And I been lookin’ all around looked everywhere
Well, I built and climbed a mountain
But it wasn’t there.
It isn’t there, dum ta dum
It isn’t here, it isn’t there, nor anywhere.
– Melanie Safka, Someday I’ll Be a Farmer.

Remember in yesterday’s post, I mark in the faces I meet, marks of people “lost in thought”? That afternoon, I took the bus back to the coast, to where I’m staying with friends, and thought I’d pick up some groceries at the ‘local’ shops. The shops are at sea level, and my friends live at the top of a high hill hard by the coast. Very high.

So, I leave the shops with three bags of groceries, and can’t see any taxis. There’s no bus to the top, I’m sure; and I believe that my friends are not available, at this stage, to pick me up – they’re working. So, in the hot sun, and no hat, I head off.

I check Google Maps on my tablet, before I start, and its doing something weird. To get a picture of this, just imagine that the map was a glass plate, and imagine that you’re reading it from the other side of the glass. I’d never seen Google Maps do anything like that. The street names are all in reverse. If I try to move the map left, it goes right. Not right.

Oh, well. I can adjust. I figure – by guessing at the map – if I walk down the street this way, I’ll come to a street that will lead to the top of the hill. It’ll be a big ask for a body with a chronic illness, but… what choice? Off I go. Mindful of breath, mindful of walking, walking, walking.

After a while, I am still going along in the sun, with my three bags of groceries, one computer, and a packed shoulder bag; and no street ascending the hill. I reset my tablet, and get a Google Maps with correct orientation – and, lo and behold, I should have walked the other way, from the shops! Now, I’m further than ever from that fabled street.

I decide that I’ll take the next turn – a cul de sac – and go up through the reserve that appears on the map, conquering the hill via the bush. I find it, and there are some old fire trails, and on I climb, and climb, and climb. I stop several times, trying to catch my breath. It reminds me of when I climbed a mountain to meet my first Buddhist teacher – truly, I climbed a long way to get there – thirty-nine years ago. That, too, took a lot of patient mindful steps, back then, with a big pack on my back. But I was twenty-six, and hadn’t yet been struck by the viruses that brought me down.

The sun is the same in a relative way, but you’re older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death
– Time, Pink Floyd

I keep going. One of the difficulties with my own version of CFS is a heart that beats too strongly, sometimes without any particular provocation (unless it be the battle that is raging in my immune system); and, here, I’ve provoked it hugely! I’m having trouble. I sit down, in the sun. Half way up, I’m remembering the doctor’s recent advice about gentle exercise. I’m thinking, “Hey, this is not good. If I die here, no-one will find me for days. The brush-turkey over there is the only one walks this old fire trail!” He was beautiful, with his red head and yellow neck. Even so, I’m not Ryokan, and this is not collecting mushrooms.

Heart thumps, thumps, thumps. I wonder about the ticks hereabouts. Heard in the supermarket about so-and-so having a bad reaction to a tick. Pick up the bags and continue. I’m amused by this stage, seeing the irony of having been writing about lost people, and here I am trying to see whether there is, indeed, a track to the top of this hill.

If there is, it can’t be much further. I hear cars not far away. I do make it.

I’m relieved to arrive alive at the top, of course, and sit under a fragrant pink frangipani – you know, those with the flame-orange centres – while I breathe, and look out on the Tasman ocean; then lie down and look into the blue sky. I think, “This is a good place to die, because they’ll find me, here.” The heart still pounding.

Oh, mirror in the sky, what is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changing ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life.
– Landslide, Stevie Nicks.

And, I do ruminate on the fact that we don’t get the life we want, the life we expect, or the one we plan. There’s no Google Maps to show us the way. This life is definitely the precarious one you are, while you’re walking it.