Indiana Jones was my hero when I was a kid. It wasn’t until much later that I realized the troubling ethics surrounding his character and story. But Little Me was dazzled by his thrilling adventures in far-away places, unraveling mysteries and searching for treasure.
As the daughter of nature-loving parents, much of my childhood was spent outside, camping, playing, and exploring the foothills of Mt Rainier where we lived. The brass of Indiana’s theme song was alive in my head as I lifted rocks to reveal new worlds, jumped from log to log on dried riverbeds with my siblings (the ground was lava), and built structurally unstable ladders from found debris in pursuit of the ripest blackberries. I didn’t need much to be engulfed in joy.
But, as most of us do, I grew up, and I forgot.
I started to remember again 15 years later at about 13,800’ elevation in the Andes Mountains.
Just before that, I was thoroughly burnt out, heartsick, and reckoning with the havoc that social, family, and religious conditioning can do to a person. My remedy for this overwhelm was to plan the adventure of a lifetime: a trip to Peru to hike to Machu Picchu.
For a year, I saved, planned, and trained, taking weekly hikes in the Cascade Mountains with my pack loaded with weights. The irony of fighting exhaustion with more exhaustion was lost by the excitement of Little Me, who was bouncing at the thought of exploring a real lost city. Cue Indie’s theme song.
Fast forward to day 3 of my journey to Machu Picchu, after a relentless morning of climbing up, up, and somehow up further, our small group reached the top of the pass and took a break to take in the view. I stood with a pack shaped sweat mark on my back, mouthful of trail mix, looking out over the Andes. An Englishwoman I had befriended on the trail quietly stepped beside me. With wide, watery eyes fixed on the horizon, she whispered, “Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?”
Her reverence startled me. I looked again…Uhm, yeah, have you seen the Cascades? While, admittedly, an immature knee-jerk reaction, it was an honest one at the time, and I at least had the good sense to not say it out loud.
Peru exceeded my expectations: inconceivably delicious food, a vibrant and kind culture, staggering ecological diversity, and don’t even get me started on Machu Picchu and all the other World Heritage sites in Peru. While its mountains were undeniably beautiful, in my 25-year-old petty opinion, they didn’t hold a candle to the marvels I had witnessed growing up in Washington.
I spent the next leg of that hike in contemplation. I had stood at dozens of breathtaking viewpoints just while training for this adventure. Most more dramatic than the one I saw that day. Yet none had stirred in me what was so clearly alive in my friend. If I wasn’t lacking scenery, what was I missing?
When I returned home to Washington, I set out to find it. It took time, and a lot of inner inquiry to recondition myself to really, really see what was in front of me. But when I finally did, it was like discovering a new world. What I had been missing was wonder. Being still. Presence. Awe.
Beyond the obvious masterpieces of the PNW like volcanoes, mountain ranges, waterfalls, alpine lakes and wildflowers, I started to notice everything else. The impossible range of greens. The intricate architecture of moss and lichen. Ancient trees supporting entire ecosystems. Mycelium quietly recycling nutrients and somehow, mysteriously, allowing forests to communicate. The rich, warm scent of the earth. The sweetest songs coming from the most unassuming birds. The quiet, constant interconnection of it all. It’s more marvelous than anything that could be contained in Indiana’s ancient boxes or hidden temples.
I can’t believe I get to live here.
When I’m outside I feel deeply in love. And when you’re in love, all you want to do is talk about it and share it. It would be my joy to share it with you. If you want, I’ll even let you play Indiana, I’ll be the sidekick.
