I started that new Fitbit explore badge thingy today. Their version of Pokémon Go, minus location requirements, means that I can indeed be sequestered in the office as a managerial-bitch, yet still wrack up achievement points based on steps, alone… as I treadmill during booking calls.
This should make being a caged animal less awful, one would think.
… Jury is still out on that.
… It is strange, this fake trek through this famous National Park, for a couple of reasons. One is that I have always loathed Yosemite for the unfortunate stigma it bought itself in my childhood, in that every single time I had visited it, I spent most or all of the trip horribly ill.
… I don’t know why, but clearly my body just didn’t want me to be there. And it would vomit and fever and curl up in a ball to remind me of that fact, every time I dared to travel there. Despising the out-of-doors as much as I already did as a kid, I assumed Yosemite’s grandeur was like the epicenter of natural evil, and I was literally rebelling against it, beyond all doubt.
… But those days of hatred are gone now. A trip to Ireland cured all that, and a part of me thinks this Fitbit fake version of a visit to the park can finally help me slay this biggest monster of nature, in my past.
… But it is also strange because Yosemite was my home. Well, closest thing I’d use to pinpoint where “home” was to people who didn’t know where my tiny town was…because there is no reason whatsoever that anyone ever should.
… Because everyone knows “Yosemite.” Well, everyone knows OF “Yosemite.” Even if they call it “Yos-eh-mite” (which, unbelievably, people actually do.) And if you’re from a tiny old gold-rush town, where getting a new Safeway makes the front page for a solid week, Yosemite is the only way you could relate to the area I come from.
…But even that is a lie. Because you have to go an hour away from “home” to get there. To this place where Mother Nature just puked all over everything in kinda the best hangover scenario ever.
… My home town is more scrub brush, and foothill. But it does have lakes. And trees. Gets snowfall. Has nature in variety of aspect, just not juiced up on all the beauty steroids.
… So, this whole fake trek thing is weird to me because it reminds me of home in a lot of ways, both good and bad…and my kiddom, and the summers we’d spend by the lakes for endless hours, and the horrible camping trips I despised, and all the times I chose to sit inside reading a book (all damn day) instead of exploring things outside my room, (or the tent.) And how ironic that I am now “stuck” inside all day, looking out, taking fake nature walks on a handheld computer.
… I’m saying: life is strange. I wouldn’t give up the books. (And I still loath camping.) But, much like the forced naps in childhood that I despised, (which I would often give.. I dunno… back teeth, for the extravagance of having today) , I kinda wish I’d have known some of this shit ahead of time.
… But then, don’t we all…
~D
