eyeranian.net

Share or Email This Post

Close Bookmark and Share This Page

Save to Browser Favorites / Bookmarks

Ask backflip blinklist BlogBookmark Bloglines BlogMarks Blogsvine BuddyMarks BUMPzee! CiteULike co.mments Connotea del.icio.us

Digg diigo DotNetKicks DropJack dzone Facebook Fark Faves Feed Me Links Friendsite folkd.com Furl Google

Hugg Jamespot Jeqq Kaboodle kirtsy linkaGoGo LinksMarker Ma.gnolia Mister Wong Mixx MySpace MyWeb Netvouz

Newsvine oneview OnlyWire PlugIM Propeller Reddit Rojo Segnalo Shoutwire Simpy Slashdot Sphere Sphinn

Spurl Squidoo StumbleUpon Technorati ThisNext Twitter Webride Windows Live Worlds Movies Yahoo!

Email This to a Friend

Copy HTML: 

 If you like this then please subscribe to the RSS Feed.

Powered by Bookmarkify™

More »

I am a city person. That means paved roads and private showers. As such, I don’t do camping (okay, except for one very dreadful night, many years ago) and I am not into hiking either.

I suppose you could say that I love the ‘nature’ thing, as long as it is viewed through my television screen or window of an air-conditioned car. It wasn’t always this way, as I did well in every boy scout’s camp I attended as a child. But then came a time of having not the most pleasant memories of “hikes” north of Tehran.

That was the time that I was organizing communal lunches at school, leading morning exercises and being chased for printing flyers, stenciling walls and distributing banned newspapers. In those days, as it is today from what I hear, the hiking routes into the mountains around Tehran was one safe haven largely unguarded by the machinegun toting zealots.

Many meeting were held there, training for paramilitary militias of various ideologies often took place in the more remote spots, and large boulders and caverns frequently offered an overnight shelter for those of us who could not go home for being wanted by authorities. Some even chose to join armed permanent camps in forests further north, while others who avoided an arrest were forced to “hike” their way across borders and into foreign exile.

If I was to play the therapist, I’d say that it was this period that left an adverse association between hiking, camping and ultimately nature with all things negative in my psyche.

With that, I still find it hard to say No to an outdoors loving wife. Something I found impossible to do last Sunday and we went hiking.

I am so out of shape that it may not be fair to describe our short venture as a real hike, but joining three other new and nearly new but very in-shape friends, we found ourselves at the base of hills north of the beautiful city of Pasadena. About an hour later we were at delightful Millard Fall and then hiked our way back to our reward of a substantial breakfast.

The air was super clean, weather was just perfect and the scenery just gorgeous. But I could not help myself and kept thinking of some of those bad memories associated with the previous experiences at every step. I know, it probably sounds pretty pathetic. So is life, if you have chosen to actually live it, instead of standing in a corner and watch.

After 3 or 4 hours of hiking, that big breakfast, a few scratches, a bump and a bruised ego, I have now had a few days to reflect and try to get back to my normal self. It’s funny how something so positive can still trigger so much downbeat emotions.

I was only a kid and part of me will always be that battered kid.