Take A Hike!

One of the few, one of the proud, I’m a native Los Angeleno. I was born and raised here, so I root for the Dodgers, I cheer for the Lakers, and I curse the traffic but don’t care enough to move.

So it comes with great shame to admit that I take rare advantage of one of the greatest beauties this city has to offer.

What is it, you ask? Griffith Park, of course.

Looming as the backdrop to my daily life, this all natural bombshell covers over 4210 acres of land and is home to the Greek Theater, the Griffith Observatory, The Los Angeles Zoo, and some of LA’s best hiking trails. A back yard to LA, if you will, with wild animals, carnival rides and lunar telescopes, to boot. (She’s a sure thing … what’s not to love?)

Though she boasts these sprawling, expansive hills (the second largest of her kind in California) only from a distance have I admired her. On commutes to work, strolls through my neighborhood, walks with my dogs.

In the past week this changed when Miss Griffith (if you’re nasty) lured me in with siren calls, tempting me to discover her delicious fruit and sweet nectar.

Don’t ask me how this love affair began so suddenly, but I can’t help from falling deeply in love. I’m most peaceful when inside her. Seduced by the sound of trail road crunching beneath my feet. Aroused by the rhythmic pace of my gait exploring her terrain. Enticed by the multitude of decisions her hills present.

Every time, every trail, she leads me to the right road.

Yesterday she revealed the damage from the 2007 wild fire, a disaster which left her beat, battered and burned. Unexpectedly I saw her up close and personal. Much closer and exposed than I would have liked.

The fire took more than 817 acres, leaving trees, bushes and hillsides blackened like tar. To face what remains was difficult. Full grown trees charred to the bones. Expressive as characters of a Tim Burton movie, these trees may never spring to life. Like fingers of skeleton, limbs of a corpse.

Still, there’s hope in the growth that lies beneath her trees. New greens on the ground and bushes and brush bursting with color.

One foot in front of the other, I hiked straight through the worst. Onwards and upwards, into the unknown, I headed straight to the top.

Once there I loomed over the city, just like she does every day, united with the natural beauty around me, yet connected to the urban sprawl below.

A perfect harmony.

So here’s to the next time someone tells you to “Take a Hike!” I dare you to take up the offer because while hiking away from reality, finding a free world awaiting your arrival, you may just fall in love with something you never thought you would.

What Could Have Been

Before Johnny Weir stole my dream, I had plans to be the first male figure skater to wear pink tassels and skate like a swan. Laugh if you will, but not long ago, in my early to late middle teens, I dreamed a dream to one day skate like a graceful ballerina.

It was 1994, I was just 13 years old, and that year, like any cold-blooded American boy, I got caught up in the media hurricane surrounding the Ladies Figure Skating event at the Lillehammer Olympic Games.

Better than any soap opera, bigger than any Super Bowl (to me, at least), that year’s competition was fierce. Impossible to look away, I watched (with the rest of world) as the Tonya vs. Nancy rivalry became something the sport had never seen. The duo faced off at every practice, rehearsal and news conference, as so many unanswered questions lingered between the two.

Who would win? Who would crash and burn? Would Tonya pull off her signature triple axel? Who really busted Nancy’s knee with a baseball bat? And would it possibly happen again when she took the Olympic ice?

All the lead up, the hype, the pressure and then just like that, it was over. The Ladies event was claimed by an unknown Russian girl, Oksana Baiul, after Tonya fell apart and Nancy didn’t come through.

Partly inspired by the beauty of the sport and partly by the drama and hype, I wanted nothing more than to become apart of that world. The costumes, the sequins, the kiss and cry, oh my! To lace up some skates, hit the rink, and complete triple jumps for a day job? Yes, please!

But with no frozen corn fields to practice on, and no coach but myself, I had to make do with my Southern California surroundings. Never mind I never skated a day in my life, I was determined! So with my roller skates in hand and my tape player in my pocket, I hit my back alley poised to become the next great American skater.

And, boy, did I practice.

For hours after school, I envisioned myself on Olympic Ice, circling my driveway, marking my jumps, cuing my music and polishing my toe point. I rehearsed programs and committed them to memory. I added flare to choreography. I worked on my footwork, step patterns and spiral sequences. I even mastered the ability to spin on one foot.

Anyone watching could see that my skating combined the grace and poise of Nancy with the athletic thunder thighs of Tonya.

All this with no ice rink, no coach, no formal training, no ear muffs, no nothing. Just a boy in some biker shorts and roller skates with a dream.

In recent interviews, Johnny Weir has spoken about how he began skating after the ‘94 Olympics. After watching Oksana Baiul and her pink, lacy perfection and gangling, goose-like body, he says, he dreamed to one day skate just like her. (Sound familiar?)

Tonight the male skaters compete for Olympic glory in Vancouver. Needless to say, I’ll be cheering for Johnny, so that maybe one of our Olympic dreams will come true.

Because a victory for Weir is a victory for young boys everywhere – young boys who dream they can grow up to be fabulous, graceful, outspoken figure skating divas!

Facing Food

Last night I heard the distant rumblings of a cheese pizza chanting my name, making my stomach grumble and taste buds salivate. Like a sick fiend, the craving knocked me around and made everything else fade to black.

Out of the blue and in stark contrast to my recent state of conscious eating, the idea of a comforting cheese pizza became the only thing that mattered. I wanted something warm, delicious, and sinful and I wanted it right away.

Guilty as though someone was watching, I shut the front door, dialed my dealer and waited for an answer. Full-out, Intervention style (“gimme me one last hit before you send me away, goddammit, Candy Finnigan”), I had hit rock bottom!

I wanted it that bad.

Nothing could shake the image of warm cheese entering my mouth or the thought of crunchy, doughy crust swimming around my tongue. And with the recent cold, rainy weather, nothing feels like home like a cardboard box and greasy leftovers.

As I waited for someone to pick up the delivery line, I found myself between two choices: Make another healthy meal or finish this quick transaction and enjoy cheap gratification.

I hung up the phone. I just couldn’t do it. Seriously, this was the most important decision of my day, so I decided to take a walk. To weigh the pros and cons, I thought.

See, at the beginning of 2010, prompted by some family members and my general interest in becoming more green, I decided to overhaul my eating habits. To that end, I began reading Jonathan Safran Foer’s book Eating Animals, an examination about the food industry, specifically Factory Farming and its global impact on the environment. Foer’s book explains and presents reasons why we should examine our relationship with fish, chicken, cows, diary and most all animal by-products.

It’s a staggering, sobering, life changing account of how our food makes it from the “farm” to the grocery story. I won’t go into details (read it for yourself), but because of this book, I’m now considering a gradual march toward veganism. (I certainly won’t be the first person he converted.)

Now you understand my dilemma last night: the guilt, the pressure, the anxiety, the expectation. No more turning a blind eye to where the food comes from. It just doesn’t work that way with me.

In the end, I didn’t cave (totally boring, right!?!) and when I returned home, with my better judgment, I reached for a bag of dark, leafy greens and cooked them with a sense of peace and happiness on my heart and stove.

My 7th Grade Horror

It was my first day of seventh grade at Clifton Middle School and this was the year everything would change.

No longer the lowest rung on the totem pole, yet still not the top, this transitional year was when I hoped I would outgrow my female classmates (Are you there, God? It’s me, Ryan) and become the less effeminate, totally more masculine young man society wanted me to become.

Ok, well, maybe neither of those things would come true that year, but at the very least, I deserved nothing more than to receive a class schedule I loved. To be in the same classes with my BFFs meant everything to me. The year was 1993 which was pre-text, pre-email, pre-cell, pre-Idol, pre-ejaculation and to be away from your friends was to be away from your lifeline.

That morning, in my home room chair, as I eagerly awaited my class schedule, I said one last prayer. I’m sure it went something like: Dear God, All I really want is to be with my besties, so we can braid each other’s hair and chat about Nancy vs. Tanya and who is dating whom. If you can make that happen, rad. If not, I might die.

And then everything in my small, little world came crumbling down when that piece of paper reached my desk and I saw a name no seventh grader wanted to see on his schedule. Just the sight of her name and instant Devastation Nation. Straight up shock and awe.

Her name was Mrs. Higley, the notoriously strict Language Arts teacher. It was believed she was reserved for students who misbehaved, needed extra guidance, and tested the boundaries of the rules. She was old school, hardcore, no questions asked, whoop your “Little House on the Prairie” ass right to the principal’s office.

Truth be told, she scared the shit out of me.

So after home room I made the long walk to her classroom and sat in my seat. Stoic and silent, I waited for attendance to be taken and hoped my name wouldn’t be called so everyone would realize I was misplaced. (Why are you in here, Ryan?) It was then I would be whisked to the correct teacher’s room where I would exist happily ever after in seventh grade heaven.

But that didn’t happen on the first day of school. Nor did it happen on the second day, or the third, fourth or fifth day. And though I held to that hope, my dream faded with each passing week, until I realized I wasn’t going anywhere. She was my teacher. This was my life.

Years and years, and countless teachers, professors and instructors later, I still remember Mrs. Higley as one of the fiercest teachers to enter my life. I’m not sure why I remember her presence so clearly and vividly or why this day is one I’ll never forget.

Probably because it was a day I came out of my comfort zone, forced to make new friends who became new pillars of support. Back then, as a young, naïve boy, my friends were the only thing keeping me safe from the bullies and the peer pressure of growing up.

Those friends kept me sane and made me me.

Half is not a Whole

I looked over my shoulder only once, just in time to see the wheels of his luggage roll away into the terminal, and then I turned my eyes to the road, wiped the tears from my cheeks, and merged back into traffic.

That was two weeks ago when he boarded a plane to Africa (He’s on a mission to change the world, I tell people) and said goodbye. And (Poof!) just like that, he’ll been gone for two months. Away from me, the dogs, our house. Away from my life, the routine, our life.

Leading up to this moment, I braced myself for the vacancy his absence would create. Imagining each day by myself, home alone, single father to our two dogs. Taking care of business and playing house in an empty home.

It’s been quiet some time since I stood alone in the world. No one to hold my hand, no one to keep the bed warm. An adjustment, and mighty change, for me.

The first days were filled with crashing waves of emotions. In with the tide, out with the tide. In, out, up, down, I floundered in the riptide because sometimes nothing can prepare you for the feeling of feelings.

Caught in the undertow, unable to break the surface, struggling to catch my breath, I wondered, who I was without that half? The half that usually keeps me afloat?

Ever stranded without my emotional life saver, yet determined not to sink, I decided this trial would not be marked by self wallowing tribulations. So using my own strength, I pulled the tears from the tide and dialed my emotions down low. Choosing to learn from the sounds of solitude, rather than to be overwhelmed by the useless noise of my own mental chatter.

As this lone man, I glance over my shoulder for a reaction only to see no one. I talk out loud even with no one around to listen. Each moment bringing an understanding of being able to do all things alone. And a new found respect for solitary living.

Some days I catch the wave and ride it to shore with no fear of the currents below. Today is one of those days, even though yesterday I couldn’t find my footing and struggled to break the surface.

Every day I get back up and try again.

Gone

Where do you begin when you’ve been gone for so long?

Gone from the routine of typing at the keyboard, gone from the process of composing the story, gone from the friendship that used to be a lifeline, gone from connecting with a love you always knew.

How do you return when there’s so much to say but nowhere to begin?

Lost is the feeling of being connected to the risk. Lost is the urge to create something new, to jump-off, to be scared. Lost is you, the one below the wagon from which you just fell.

To stand up and brush yourself off, to feel inspired, to climb back on seems impossible. To stay where you are, down below the wagon, in the shuffle of dirt, is easier than the alternative. So you remain disconnected from hope, from love, from yourself.

Months pass.

You remain hidden in the shadows, away from the light. Down below, your life becomes about survival. To simply exist becomes the greatest struggle you know.

Eventually, however, something forces you to move. (An external force, an internal switch? Is there a difference?) And even though you find discomfort in doing something beyond your control, you know moving is better than standing still.

Before long you find yourself moving like you once did. Up, about, around. Soon you remember how good it feels to stay in motion. So much so, you can’t stop.

Finally you return to that place you left behind months ago. You begin employing the habits you forget you once had. You return to the self you love and enjoy. You discover the color of consistency again, and remind yourself of its everlasting importance.

And so it begins today. The journey continues. Welcome back.

Photographs

An amateur photographer who experiments with angles, light, and colored lenses, I enjoy creating and framing images that capture what I’m experiencing, so you (and all those in my life) can come along for the ride.

Once I’m home from traveling, I love to open my computer and thumb through my images, reliving memories and remembering forgotten moments. Photographs are my favorite souvenirs.

Click HERE to view my newly added Photo Gallery page. Feel free to share your thoughts about the photos or email me at ryan.e.macdonald@gmail.com for more information.

RIP: Casey

I did not expect my blog to take this turn, as most know I am working on a entry about my recent adventure to the great state of Alaska. But I cannot publish that story. Not today, at least.

Instead I must pay respects to my beloved dog Casey who after thirteen years of life was put to rest earlier this afternoon.

Enduring a rare form of tongue cancer for the last four months, Casey was no longer living a life worth saving. Unable to eat or drink in recent days, she quickly dropped weight and walked around in a zombie state. It seemed like over night she became a skeletal version of her former self.

All this week, my family discussed what to do and when to call it. Numerous conversations, tear filled and emotional, about what was best for our pack. Finally we concluded yesterday it was best to relieve her of the pain and to do so today. A decision never easy to make.

When I arrived at the veterinarian’s office, I decided I would not watch the procedure. I didn’t want to see her body become lifeless. I didn’t think I had the courage to stay the whole way through. I didn’t want to see an animal I have loved for so long leave her body. Too much for me to swallow.

But after some thought I changed my mind. I realized I owed it to Casey, a friend and companion who stood by me for so long and loved me no matter what. A dog who always waged her tail when I walked through the door and pawed me with affection even after a hard days work.

So when the time had come, I stood behind my mother and watched the vet inject the medicine. I didn’t turn away as Casey squirmed from discomfort. And I even continued to watch when our little girl jerked her neck around and gave my mom one final look of love. A moment that brought me closer to life and death than ever before. A moment I will never forget.

I am a marked man because of Casey. Because of her life and because of her death. Because of that final moment and because of our lasting relationship and endless love we shared.

We, as humans, so often love our animals for selfish reasons, not realizing or considering what is best for them. We put the animal’s needs second to what feels best to us.

Today we put Casey first and our feelings and emotions second.

RIP, Casey. You will be missed.

A Moment Like Those

Two weeks go by, the blog remains dormant. At home, at work, I attempt to recover. Initially my jet lag wore off, but a week after returning, I find myself unable to stay awake past 9 pm, so I listen to my body. I sleep when I need rest, even when it feels indulgent. I take time to regain my footing and adjust to my schedule.

Now I’m back, clinging to memories and images of my trip. I treasure what I experienced, and I hold tight to the sights, sounds and smells of my adventure through Ireland.

I can think of no other way to see the country than by driving straight through it. Logging hundreds of miles in a rental car, jamming through the lush countryside, discovering how difficult it is to drive on the other side of the road, I saw more of the country than I ever expected. (And to learn about those motor vehicle cultural differences was a trip itself!)

During the road-tripping, I stopped at a Saturday morning farmer’s market, where locals sold their goods and merchandise. I admired the happy go lucky people who shrugged off their country’s mercurial weather with simple logic: “It’s I-rrreland!”

After talking about their simple, happy lives and happy, home fed animals, I envied these people and their simplistic values and lifestyles. “How I wish mine could be more like yours,” I thought.

Another view from the ground was seeing rows and rows of empty houses, just like what can be seen across the USA. To realize the housing meltdown far exceeds the boundaries of California was sobering. “How many Irish dreams were broken by the international meltdown? ” I thought. “Hundreds, thousands …a lot.”

Traveling that far of a distance for that short of time was truly a whirlwind, but as I stood on the edge of the Cliffs of Moher, with the Atlantic Ocean blowing in my face, I forgot about the miles logged, and I melted into the moment.

Struck by the natural beauty of the cliffs, while standing in the wind with thousands of birds flying below, I bowed to their greatness, strength, beauty and legacy.

Humbled by the size of what I stood before, I took time to recognize something I have never seen before in my life.

I’ve been to the Redwood Forest, camped at Lake Powell and flown over the Grand Canyon, but I haven’t stood before such a great natural wonder of the world.

Standing before something so grand, beautiful and natural, truly a landscape for everyone to witness at least once in your life time, is a moment I will remember for years to come. Probably forever.

Re-entry

The flight attendant’s voice came over the loud speaker, announcing our descent into Los Angeles. I took out my earphones, put away my laptop and opened my window shade. With LAX in the distance and the downtown skyline to my right, I peered over the great Los Angeles basin.

Quickly my attention turned to the white haze blanketing the city. The fog, smog, haze or clouds (call it whatever you like) became thicker with each passing mile, and the closer we came to landing, the worse it thickened.

I’m certain I’m not the only person disturbed by the air quality seen from 20,000 feet above, but coming face to face with this environmental reality is never easy.

In fact, this mass of pollution is something I see every time I return to California. But after spending a week in a country known for its lush countrysides, green pastures, and blue skies, the “white balance” hanging over LA was more apparent than ever.

The reaction I received the last time I re-entered the United States (Read about it: HERE) made me think twice about how I perceive my home country when returning from being abroad. With this in mind, I did my best to tuck away negativity, even if it was starring at me in the face!

So after the taxi dropped me outside my home, I walked up my pathway and began the process of decompressing and re-entering my life at home.

I immediately found myself relieved to have familiar food to eat, so over a dinner of veggie enchiladas, I took out my laptop and began to sifting through photographs. 

Feeling bittersweet about returning so soon (and not wanting to forget my favorite images), I relived special moments and tried to remain close to the sounds, smells and feelings of the Emerald Isle. Remembering the air being fresh and clean, the sky blue as can be, the green grass blowing in the breeze.

I recounted not only my Irish countryside adventure, but also the many other international experiences stamped in my passport. Thumbing through my little blue book, I felt proud of myself, as it became clear to me that traveling the globe is what I value most in life.

To know I’ve seen cities around the world and experienced countless cultures is more important to me than having money or material possessions. This is a particular sense of accomplishment I feel – a feeling as though I’ve checked off something from my life “TO DO” list. And with each country visited, another mark in my book of life.

People value what they do in all different shapes and forms, and this is how I value mine.