West took his first steps this month. First steps at 15 months. One of hundreds of firsts in one short year. But one of the original firsts, the OG of firsts if you will, was his first mile on a trail.
One week old – when you don’t know anything about being a parent. The first couple of months stumbling through dark and unknown territory.
- When will they sleep?
- When will they eat?
- How often should they sleep and eat?
- Are they too warm or too cold?
I think that’s why the first mile we hiked with him felt so epic. It was just a little three mile hike around rocks down our valley. Familiar ground. Comfort among a new world.
One slow step in front of the other as I was recovering from the heroic act known as labor. The ground hadn’t changed though. The trails were drying out as they do every April at our altitude. The sage was blooming. Constants.
In the first trail mile with a baby in tow, I began to feel liberated again. We can do this. The trail has always reminded me of what is possible. We can carry this baby anywhere, slung to us, as people raised children for years. Moving.
I can feed him anywhere. Nutrition built into the system. Nature reminds us to question a little less and be a little more present.
West cries when we stop moving, even for a minute. He carries that tendency with him through all of his first year. The second we stop walking or the car pauses at a light, he wakes. Move he says. So we do. Mile one.
Nothing complicated about that first mile in a world both wholly new and yet familiar.
That first mile led to hundreds in those first months. Those first months when you are so tired words are hard to come by. Those first months when everything feels slightly off its axis and any semblance of your old routine hard to find. We walked. We walked through it all and into it all. A reassuring act in the thralls of a new adventure.
