Queen of The Bench

The Way Back

As the minutes passed, the loan sharks I’d mortgaged my body to in order to make it up the mountain were on their way to collect. On top of enduring a grueling hike, I also hadn’t eaten in 7 hours and I barely drank 8 ounces of water during my ascent.  I was dehydrated and both my blood pressure and blood sugar were crashing. At 6:45 pm, I jumped off the bench and stuffed a Power Bar in my mouth hoping I wouldn’t choke on it as I stumbled my way down the steep trail I had climbed just minutes earlier. I then downed the rest of my canteen. It seemed to be enough to keep the sharks at bay but as the sun set, I knew the coyotes would be coming out to play and I had a long journey ahead of me.

I should really have asked Sir Edward just how long the long trail was but at the time I didn’t want to learn any new information that might dissuade me from going for The Bench. I was going to find out soon enough so I slung my hiking stick behind both shoulders and took off running down the long trail.

(Here are some pics I took on the way down – click to see full-size images: )

I ran and ran around what seemed like an endless amount of curves. Still high from my triumph, I sang the songs of my ancestors which included The Battle Hymn of the Republic, Lean on Me, Mr. Sandman, Back to Life (by Soul II Soul), and Oops, I Did it Again. And when I did not know the lyrics (which I mostly didn’t) I hummed.

Partway down the mountain, my stomach rebelled at having to digest food and threatened my progress with its tortured machinations. It was not at all pleased with the Power Bar I shoved into it to keep the sharks at bay but I silenced it into submission by reminding it that if it weren’t for the Power Bar, we (both me and it) would have most certainly perished on the Widowers’ Bench and ironically without a husband (or even a Netflix-and-Chill buddy) to mourn us.

It wasn’t long after that that both my right hip and left knee began to protest as well but even as a reigning queen, I couldn’t shut them up. I could only pause once in a while to walk instead of run before quickly breaking into a run again.

Night was falling hard and fast and the trail I was on seemed never-ending. I also faced the problem of never having been on it before and having to find my way back to my car when I had no idea where it was relative to wherever the trail might end. All I knew was what Sir Edward had told me: this trail started on the “other” side of the park from the trail I took to the top of the mountain and toward the beginning of it, it passed alongside a creek .

I don’t know how far down I was when I realized I couldn’t see more than 5 feet in front of me and dusk was an ancient memory but it wasn’t long after that that I heard the miraculous sounds of water nearby. After what seemed like an hour of straight running, I finally reached the creek (though I never actually saw it). My left knee had let up a bit but my right hip was on fire. Knowing I was close to safety, I stopped running and turned on the flashlight on my iPhone. I still couldn’t see more than 5 feet in front of me but at least I wasn’t going to be surprised by a scorpion or tarantula (I’ve met both at night in the woods).

I was somewhat delirious by this point. I couldn’t think of any more songs to sing so I told myself a profanity-laced version of Little Red Riding Hood as I hobbled along a path that was lined on one side by stonework and a wooden railing which were clear indications that I had reached civilization even though the park’s stadium lights were not yet visible. I would like to say that my version of Little Red Riding Hood was cleverer than the original due to the addition of foul language but the primary reason for the profanity was because I couldn’t remember how the story went.

By the time I was almost finished with my NSFW tale about how girls shouldn’t venture out into the woods alone, the park’s lights were beaming overhead and my car was in sight. At 7:55 pm, one hour and 10 minutes after leaving The Bench, 50 minutes after sunset, and nearly 3 hours after beginning my quest for redemption, I made it back to my car in one piece.

Not only had I made it to the top of the mountain, I made it back down too. My victory was complete and so with my hiking staff in one hand I stretched my arms out to the heavens, much like Andy Dufresne did after his escape from Shawshank Prison, and shouted, “I am the Master of my Fate! I am the Captain of my Soul!” (Thank you, William Ernest Henley for the quote.)

Did I mention I suffer from mild delusions of grandeur or was it implied by the title of this post?

You’d think I would go home after that, take a bath, and go to bed. Ah, to be normal and be able to do as normal people do. But I am still chronically ill and so I had a whole routine I had to go through before I could even think about going to bed.

When I got home, I got on my exercise bike and rode it for 30 minutes. Why? It was the only way I could clear the lactic acid from my blood. I ride that infernal contraption every damned day come rain, come shine, come open heart surgery. It’s how I stay out of pain. I’ll spare you the details of the rest of the routine but I did make it to bed about 6 hours later.

My body seemed okay when I went to bed. My right hip was a little sore but surely it wasn’t anything that wouldn’t clear up while I slept, right? right? RIGHT????

I didn’t wake up the next day so much as I was violently thrust into conscious awareness of excruciating pain in my left knee and right hip about 7 hours after I fell asleep. I’d never experienced anything like this before. I figured the hip pain was because of my tight piriformis muscles but I had no idea why my left knee was on fire. The only thing I could think of that might have caused it was the running. I’ve never run for exercise. The only reason I ran on the mountain was to decrease my time in the woods.

So I grabbed my cell phone from my bedside table and googled the highly creative search phrase, “pain in knee after running”.  It came back with “runner’s knee”. I thought that you could only injure your knees running if you run for years and wear them out. I had no idea I could injure my knee running once!

The pain was so bad, I didn’t know if I could walk. I have a knee brace because I have had occasional mild problems with my left knee so I grabbed it on my way out of my room to find my parents. Walking was definitely not going to be on my agenda for the day.

I asked my dad to get me some crutches because I needed to get as much weight as possible off my hip and knee. In the span of 12 hours, I went from the Queen of The Bench to the Queen of Crutches. When my sister found me in the kitchen a few hours later slumped over on the crutches, attempting to make breakfast, she remarked, “I see the hike went well.” Apparently, sarcasm is genetic.

I healed quickly though. I was off crutches the next day and walking without pain by the third. But it wouldn’t have mattered if I’d been the Queen of Crutches for a month. It could never take away from the glimpse I saw of the limitlessness of my own soul during the few hours I reigned as the Queen of The Bench.

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