John Muir Trail, Part The First

The central dilemma of my planned 230 mile backpacking trek is not whether or not to go alone (I have already decided that I will go alone if I do not have anyone to join me), but rather it is this: just how skinny will I get by the time I come back? My concern stems from two conflicting desires: a) to be healthy and fit and trim; b) to really look like Bialystock in THE PRODUCERS, which starts rehearsing two weeks after I complete the John Muir Trail.

It is quite possible that I may remain as largely in charge at the end of the trail as I am now. When my oldest brother, Rob, did the trail with me back in 1992, he was somewhat trim when we reached the end of the trail, but still a large man. I've been seeing a lot of pictures of me from 1995 on Facebook of late, and while I know that I can never return to that exact state, I do want to lose this pot belly and regain a jawline when clean-shaven. There is more truth to the term "pot belly" than one might suppose. It certainly isn't a beer belly.

Remarkably, I've lost the most weight while working out of town and unable to afford to eat dinner on an actor's wages; this carries with it the absence of pot from my life and the absence of several glasses of wine with dinner every night. It seems a constant struggle for me to get our household to refrain from buying wine, beer or whiskey every time we go to Trader Joe's. And when friends come over they invariably bring wine, whiskey, beer, rum, vodka -- any number of delightful intoxicants that lead invariably to weight gain. While I love our friends and I love spending time with them, I have to say that of late I am weighing the value of alcoholic interaction against the value of my liver, gut and kidneys.

Deoxification and self-reliance are the reasons I want to do the John Muir Trail alone. I confess to a degree of secret delight that nobody has been able to go with me. I genuinely wanted friends on this trip, but the spike of fear and uncertainty that came with the sudden revelation that nobody else could go was, frankly, one of the first truly exciting things I've felt in a long, long time. And I know that I will be alone when I see that perfect sunset, and when that shooting star changes color and when I crest Whitney Pass and begin the long descent to Whitney Portal, the end of the trail. But I think maybe I need to be alone this time. I need to think and plan and get out of this horrid rut of piled papers, piled clothes, half-written scripts and novels barely begun.

I hope Veronica waters the garden this time.

© 2009, Edward Hightower. All Rights Reserved.