Always, I sought out my maps,
the historical records,
looking for some new place to go,
where no others had been.
When I was a boy,
before I knew about the intricacies of wilderness exploration,
I would step off the trail by my home,
stand on some random patch of earth,
and imagine I was the first human to stand on this exact spot.
Ever.
My academic friends tell me
all the easy places have been explored,
most of the hard ones too.
For something unique, they tell me,
I might have to travel to the northern extremes,
to places even the polar bears and muskox won’t wander,
or to the deeps, where I might discover
an underwater marvel never seen before.
But I’m an old man now.
I can no longer bear the arctic extremes
that charged me a levee of three frostbitten toes for my trespass,
can no longer bear the tenacious blackflies and mosquitoes that
repeatedly sculpt my face into craters and hills.
Perhaps my unique adventures are over.
I load my daypack, grab my walking poles,
wander off the trail and
bushwack my way up the eastern hills,
touching trees, stepping on logs,
embracing the vanilla aroma of random Ponderosa Pines,
eating my lunch beside a pond,
my bare feet hanging in the water,
returning home a different way,
avoiding the trails,
dragging my fingertips along a stone wall by my home,
kicking little piles of last autumn’s fallen leaves.
At my desk, I note every detail of my walk,
every step, every touch, every pause, every movement,
every memory I can muster.
I sit back and read my notes.
Now, that is a unique adventure, I conclude.
No human has experienced exactly this walk.
Ever.