Though ongoing efforts are being made to increase sustainability of the environment and natural resources, the pushback from capitalist corporations persists. Globally, the climate is responding with harsh seasons and natural disasters affecting communities without means of restoration or governmental support for rehabilitation.

 In my work, I explore ways one can observe a landscape and feel unified with it, acknowledging that this natural entity is one that humans cannot assume to understand fully. It has an existence outside of human cultural implications and observations, that cannot be controlled, and ultimately, that encompasses our very being. Through the experience of awe and through recognizing my personal position within the whole, I have further realized that I am connected to the environment. Developing a personal relationship with the landscape has allowed me to feel an empathetic alliance with the environment. Recognizing that records of the environment exist beyond human historical artifacts and their linguistic and textual definitions has challenged my epistemological connotations with the landscape. Acknowledging that both the environment and I exist within a domineering, patriarchal society that positions the landscape and I as inferior, has granted me the agency to empathize with the landscape in solidarity. The process of embracing a landscape/mindscape dualism through emotional connectedness with the land, while simultaneously pulling emotional responses from the landscape has enabled me to feel unified with the environment. The landscape has become my involuntary, indifferent lover. Our union emboldens my motives to challenge traditional representation of landscape and to amplify the landscape’s agency.

  A little about myself:

 I am a 26-year-old, radically soft, queer artist. I just graduated from VCU with my MFA in painting. Being inspired by the various landscapes that I have spent time experiencing throughout my life, I have decided that I want to embark on an 1800-mile trek on the Pacific Crest Trail. This is a very symbolic journey for me. My youth in Texas was fueled by the curiosity of the outdoors. I walked around lakes, collected feathers, and made friends with ducks. When I was old enough, I’d regularly drive to more secluded areas, walk and get lost in my thoughts. When I was 17, I’d get my first real taste of the Pacific’s beauty in Oregon. I was absolutely captivated by the landscape and knew I wanted to be there. I’d later drive to parks within reach; namely, the Wichita Mountains and the wild Ozarks. I moved to Colorado a few years ago, and I became a backcountry park ranger for a summer. I wanted to really familiarize myself with a park, and thus pursued a backcountry park ranger position. The thought of actively protecting the land, writing tickets for littering and enforcing rules that were to the advantage of the landscape, exhilarated me. To an extent, I could become a voice for the environment.

 I’d spend 40 hours a week monitoring the trails of Lake Pueblo State Park, ultimately on the south shore, where a tangled web of medium to high-grade trails cut through dynamic canyons and buttes. Along with enforcing rules to visitors, I was to analyze both human-constructed trails and natural structures to assess human accessibility; a goal of the parks, that others, too, could share this experience with the landscape. I had the responsibility of responding to any emergency on the trails. My state-issued walkie-talkie, always audible while on the clock, caused my stomach to drop each time a voice from dispatch echoed in the canyons. I rarely came across anyone while on patrol, only the occasional mountain biker who would ask me about trail grades, or lone hikers that I would ask, to leash their dog. Though I was confronted with anxieties of authority in this position, those moments of quiet between dispatch calls would remind me of my aspirations being there. To become acutely familiar with a land that I could never fully understand to the best of my ability, one that I was in the position to protect from minor human destructions was a form of intimacy that was unlike anything I had experienced.

  Following CO, I started grad school in Virginia, where Shenandoah National Park, became the next landscape I would familiarize myself with, being only 1.5 hours from me. I visited this park dozens of times while here. These visits would serve as a major contributor to my practice and overall wellbeing.

  After completing school, it seems to be the most logical time for me to do this trek. It’s been a rough year, I’ve experienced loss, and watched loved ones lose so much, while feeling absent, trapped in the grad school state-of-mind, which too often deferred self-care. Learning to manage depression while pursuing something that constantly requires your sharpest attention and motivation is tough. It is a vulnerable experience as an artist in a crit space, where often one’s most earnest personal position is up for criticism. Oftentimes it felt like open wounds were being poked and prodded at. I often doubted my ability while here; even working 8-14 hour days continuously, I never gave myself the credit for my work, always thinking I could have been doing more. My anxiety levels reached a peak, always fearing that I was forgetting something. Though this time was emotionally and physically exhausting, I feel like I have become much stronger. My department was a tight knit group, composed of incredible, generous individuals who became my family, of whom I am incredibly grateful to have worked with.

 I’m known to “overshare” my state of emotion. I don’t believe in censoring feeling, unless to protect myself. And now I am here, I am free of deadlines, free of second guessing my every thought, and of self-doubt. I have grown. I now wear armor over my soft interior, an armor that embraces my emotions and justifies my expression; an armor that allows oneself to feel weak, and finds power in resistance to societal pressures of emotional composure. “Radical Softness as a Weapon” as a term was coined by queer poet Lora Mathis, which embraces, “accepting your vulnerability in a society that considers it a weakness [as] a radical act.” -Lydia Luke

 I tightly clutch this vulnerability.

 Disclaimer: this blog is not intended to be an advice/self-care web-space.. And in no way am I suggesting that my personal coping mechanisms are the right way to manage depression, or for that matter are even healthy. I want this blog to feel open, and unbound to any particular voice. So I introduce these things because softness has felt really important to me this year. Writing all of this feels slightly narcissistic; in a sense it is a public diary, and who am I to say if any of this is even interesting?.. Don’t worry, I won’t be too revealing, throughout my accounts here.

 I suppose this voice functions similarly to my voice in the academic realm that I have been in this past two years, I have developed a hyper critical lens through which I experience the world, and functioning this way outside of grad school is inevitable at this time of my life. BUT.. I must stress, that I am not trying to frame this blog as a work of my practice. Ultimately I am taking this trip as a palette cleanser, I need to re-find myself outside of the institution.

 And so, I have mentioned a few things of what this blog is “not”…this blog ultimately serves as a record of my experiences on the PCT, and it is expected that I will go through some serious, self-reflective experiences in my times of solitude within an incredible, vast landscape. I start this hike with the intention of being present, being in tune with myself, now that I have nothing to become “distracted” by. I think that this journey gives one the permission to dismiss the notion of “distraction”.

 With my life at a major turning point, this seems like the best time for me to become lost and found (psychologically) and be with the landscape.

  I will fly to LA this Wednesday to see my best friend/sister before I depart this Saturday on my 1780 mile trek out of Vermillion Valley, CA and up to Canada, ending in early September.