365 True Things: 188/Films

This evening was a showing of the 13th Wild & Scenic Film Festival, a fundraiser for the Ventana Wilderness Alliance, of which I'm a member and a volunteer ranger. Hey, I was even featured in the opening film of the evening (not part of the film fest), saying smart-alecky things about backpackers and toilet paper . . . I cringe every time I see it, which fortunately is not often.

The entire line-up was excellent, ranging from monarch butterflies to fireflies to songbirds; there was a spoof on Facebook called "Earthbook":

an amusing "Spaceship Earth Passenger Safety Briefing"; a disturbing film by the US Forest Service called "Marijuana Grows and Restoration" that had many of us talking at the break about the need for legalization, so growing weed in our backcountry will no longer be appealing to the bad guys; "The Story of Place," featuring an author I like, Craig Childs, and a Zuni tribal elder, spending time in an area of southern Utah that is currently threatened by would-be tar sands exploiters; and a wild little film about a guy who hula-hoops his way all around Jackson Hole and beyond, including the tops of mountains. Totally made me want to get a hula hoop!

The best film of the evening, though, was Drawn, an amazing hybrid of illustration and film that follows a climber, Jeremy Collins, to the four corners of the earth as he honors the memory of a friend who died in a mountaineering accident. Here's the trailer:

The film made me squirm, because one of its messages is that we have to live life large—and I feel I've been shrinking into an ever smaller comfort zone. Of course, I have lived life pretty large in the past. Nothing like the guys in this film, but still: compared to many of my friends—I've adventured.

And I feel like I've forgotten how to do that anymore.

But I'd like to change that. Not quite sure how. But something needs to give. 

One of the lines in the film I liked concerned climbing a hitherto unsummited peak in the Yukon, in the Vampire Spires. The three climbers were talking about their fears (they all confessed to being afraid of getting eaten by a grizzly bear!), but the climbing fears—those were all in their head, and vanquishable. As one of them said, "I try to focus on what I want to accomplish, and not on what I want not to have happen."

Another resonant line, repeated at beginning and end: "What is above knows what is below, but what is below does not know what is above. One climbs, one sees. One descends, one sees no longer, but one has seen" (René Daumal).

I've been beset recently—even just sitting here in my beautiful new home in the suburbs—by too many fears. 

Maybe buying a hula hoop, and then using it, will help me climb to a higher place, and start adventuring (even if modestly) again.