Last week I set out on a hike across a ridge. The first few miles took me past three glacial lakes followed by a 1500-foot climb to the ridge. The lakes wove in and out of view. And now and again the Nenana River far below. The pathway was narrow most of the way and the sides of the trail were filled with flowers: white bunchberry, tall bluebells, artic rose and yellow potentilla. Occasionally forget-me-nots wove themselves in. The flowers arranged themselves in bouquets –bouquets that any wedding florist would have been jealous of—bouquets for the most spectacular events--bouquets for hours.

I stepped out of the trees onto the ridgeline—where the trees were sparse and the scrub bush was low, and nearly at the first footfall there a crash of thunder that cracked loud. It startled me and I looked to see where it came from. Far off to my left-- the southwest-- the sky was dark across another string of mountains. To my right—the sky was bright with sun.

My first thought was that I didn’t know these mountains. I remembered being in the White Mountains in New Hampshire on a backpack trip in high school where we had been caught in a thunder and lightning storm above tree line on the Bond Cliffs. We took off our metal frame packs and put them under one huge boulder, and we all went and hid in the shelter of another boulder until the storm blew past. But here there seemed to be no place to hide, and I was exactly halfway on the hike—safety was equally in front of me as behind.

The dark sky hung over the mountains and continued to thunder. Loud. It was both far away and near at the start. I could see it over the mountains in the distance—I could see the dark clouds and could even see sheets of rain falling to the ground.

The wind from the storm was cool—and came across the valley as a cool breeze. The sun was still shining bright to my right with blue sky and bright white clouds.

If I looked left a cool breeze hit my face. If I looked right, I squinted—the path I was walking seemed to be a diving line between dark and light. Cold and Hot.

I thought about the thunder in the distance and how it was a lot like trauma that had healed. You don’t forget about the trauma. It’s still there and can make its presence known—It can be loud and even a bit frightening-- but it’s farther away. You have distance from it. You can see it. You can know what it is. Can see its shape. Can feel the cool breeze from it. But it doesn’t affect you the same way.

The funny thing about healing from trauma is that you don’t really know what you are aiming for a lot of the time. You know you don’t want to feel what you are feeling, but it’s hard to have a goal for the absence of a feeling. And the absence of a bad feeling is often not so much a good feeling—as a sense of freedom or expansiveness. The freedom isn’t about freedom from bad feelings—but freedom to be able to have the feelings you are having. Trauma is invasive and has an intensity that requires vigilance. You, your trauma and your constant need to protect yourself are one and the same. You have no distance from the trauma, your protections or even your own thoughts.

Which is why healing feels more like space and movement than it does any particular feeling. It feels like you can breathe. Look around. Think. But not have any particular thoughts. The opposite of the kind of vigilance you have with trauma is a state of reverie—your mind can float from thought to thought—with no particular need to grasp onto anything.

Fragments of poems. Fragments of songs. Names of wildflower and trees. Footfall after footfall. No need to pay attention to any one thing. I moved along the ridge in nearly perfect unison with the storm on my left—not too worried about catching up with it—which I eventually did at the end of the hike, once I had descended into the forest where the path clung to the fast moving river I had seen from above.  The rain was light and I took out the yellow raincoat I had packed.

Sometimes the old traumas stay in the distance, and sometimes the old hurts come back. But even when they do, you know them better. You have more compassion for yourself in the moments they catch you, and you have more ways to take care of yourself. You hear the thunder, you can feel the rain, but you can still see the sun.

© 2024 Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD