Taboo: Writing the Forbidden

I walk the little social trail past the skeleton of a fallen Ponderosa and the big hollowed stump of what must have been an Old Growth tree. As always, I touch the wood of both corpses. As always, I say, “Thank you.” And tell them that I will be back.

I don’t tell them that my promise is more hope than vow. I force myself to keep walking through a too familiar heaviness in my muscles. I’ll be eighty in just about two months. I take a cholesterol reducing medication. Sometimes, I feel the world spin as a reminder of postural vertigo. And I walk, no matter where I am, with the weight of losses – the spirits of hundreds, if not thousands of Ponderosa logged carelessly here by the Forest Service to prevent fires; aging losses, cultural losses; losses that puzzle me if I try to suss them out.

I step carefully over the barrow ditch, circle around the 7-trunked tree and move slowly up what feels every month like a longer and longer slope. I use a cane. It is past twilight. I’m a fool for keeping on. But there is another cluster of seven Ponderosa to the south, one of the trees only a stump. I want to sit there and watch the sunset; turn and watch the moonrise.

I reach the cluster of trees, touch each one, face Southwest, sit and catch my breath. To come to this seat, I’ve walked perhaps one-eighth of what used to be my daily walk thirty years ago. I hate the steady ache in my muscles, the shallow breaths, the knowledge that I could follow the advice of earnest people who believe one can fix anything – and despite chair yoga or physical therapy or any form of fucking mindfulness, I will still occupy a body breaking down – as bodies always have. My breath eases. I am held by living Ponderosa. The south-western sky is molten garnet.

I turn carefully and see the near perfect moon rising through the black branches. I say, “Thank you.” And know that neither the polished silver light nor my gratitude can slow anything.

****

We must not write about aging. We must not write about feeling discouraged, dismayed, dis-heart-ened. Here in the impossibly racing world of the internet, of America, we must not write about loss. Loss is taboo.

Prompt: And for you, what writing is taboo?