Solastalgia Revisited - Part 1

How can I not?

We sit in the corner of Unincorporated Coffee. I’m sipping my oat cortado and my friend her 2% latte. We started running together over 10 years ago when Andrea and I joined the Pasadena Pacers running club. We ran regularly together with the trail running group of the running club for a couple of years but she became a mother to a beautiful little girl and her love for running found a new love priority. With her little girl growing up and becoming more independent from her mom, my friend is able to return to the trails and today it seems like old times for us. She joined our trail runners on a familiar route on the Gabrielino Trail, running through a portion of the Angeles National Forest. The popular route winds through the forest, crossing the Arroyo waterway in at least 11 places. The trail is frequented by runners, hikers, mountain bikers, and horseback riders. The trail is shaded by coast live oaks, maples, ash, eucalyptus and other forest trees forming a canopy over the trail. The coolness of the shade accompanied by the quiet, gentle, early summer flow of the arroyo makes this an idyllic moment in time.

The trail starts at the east, dirt parking lot of the joint venture between NASA and the Jet Propulsion Lab. Locals take the oddity in stride but this is a strange symbiotic relationship between man-made rockets and the protected wild lands of the national forest. Wildlife and rocket scientists coexist in harmony in this gem of nature.

“How many miles are you doing now a week?” Her eyes narrow as she asks.

“70.” I casually toss out the number.

Her eyes widen in a response I’ve seen hundreds of times.

With a sigh I add, “I know, everyone asks me, ‘How can you do that?’”

With a whimsical half smile she counters, “How can you not?”

This trail, like all the other trails I run regularly, beckons me. This segment of the Gabrielino Trail is three and a half miles long, ending at the Brown Mountain Dam created by the Army Corps of Engineers in 1943 as part of a US Forest Service water conservation project. An 80 foot high waterfall is the highlight of reaching the dam.

The waterfall is awesome to see, but it’s the forest that calls. With wooden fingers and limbs, the trees bend and sway, welcoming me into their world. The sparrows, scrub jays, ravens, and the occasional hawk and owl, alert the forest of my presence. Small rocks and gravel mix in with the soft, moist soil as the only sounds I hear are my breathing and my footsteps. The path is narrow in spots as the aloe and agave reach out with their sharp tendrils like pointed guardrails keeping me on the path.

The arc of my life has been marked by trauma layered upon trauma and the wounds of my soul are being healed, my essence of being is being renewed, by the oneness of the forest. I tried to hide the stark light of truth of the beatings I received, the mental torture that refused to be erased, but emotional distancing only worked until it didn’t.

I’ve endured the heartache of two divorces and the consequential separations resulting from failed marriage. Recently, my third wife, my saving love, and I, are suffering through the newest trauma of losing our home to fire and nearly all the physical memories of our lives destroyed in flames. Everyday the blinding light of trauma makes its presence known and we cannot hide from the pain. There is no quick relief, only the slow passage of time takes the edge off pain’s sharpness.

So I run, and I run, and I run, deeper and deeper into the heart, the depth of the beauty of trees, the rocks, the water, the wildlife, into the darkness of solace. Time passes slowly here, as each moment seems to stand still, giving me a chance to allow my traumatized mind to just say, “Stop.”

Ancient monks practiced the art of contemplation, the practice of silencing the inner voice and thinking about nothing. As I run on the trail I whisper, “Nothing, nothing, nothing…” over and over again until I believe it, until the truth of the timelessness of the forest makes itself present to me. The ancient Celts believed that we are one with nature, that all is sacred, everything in creation without exception. This sacred place takes me deeper and deeper into the timelessness of the natural world and I’m privileged to share in its divinity.

The forest bathes my mind, forgives the self-condemnation of my perceived failures in life, never judging, always loving me. The Spanish Broom, the wild mustard, the star jasmine, the wild sage, mix with the pine to create the essence of the forest, aromatherapy for traumatized souls. I breathe it all in, filling my lungs with just being, knowing that peace and tranquility are always here.

EMDR therapy and guided meditation techniques have taught me to use my imagination for healing purposes. As I run deeper into the forest, I can visualize healthy scenarios to counteract the traumatic events that scar my memories. The slow, slow hand of nature moves almost imperceptibly to my hurried consciousness, but when I slow my thoughts, when I silence the inner voice, when all I can say is “Nothing,” then the oneness of the forest becomes my being, my oneness.

My therapist described running as a healthy addiction, I consider it a life essential. I share trauma with my wife, my neighbors and friends, who lost their homes, also. The shared community trauma is called solastalgia and in order to be aware of its presence, to see its effect upon myself and others, I must be engaged, I must be present.

Like a healing balm, the presence of the ever present forest beckons me to stay, to stay a while, to stay as long as I want, bathing in the natural magic of the river, the trees, the rocks, the wildlife. I cannot understand the silent connection I have with the trails, but it is there and as real as anything else I call real. It’s an open invitation to run these trails, to run for healing, to run for life.

How can I not?

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