It's March the sixth in the suburbs of Chicago. Today promises to be fifty-three degrees which is when Chicagoans begin wearing shorts. I tell the family, "We are going to go on a hike." There is much exultation.
I lie. They hate my plan. They don't want me to be their mother anymore.
We go to Meijer and spend thirty-five dollars on food which will be our picnic. There were a lot of chips, some gluten-free oreo-esque cookies, lunch meat and dill pickles. This is the only way I will get my youngest to go hiking. I promise a picnic.
The state park is an hour away. We have travelled by car to places fourteen hours away, but this mere hour feels like a week. They are very interested in complaining. My family is winter tired.
We arrive at Starved Rock and they immediately want to picnic. They drink Sprite and eat fake oreos and nosh on their peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I pump them full of sugar for our hike.
We begin our hike with a 75-step staircase. It could have been more. All I know is that our hike has started badly, with more complaining. I am not happy at their attitude, but I can hardly breathe, so I just focus on my oxygen levels. I might die. But I must finish this hike first.
My children begin to fight. This is one of their greatest skills: finding out the irritations of one another and maximizing the other person's pain while trying to look innocent. I know this because I grew up in a family of five children and we did the same thing. It's human nature. They fight over who gets to touch a rock first or who picks up a stick. They fight over mud puddles. There are a lot of mud puddles. I power on. "This way," I say, pretending they are not fighting.
Immediately we are met with many, many mud puddles. Not just slightly damp earth. We are talking squelchy, squishy, squirty mud. The children are still miserable and I decide that mud puddles are definitely better than turning back. We continue on the path.
Many people warn us of the mud ahead. They tell us that it gets worse. I think how can it get worse but lo, it does. The puddles become mini ponds of water. Eve declares that she is in a "slippery situation." Morgan adds that she is in a "brown situation." They begin to laugh because they are thinking of poop. I don't even care because they are laughing at the same thing and it is not each other.
Our journey is supposed to be 1.3 miles one way. I figure a two-and-a-half mile hike sounds like a decent way to spend Sunday afternoon. I figure it will take an hour. I was never good at math. When one adds the mud puddles, the hilly terrain, the incessant complaining and the off-trail paths we forge, it takes longer. As in two-and-a-half hours.
After a while we begin to see magnificent sights. There is a waterfall with a 70-foot drop. There are slices of limestone rock which jut out, softened by time and water. It feels symbolic. Maybe I will soften after this hike.
There are other people on the hike. And a lot of dogs. The people are warning us of the mud. Some turn around. We don't. I have something to prove. I have two strong willed daughters who are going to use their energy with their feet. The rugged dogs have brown legs, stained by mud. The froo-froo dogs with recently shampooed hair are on the paved paths. They look perfect. They are fake hikers.
After more sludge, we arrive at an overlook. There are not many people here. Only the true hikers or the truly desperate or those trying to prove something. Like me. My children begin to say things like "Wow" and "Whoa." This is good. This is very good.
We descend into the lower trail. We are offered ninety-seven wood steps to help us reach it. The people walking up the stairs say nothing. They are breathing. They are only breathing. They don't even smile. The people descending the stairs are light-hearted. They have the breaths of someone who is recently retired, whose 401K tripled in one week. Everything feels easy. They walk lightly. They take many pictures and smile at the people who are ascending. Their smiles are not returned.
At the base there are caverns and rock formations which are very beautiful. They feel especially beautiful because we walked the goopy trail of mud and now we are on a paved path. A family stops us to ask us what is ahead. We tell them that the lower trail is beautiful and the upper trail is mud. They look fresh. They look like they have not hiked for long. I feel superior to them.
At our last ascent, we climb stairs which are framed by wood four-by-fours filled with sand. Eve rallies ahead of us and writes her name on every single step with a stick. She is marking her territory. We laugh. I am grateful for the laughter. Exhaustion quiets fighting and makes us slap happy. I feel like a genius for demanding this hike. A very tired genius.
As we round the corner for our last descent of stairs, lovers have written their names in Sharpie marker on the wood railings. People have written words like "You matter." Something in this set of stairs has caused many people to want to make their mark. Eve's sand words will erase with a storm, or, more likely, hikers with mud on their feet. But the Sharpie marker names appear to stay permanently.
Our hike is finished. At once my body tells me, "Listen, I'm quite tired." We are all declining rapidly. We want to rest.
We drive home the hour it took and no one complains. Dan begins to tell jokes which make no sense. We are drunk on outside air and wobbily legs. We arrive home easily.
We will hike again, I tell myself. Yes we will.