West of Bishop....High Country...and an Apple Core

The Only Sound Came From the Wind and a Stream

That long and "ever-ascending" drive took me to this vista looking west to the rugged peaks of the main Sierra ridgeline. Lake Sabrina lay a few miles further in the valley below. Campgrounds were closed, or being readied for closure by forestry crews as barricades and signs were placed before the entrances to the sites. There were probably no more than fifty people in the area....most at Lake Sabrina. I think this view rivals any other view that one could find elsewhere in the Sierra. This was a place where one felt alone and unconnected to the world of man. I wondered what it would be to die here surrounded by indifferent nature. But for my sense of self, I was no more than a deer standing on a bluff.



Into the Gorge

To my left a rushing stream tumbled through rocks and down a gorge on its way to some of those ditches that watered Bishop. I stood on the banks and stared at the water rushing by for a long time. All my life I have been fascinated with water tumbling along a streambed. One of my earliest memories is my pretending to fish with a safety pin tied to a string. That particular "stream" was running in the gutter along the curb in front of my house. I was probably three years old. I had hopes that just maybe a fish would come down stream. I can see that clear water and the glinting pin as if I leaned over that curb just yesterday.

The "Eddy" Swirls in the Lower Left

I purposely ate lightly on the trip, ignoring the clock that so rules our lives in telling us when it is time to eat, whether hungry or not. While standing above the stream pictured above, I ate an apple, gnawing every bit of flesh from the core. When finished, I tossed the core into the stream aiming for the white water, but falling short, the apple fell into an eddy swirling adjacent to the rushing current. The apple core bobbed and swirled within the eddy, making a counterclockwise circuit that carried it just to the edge of the main current where it met the pull of the two forces...the eddy pulling it back and the stronger current tugging it forward into the main stream. Over and over again the core was pulled back into the eddy. It never did escape the little cove in which it was trapped.

We are all caught up in the pull of our present lives.....a type of spiritual gravity that is a product of our environment, our genetic makeup, our upbringing and exposure to experience, and our education.
I saw in that apple an analogy to those who struggle to leave the pull of their own life's eddy in a search for a better life, or in the search for knowledge of self and soul. Poverty, lack of education and of opportunity, ethnicity, language and parentage are some of the forces of gravity that pull one back from change and growth and personal happiness. Transcending that pull and entering into a different current is not easy. It requires the conscious choice to change and an effort that could try the soul.
Think of the gang member, or the minority student, or the poorly educated  individual who wants to
rise above his or her current status. The societal barriers are immense. Or think of the person who finds that the job, or a marriage, or the social group is unfulfilling. Change is a huge challenge.

All this in a lifeless apple core. The damn thing disappeared from sight, perhaps lodging between stones or washing up on the bank of the stream. That is an end no apple core could want.

SRH