I like to hike and to write. Both activities demand focus. One foot, or one word, in front of another. The effort distracts me from problems and surfaces memories and ideas.
As if the foliage on the Kancamagus Highway weren’t glorious enough, I recently hiked the Champney Falls Trail up Mt. Chocorua. Golden, orange and red leaves floated down from the treetops. Balsam and damp moss scented the air. Just out of sight the waterfall hummed like a highland bagpipe. Poking my poles into the leaves in search of solid ground, I picked my way among the rocks and roots. I was thinking about my mother.
Chocorua was the last big mountain my mother climbed before multiple sclerosis confined her to lower ground. Due to that disease, even her vinyl kitchen floor proved rough terrain on bad days. Remembering her determination to enjoy life and help others despite her condition, I backtracked in my mind to the stories she told us of growing up in the Depression and World War II. As a child in rural New Hampshire, she didn’t know that much about the interplay of economic, political and military forces at work. What she did understand from a young age was that she and her family and neighbors could make a difference. They needed to help with “the war effort.” They could, and did, grow victory gardens for food self-sufficiency; collect and donate scrap metal and rags; save quarters to buy war bonds; and make do with rationing. My grandmother sometimes served “peanut butter oatmeal chops” for supper. My mother knew it was her patriotic duty not to complain.
As in the 1940s, the U.S.A. now faces multiple fronts: the Covid pandemic, substance abuse, and mental health crises; financial precariousness; economic, educational and racial disparities; political stalemate; and, above all, climate change. Where are the 21st-century equivalents of those ebullient World War II posters urging Americans to do their part? Too few of us are getting the message that there is something we each can do. Too many are obsessed with protecting individual rights and ignoring societal responsibilities. Our republic is in dire danger. What to do? For starters, just get vaccinated.
I have to pause, breathing in-in-in and out-out-out. Above the treeline, granite boulders loom between me and the summit, grating my knees as I scramble up. But at the top, the blue sky, the distant lakes, the company of the other mountains, steadies me. Everything seems possible — even the resolution of our nation’s problems. It is not enough to hike, though. I have to write.
Susan Hatem, former Director of Programs and Grant Making at New Hampshire Humanities, is a CASA of NH guardian ad litem and a connector, mentor and writer. Email her at [email protected].