Seeing Well Down the Path -- My Myopia and the Long View

 

Dead Horse Point State Park, Utah, October 2020

If I haven't said it before, I don't like running. Never have. Yet, I've been running and off since I was adolescence. In high school, a buddy and I would run through the neighborhood late at night, too late, but in Houston, that can be the best time. In university, I ran a marathon which was hell in its own fashion, but I did it. I had run plenty of 5K's and a few 10K's. Most of my run now is recreational, when I bother, and I don't care for races; I don't need any more t-shirts in my drawer.

One of my problems with my running habit is that I tend to keep my head down, looking at the road. My running partners would notice that and reminded me to keep my head up; my sargents would yell at us if our heads were down; even know, when I'm running and sometimes while hiking, I'll find myself seeing my shoes more than the path down the way. It's not healthy; it's not safe; it's also disappointing. 

When hiking, especially, we should keep our heads up the trail to keep for obstacles and alternatives. Or, more importantly, in hiking, we should appreciate the whole picture -- the trees, the open glades, the canopy, the water ways, the elevation (when out of southeast Texas). The feet know what to do; good shoes or boots will protect toes and ankles; the legs are automated to keep going. The head doesn't really need the feet to do their work. Instead, I need to keep my head up and appreciate the scenery and look for the long view. 

I find many students who keep their heads down, focused on their feet, instead of seeing the long view. I see some students looking for 24 tasks instead of 3- or 6-week projects. If we were to see projects first with a long view and then dissect the project into smaller tasks, the brain sees important connections of "now and then" and "here and there." But when we keep our heads down, we are often surprised with obstacles and we don't see how planning is so essential for our growth, learning, and addressing anxiety. 

Having said that, I know that some of my students really need to focus on day-by-day essentials. Especially in a pandemic and economic insecurities, sometimes a day's completion can be a significant success, and we can give ourselves little celebrations at the end of each day. I understand that. I respect that. I celebrate that. And, when we handle each and every day, we turn behind the trail and realize how long the hike has taken you; I appreciate seeing the rear view mirror as a success, too. I appreciate my old hiking boots -- over 600 miles, through more states I can remember, ultimately dying this year and I had to retire one pair and pick up a new pair. The rear view of those boots recalls my struggles and my sweating and my exhaustion and my self-doubts. 

Sadly, not my boots. Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

But with those new boots, I restarted my hiking. Last week, I drove into the Sam Houston National Forest along the Lone Star Trail. It was a typical hot, humid Texas morning. I was surrounded by invisible morning spider webs, dirtying my glasses. The trail is not maintained, often untamed, broken bridges after previous floods through some bogs, some creeks unbridged and required trudging through shallow water, under a thick tree canopy. I had a topo map and I had my phone's app. But maps are solely symbols and each step was real. The map was often incomplete and I went off-trail and had to backtrack, adding another quarter mile to my trek (when I returned to the trail, I had seen the blaze mark but, again, I was often looking downward, not upward). But I also had to remind myself to keep my heads up; the brush was thick and the trail was never straight. I had to keep my eyes far ahead the trail to expect a bend left or right; prepare for a creek; and ultimately to appreciate the variety of trees and bushes and grasses. If I had hiked those 13 miles with my head just focused a few feet ahead me, I wouldn't have appreciate the trail itself; as I kept my head up, I could take deep breaths and visually and even physically take in the glimpses of brilliant blue sky above, the streams of yellow sunlight hitting the forest floor, the browns of leaves and bark, a hundred hues of green and yellow. The hike was tough, to be honest, but it was worth the work, dirt and sweat and chigger bites altogether. 

The east fork of the San Jacinto River in the Sam Houston National Forest. Bridge crossing, August 2021.

 

What I'm saying is that community college students need to keep their heads up; to look ahead for the semester and then ahead for a year. When we focus on the proximate "now," we lose ourselves along the trail, sometimes fall off-trail, and we forget what the goal really is. I'm not judging, but reminding.