Hiking While Disabled

It’s hard to put into words the feeling of hiking to the top of an active volcano, 1344 meters high, in Nicaragua. Weaving in and out of lush flora and fauna. “All ways,” our guide Victor tells us. “They call the forest here, ‘all ways,’ because the steam and sulfur carry spores through the clouds, and those spores land everywhere.” Very literally, everywhere. Green, dewy tendrils hang from the highest trees and grow upwards from the lowest rocky caverns. Here, the forest is always around and with you. 

It’s hard to put into words the feeling of hiking to the top of an active volcano, 1344 meters high, in Nicaragua. We hiked the “medium hard”  path yesterday. A little over 2 kilometers in total, mostly up or down steep inclines. The path is crafted largely out of tree trunk stubs, used as stairs. They vary in height and in many places are slippery from the constant humidity and rain in the air. I had to tread carefully, lightly, and intently to navigate my way to the top of the largest crater. But it was worth it. From up there, you could see 360* around Mombacho. To the Northeast, we saw the Isletas, where just two days before we had kayaked in the sun. Just to the West of the Isletas, Granada, with Iglesias de Xalteva looking beautiful, but unimpressive from so far up. To the Northwest, Lake Apoyo, where we plan to spend time later in the week, shining bright and blue, glistening in the sun. To the Southeast, Isla Zapatera, a wildlife reserve, floating alone in Lake Nicaragua. It was breathtaking and humbling.

It’s hard to put into words the feeling of hiking to the top of an active volcano, 1344 meters high, in Nicaragua. It was probably only twenty feet in when I felt the first twinge in my knee. I stepped up from the path, about four inches in the air, onto a small wooden bridge. Four inches, but the pressure around my knee, the muscles and tendons straining to stabilize the joint as a straightened my right leg, produced an incredible sharp, but fleeting, pain. My first reminder that I am disabled, while attempting to thrive. I wondered, how many more times will I feel this reminder in my body. Luckily, it was a good day. I only felt that pain five or six more times. 

It’s hard to put into words the feeling of hiking to the top of an active volcano, 1344 meters high, in Nicaragua. It was around half an hour in when we entered the part of El Tigrillo’s path that is joined with El Puma’s, and includes four of the steepest climbs. “But, no problem for you,” our guide joked. I suppose, from the outside looking in, that’s true. I look fairly fit. I am athletic, with strong, wide shoulders and large muscular thighs (thanks, dad). When you see me, you no doubt assume I am capable, if not skilled. But, the first climb was difficult. Halfway through, my asthma kicked in. The humidity didn’t help. I was fogging up my own glasses and feeling the desire to keep up with guide, while also not letting on that my breathing was quick, uneven, and shallow. Luckily, it was a good day. I didn’t hyperventilate and I only sweat as much as appeared fairly normal from tourists on a sunny day.

It’s hard to put into words the feeling of hiking to the top of an active volcano, 1344 meters high, in Nicaragua. But, I can tell you that it brought me as much joy as it did sadness and grief. The hour and a half excursion opened space for silent reflection on how, one day, I will not be able to do things like this. At 32, the time when I will no longer be able to hike such a steep volcano without assistance or perhaps without difficulty, is coming sooner than I am able to fully process. Yesterday, as I watched the sulfur from Mombacho’s largest crater create a halo effect in the cloud forest above it, I cried. It was so beautiful. Wondrous. Magical. And yet, I grieved. There are so many other things I need to do. How can I possibly do them all in time? I am grieving for the loss of my body, my autonomy, my freedom. I told my spouse, “I push myself now, because I know I won’t always be able to.” And I feel it. I feel it in my knee as I walk up and down the stairs of the casa we’re staying at. I feel it as I roll over in bed at night, waking myself up. I feel it in the bottoms of my heels on the cobblestone streets. I feel it in my neck when I hear the birds above me and look upward. I feel it in my tailbone and hip as I sit in the wooden chair at this cafe and write these words.

It’s hard to put into words the feeling of hiking to the top of an active volcano, 1344 meters high, in Nicaragua; not because there will undoubtedly come a day I can’t successfully do what I did yesterday, but because I clearly still have not been able to successfully undo my own fear of disability. I feel the weight and the pressure of having to figure out how to fit in a life’s worth of experiences that an ableist society has deemed desirable, before I can’t. Before. This ominous presence in my life. I can feel it, but I can’t see it. I know it’s coming, but can’t possibly predict when. Like the inevitable next eruption of Mombacho--so powerful, the last time is erupted it created islands off the coast and destroyed an entire village--this fear eats away at the happiness I should be feeling in moments when I am experiencing joy now and creates wastelands of grief in its wake. When I can see the beauty of the world around me from the highest peak of an active volcano, now. Now. A feeling that I can’t figure out how to center more consciously, actively, intentionally.  I live in fear of before as if what comes next is worse, but really living in fear now is more disabling than any physical pain by body manifests. My internalized ableism is an active wound that I must figure out how to heal.

It’s hard to put into words the feeling of hiking to the top of an active volcano, 1344 meters high, in Nicaragua. Then, I remember those of Victor, “the forest is always with you. It is everywhere.” And so it is. With every, even shortened breath, I took in the air from the cloud forest into my lungs. The same spores that travel through the air and embedded themselves on rocks, trees, flowers, and cavern walls, now flow through my body. I am the forest and now the forest is everywhere I go. Healing my broken heart. Mending my broken spirit. Even long after I can no longer see, walk, breath, the forest is with me. Always.