An Encounter with a Cactus and Sufficient Grace
An Encounter With a Cactus and Sufficient Grace
Cholla on Kevin's leg from another hike.
kevin reflections
Lynne reflections
ZZach and Mollie reflections
9 miles. That was the plan.
A hike from the Peralta trailhead, taking the 235 to the 104 and loop back to the car. We had done the route six weeks earlier and wanted to capture more photos in the afternoon light.
On the first ascent I began to wonder if I had the mileage in my legs. I had to stop at the first glimpse of Miner's Needle in order to catch my breath. The day was not going as planned.
Heading around a tight blind corner on a set of switchbacks Mollie picked up a section of cholla cactus on her nose, a clump the size of a child's fist. Usually she is wary of the teddy bear cholla, a naming derived from a soft, fuzzy appearance that hides inch-long thorns that easily attach to any passerby. It is nicknamed jumping cholla for a reason.
The cholla, of all desert plants, lives up to this statement by author Edward Abbey, "It has been said, and truly, that everything in the desert either stings, stabs, stinks, or sticks. You will find the flora here as venomous, hooked, barbed, thorny, prickly, needled, saw-toothed, hairy, stickered, mean, bitter, sharp, wiry, and fierce as the animals. Something about the desert inclines all living things to harshness and acerbity." (quoted in Seasons in the Desert)
Kevin grabbed Mollie's scruff, as he attempted to keep her from licking the barbed hitchhiker. A quick flick with an old comb removed most of the offender, but six or seven thorns still remained. One-by-one I pulled them out with a tweezers, leaving drops of blood.
Surgery complete, Mollie squirmed and bolted, circling wide around all other cacti. She ignored an offer of a treat from me, the holder of the tweezers, and would only accept solace from Kevin, who as the holder of her head, should have been treated as an accessory to her pain, but Mollie, in her dog wisdom, did not see it that way.
By the time we hit the trail juncture of the 234 and 235, we faced a decision point. Glancing at my watch, I knew I did not have a hurried 6.5 miles left in my legs, especially in the remaining daylight. We decided to turn around, but not before photographing puddles in a wash, the mirror a ripple of colors.
Heading home, I took a wicked tumble. My feet flew out from under me, so I had no time to catch myself. I landed in a pile of sharp-edged rocks, my breath leaving me in a whoosh. Thankfully, besides a small gash, I seemed none-the-worse for wear. My relief was short lived.
I could feel bruises forming as I took a steep descent and my left knee twinged with each step. Mollie, usually the first to come back to check on me, pranced ahead, apparently still in a snit as she displayed no concern about my slower gait. After some experimentation, I realized if I positioned my knee so it faced forward, not rotating to the right or to the left, I felt no pain. This task proved difficult on the rough trail as I shifted much of my weight to my trekking pole. It was a slow finish to the car.
Can I just go on record as saying something?
I prefer cactus-thorn-extraction pain to flat-on-your-back, tweak-the-knee pain. A pair of tweezers or an old comb and the irritation is gone. The other is a reminder of injury with every step.
Who wants that?
I also prefer prayers answered immediately in order to relieve me of my misery. Perhaps you do too?
Thorns are borne so much easier when they are pulled free with a twist and a yank, even if a spot of blood is left behind. Yet, Paul writes that there is grace even for thorns that remain. Sufficient grace for the daily living (2 Corinthians 12:8-9). The step-by-step journey in the midst of pain. The grace in the falling.
I have lived that difficult path, when the grace I desired was an escape from my circumstances, yet the grace I received was the grace to keep going. Sufficient grace.
"But grace can be the experience of a second wind," Anne Lamott writes, "when even though what you want is clarity and resolution, what you get is stamina and poignancy and the strength to hang on."
Are you praying for grace? I know you are hoping for the thorn and pain to be gone. The barbed and the prickly and the sharp. Where it looked soft and fuzzy, but it bit you with the harshness and acerbity. Gone. You want that gone.
Me too. With a yank and a twist.
Yet I found this grace to be true too. The second wind. Sufficient grace
.On a trail where I hobbled back to the car, I found the strength to hang on.
I pray you experience the same.
Note: for all my friends who have called or texted or emailed, thanks for checking on me. The knee is fine. No lasting damage. This hike actually happened several weeks ago, so even the bruises are gone.