Mortality Hill

Hello! I’m curious who might be reading this as I haven’t posted in a good while.

I had an experience yesterday and just wanted to put it into words. First, my habit is to avoid “Mortality Hill,” my nickname for a stretch of trail that branches off the main trail at a local park. This elevated arc detour is the place where my mother once lost consciousness, bubbling at the mouth and scaring the shit out of me. We had been walking and, at the top of that hill, had to stop and rest on the park bench. In a panic and mind racing, I wondered how we would make it back to the car. Long story short, we did, and my mother recovered, although she says she’s not been the same since then.

Now you see why I avoid that particular area. No need to unnecessarily re-traumatize myself. So, yesterday while walking the park I bypassed the treacherous route. As I looked ahead on the trail, I noticed two women walking together. I had seen them twice earlier and, the first time, noticed they were too deep in conversation to acknowledge my presence as I walked by. I said “hello,” perhaps a bit too loudly (although not intentionally), and they both seemed to startle as they returned the greeting and kept going. (Side note: A pet peeve of mine is people on the trail who won’t even make eye contact. Just one more reminder of how unnecessarily isolated we can be from one another.) The second time, there was no mistaking their rudeness as they approached while “forcing” me out of their way by refusing to follow basic trail etiquette of staying to the right, as we do in our vehicles on the road. So, when I saw them in the distance, approaching for the third time, I made a quick decision and abruptly changed direction to follow a branch of the trail that led out of the park and onto the sidewalk of a busy street. Since I didn’t want to leave the park, I ended up trekking up a dirt and rock trail that jutted out from the paved one. Well, guess where that led?

The dirt trail wound around the woods and spilled right out onto Mortality Hill and the bench I had been avoiding since that awful experience with my mother. Of course, by then I needed to stop and rest. There I sat, feeling like a fool on the hill.

How did this happen? Not ten minutes earlier, I had intentionally avoided that hill and now I was there, having arrived by a back route after (intentionally) avoiding a couple of women who had annoyed me out of either ignorance or spite, who knows. (Did I really say “hello” too loudly?) So, there I sat, contemplating life, death, and synchronicity. Those oblivious women had successfully – even if inadvertently – redirected me to exactly where I didn’t want to be. After a brief respite, I ambled down the hill and on my way, rattled.

That’s it. There’s more, but you get the gist. How often do plans go awry? We intend to do one thing and end up doing something totally unexpected.

Thank you for visiting today.