Riley Black on the Joy of Bruises

I didn’t want to panic. One wrong step and I’d go sailing downhill, crashing into the wreck of Jurassic stones that had broken away and taken their own bounces down the slope. I had to pick from the best of two bad choices. I could try to shuffle my way back uphill the way I had come, risking toppling backwards if my boot slipped on the sheer rock, or I might be able to sit on the ledge and dangle my legs down far enough that a five-foot fall sure to wrench an ankle was more like a three-foot stumble. I didn’t like either option.

Even the possibility of falling backwards was enough to make me freeze. I envisioned myself unconscious and bloodied, broken bones under the desert sun just a mile from camp. The only place I could step was a very hard and unforgiving trail unaffectionately referred to as “ball bearings” for the effects they have even on the grippiest boots. No. So I sat on the lip of a little ledge above a space just big enough for me to stand up against, threw my hiking poles down, and dangled my legs into the air, trying to think “loose” for the impact. By then, I couldn’t think about it anymore or I’d lock up. I eased myself forward, trusting that my legs would land just right, and took a little jolted stumble as my feet hit the slightly-more-pliant ground beneath.

I didn’t even notice that I’d banged my arm on a projecting chunk of red stone on the way down. I worked out the tension and anxiety by cursing myself and swearing I would never make such a mistake again as I threaded my way down the incline back towards my car. All I wanted was a moment to collect myself and a well-earned cold soda. I was almost there by the time I noticed the dots of deep red along cat-like scratches down my forearm and a bruise starting to turn my hyena tattoo purple.

Making myself feel guilty comes naturally. It’s a reflex, one based on that simple fact that we are the common denominator in our own lives. Any misstep or accident has that persistent element of ourselves right at the middle. But as the ground started to flatten, and I passed through the cooling shade of the sparse junipers, I started to flip the narrative. Yeah, I shouldn’t have tried to wander out into the backcountry entirely alone and I should have checked my path down more carefully, but I’d made it. My body, this big and awkward thing that’s usually parked behind a keyboard, had taken me there and back again.

So much of the joy we soak in about the outdoors comes from what we see and touch. The night before, I saw the Milky Way over shadowy towers of Mesozoic stone for the first time in years. Every little lizard that skittered away from me was a delight deserving of a “Good morning, friend” even if I was just a passing monster to their reptilian eyes. I was overjoyed when I pulled myself up over a sandstone ledge to find an aquarium’s-worth of fossil fish, scales shining in the noon sun. We come back with tales of what we’ve seen and we’ve touched, an extension of our primate heritage based around those familiar and powerful senses.

It’s not very difficult to show. It’s harder to tell. We’re islands, all of us, able to roughly understand the pains and pleasures of others but unable to fully empathize with some emotion or internal sensation we’re not also feeling in that moment. What we feel inside are little sparks that don’t cross the barrier of our skin, experiences of sensation as different as two distant stars in the night. We can more readily plant an image in someone else’s head than make them actually feel what we do. Even the most mundane and common feelings are as unique as how the same color might seem to two different people.

But I wouldn’t go climbing dangerous slopes if I didn’t like a little challenge. I want to try to capture even a whisper of what I felt on that hot late summer day. It’s a rare joy that’s difficult to find.

Someone I once knew came up with this taxonomy for dangerous or unsettling experiences, which I’ve carried with me ever since. Type One Fun is simply fun. We don’t talk about it much. It’s the kind of fun that’s perfectly expected, that makes you say “Yeah, it was good” when you come back from a trip, but there’s little point in sharing the details of a pleasant plan that’s unfolded without turbulence. Type Two Fun is more interesting. Type Two Fun is when something goes wrong—rain drips all over your sleeping bag, bloodsucking gnats assail you all day, you take a wrong turn and scrape yourself up going downhill—but you still come home with a story to tell. Something irritating, scary, or even dangerous in the moment can bring a smile to your face. (Type Three Fun, if you’re curious, is terminal.)