Mind the Image

Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed

Sharon Anderson — Sat, 05 May 2012 14:40:28 +0000

Originally published in the Marina Times San Francisco in May 2012

“What if I forgave myself? I thought. What if I forgave myself even though I’d done something I shouldn’t have?” -Cheryl Strayed

Cheryl Strayed’s Wild is more like a confession than a memoir. She set out to hike the Pacific Crest Trail and, in the process, found herself.

It wasn’t easy. Strayed’s book is filled with the flawed logic that goes along with being a young person entangled in the emotional complexities of grief, divorce and addiction. For example, in the beginning of her trip, she packs her backpack so full that when she finally tries to lift it, it’s too heavy but she’s already out on the trail. Too late to turn back now. She presses onward, baggage and all.

At many points in her emotionally charged narrative , Strayed had the chance to turn back, the chance to give up, but doesn’t. The Pacific Crest Trail (the PCT, as it’s called in her book), stretches 2,600 miles from Mexico to the state of Washington. Cheryl Strayed hiked over 1,100 of those miles as an unprepared amateur who’d never hiked before. Nevertheless, she persevered despite radical changes in climate (100 plus degree weather contrasted with bitter cold, snowy elevations), boots a size too small that mangled her feet, limited funds and perhaps the biggest risk of all, going it alone as opposed to hiking within a group.

Between chapters the reader flashes back to the author’s past: her troubled upbringing and loving mother who died of cancer, an early marriage that ended in divorce after her numerous infidelities, and her struggle with heroin addiction. Raw and vulnerable, Strayed earns the reader’s sympathy by honestly portraying her foibles and her search for greater meaning. Her hike forces her to intersect with a variety of characters: other hikers befriend her and help her out, caring folks known as “trail angels” give her sustenance, both physical and mental, when she feels that she can’t go on. Dangerous characters emerge also, but overall the author is buoyed up by the kindness of strangers. Nature itself, in its beauty and fierceness, starts as an adversary and becomes a friend. Doubts recede and are replaced by faith and love.

Ultimately, the trail became a second home and an education. Cheryl Strayed said she chose to hike the PCT because it was hard. She hiked the PCT because her intuition told her that she had no choice but to go it alone and tackle this seemingly impossible task. In achieving her goal, she became self-reliant. She realized that she is capable of great accomplishment, and learned to love and trust herself.

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Art for Music’s Sake Exhibition and Auction – Branaman, Ruscha, Pettibon, Anderson, etc. May 6, 2012

Sharon Anderson — Sat, 05 May 2012 14:31:43 +0000

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Concession-acrylic on canvas

Sharon Anderson — Sat, 05 May 2012 14:26:48 +0000

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Prism 0690 – collage and drawing on canvas

Sharon Anderson — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 16:44:46 +0000

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Concerto in D – collage on paper

Sharon Anderson — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 16:36:25 +0000

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Woolgathering by Patti Smith Enjoys a Second Life

Sharon Anderson — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 15:57:11 +0000

Originally published in the Marina Times San Francisco in April 2012

“Who can know the heart of youth but youth itself?”

― Patti Smith, Just Kids

Is this a fairy tale? Are the stories true?

These were the questions Patti Smith had to answer when Woolgathering was first published in 1992. New Directions has recently published an augmented version that includes portions left out in the original book as well as additional observations by the author.

The question is still relevant. Is it a fairy tale? Smith lets us know right away that her story is based on impressions from her childhood, albeit impressions that are imbued with the soul of a poet. The ordinary and mystical merge together forming a magic realism where prose poems about the night sky, fireflies, or the gentle sound of siblings sleeping in the same room weave together to ignite Smith’s rich world of imagination. Childhood exists on the edge of memory’s beginning, and Smith writes about this twilight time with a lyrical sense of wonder not unlike Jack Kerouac’s Visions of Gerard, his own early reminiscence.

A great deal of her childhood happiness is linked with her love of nature. “I searched the clouds for omens, answers. They seemed to be moving very fast, dome-shaped, delicate, connective tissue. The face of art, in profile. The face of denial, blessed.” In the book’s new introduction, Smith reveals that she originally wrote Woolgathering in 1991 during a bout of melancholy. She was living in Detroit with her husband Fred Smith and their children, tending to their life which she loved and yet the melancholy remained. Writing her first book, she said, was cathartic and pulled her out of the darkness.

Last year Patti Smith won the National Book Award for her second book, the memoir Just Kids, a portrait of her early New York years with the artist Robert Mapplethorpe. Like the rest of her creative output, Smith’s writing defies easy categorization. Much of the beauty of her writing stems from her reverence for human experience, positive or negative. Grief, like joy, has its own value, and is not regarded as a derelict emotion or something to avoid. Her prose articulates tragedy and loss with a fearless honesty that makes it possible for us, the readers, to face these experiences with her. Woolgathering provides us with another opportunity to glimpse into the artist’s inner life, joys and sorrows, visions and dreams.

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1976 Disappear – acrylic on canvas

Sharon Anderson — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 04:27:13 +0000

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Mothership – collage on canvas

Sharon Anderson — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 04:14:17 +0000

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Plugged In – collage on canvas

Sharon Anderson — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 04:12:07 +0000

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Repose – collage on canvas

Sharon Anderson — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 04:10:32 +0000

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