The Handbook / Chapter 17

Out of the Blue | Darius

Humans crave adventure, to feel the rush of adrenaline. If we can’t be racing down a mountain— or climbing up one— we’re glued to our big screens watching others risk their limbs for our vicarious excitement. Live on the edge! One for the road!

Photo by Galen Crout on Unsplash

And yet we value our safety almost as much. We double lock our doors and arm security systems, click our seat belts and wait for walk lights. Look both ways! Don’t drink and drive!

We’re clearly of two minds. We’d like to think we can control them, turning one on and the other off at will. Weekend warriors, we call ourselves, chasing thrills and living to brag about it.

And then something changes. We begin to assess risk differently. We witness the unpredictability of the world, all the things we can’t control. It’s not something that can be taught. We need to see it with our own eyes.

Some years ago my wife and I rented a cabin in Yosemite Valley. We could have chosen a room inside the Ahwahnee Lodge, but opted for the less posh, more secluded spot in the forest. The cabin was surrounded by redwoods, some as tall as 200 feet. Their girth was just as impressive. The ones that towered over our cabin were 10 feet or more in diameter.

In the middle of the night, Joy was woken by a thunderous sound. I slept through it completely unaware. After she shook me awake, we huddled together and, hearing only silence, we went back to sleep.

When I opened the cabin door in the morning, what I confronted didn’t immediately make sense. It simply did not compute. Inches from my face was a redwood, stretching left and right instead of up and down. I could smell the bark. Its trunk was so immense it blocked the light. And our exit.

Had it fallen even 2 degrees off line it would have flattened the cabin. Live on the edge? One for the road? No, thank you. Get me out of here.

Could this story possibly support a worthy personal statement? Probably not. What’s missing is a change in me. We felt grateful and lucky, yes, but we paid the bill, reduced for our trouble, and hightailed it home.

But what if something equally unpredictable happened and it brought on real change to the protagonist?

Meet Darius.

PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS | DARIUS

FAMILIAL

CURIOUS

RELAXED

HONEST

OUTDOORSY

ATHLETIC

SOCIAL

THOUGHTFUL

EMPATHIC

AWARE / INTUITIVE

He lives in a the neighborhood which allows us to meet in person, which I much prefer. He’s punctual for our first session, as he will be for every one that follows. He’s very polite, which I appreciate, but I can feel myself wanting to challenge him, to break through his courteous exterior and get to his baser, more impulsive nature below. We won’t expose any bedrock by talking pretty and tiptoeing around. We begin opening boxes.

He’s a lucky kid and knows it. He has traveled with his family to countries around the world and has an entertaining story about each. None of them reveal much in personal terms, but it keeps Darius talking and that’s the goal. This process is a lot like panning for gold— you have to sift through a lot of sand and pebbles for that one shiny nugget.

Like many students of late, Darius cites business as his intended career. Never having had any experience in the corporate world, I ask him to be more specific. He doesn’t offer much. I remind myself he’s seventeen which entitles him to not knowing.

I mention a recently published story about the rise in CEO compensation, how it outpaces workers earnings. He cites a statistic that seems improbable but we check and it’s right— over the last 50 years, CEO pay has grown 100 times faster than that of their employees. I hope the seed of a thought will have grown in him when he finds himself atop the corporate pyramid.

Darius has included OUTDOORSY among his descriptors and I ask what activities he’s drawn to. Camping and hiking top of the list. He enjoys the simplicity of living apart from all the gadgets. We discover a shared disdain for the frenzy around social media. Describing a recent trek through the woods, his eyes take on a faraway look, focusing on a picture in his mind.

A walk in the woods is one of the very few things that’s the same today as it was a thousand years ago. When all your eyes take in is the swaying canopy of trees, it quiets your brain and soothes what ails you. The mountains are calling and I must go, a quote attributed to naturalist, John Muir, sums it up nicely. As much as I relate to Darius’ love of nature, I worry about his generating enough heat writing about his love of the great outdoors.

I had an experience last summer that was rough, he offers.

I ask him to tell me about it. When he pauses a few minutes later, I have many questions. His answers are promising. It occurs to me that this might be as deep as we’re able to go. I consider myself a good locksmith, gaining entrance to a student’s private repository, but Darius has installed locks that resist picking.

We jointly decide that this experience will form the basis of his story.

PERSONAL STATEMENT | DARIUS

In the photograph a hiker stands, back to camera, wearing a down parka and a heavy backpack. Meadows of wild grass and tiny wildflowers stretch for miles. And beyond, the treacherous snow covered peaks of the Tetons.

The website called it the adventure of a lifetime. I was in.

The program, a 30 day wilderness expedition covering 120 miles at 10k feet, was extreme but I felt up for it.

I arrived at Lander, Wyoming, finding two sets of 12 campers and three instructors. I felt some nervousness meeting these strangers with whom I’d spend the next month. As I surveyed the eleven other faces, I picked up on similar feelings. Except for Harry, who was bragging about his past rock-climbing exploits. Beside him stood Claire, a small, eager NYer in a worn-out baseball cap. I was excited to start.

The next morning, we learned how to pack a bag, spray an attacking bear, and survive a storm in the wilderness. With a healthy respect for the dangers we might face, we loaded the van and took off to the start of our expedition, the second group disappearing through the rear window.

After two weeks in the wilderness, halfway through the trip, we had become a family. We knew each other’s hometowns and back stories. We offered a hand to whomever needed one. Oftentimes that was Claire, who regularly brought up the rear, slowing us down. Noticing her struggle, I joined her and reminded her it wasn't a race. We became friends.

We set off on our longest hike yet. By the middle of the afternoon the sky darkened and we couldn’t outrun the rain. We arrived at another unnamed lake in a torrential downpour, threw up tents and the laughably undersized tarps, and shivered underneath shoulder to shoulder. The thunder and lightning exploded right on top of us. We tried to act brave, but I don’t think any of us were feeling it. It was a very long night.

I awoke to a solid blue sky and soon after the sound of the supply horses. Instead of joining the group as they had done previously, the riders talked with the instructors off to the side. Claire and I had begun to make breakfast and noticed the worried looks and lowered voices. The riders then unloaded quickly and left with only a wave. When I saw John, the head instructor, approach the group, it was obvious that he had bad news.

A lightning strike from last night’s storm had taken the life of a camper in the other group. Everyone’s parents had been notified.

The news changed us. Our usual complaints about blisters and soreness vanished. Even Harry joined in on conversations about the pressures of school, home-life, and our dreams for the future. We appreciated the majestic views and red-sauced pasta even more. There’s a picture— I don’t know who took it— but you can see in every face what we were going through.

With four days remaining, the instructors went ahead the final 15 miles, while the 12 of us broke into two groups and would have to find the way on our own. To assist us, we were handed a GPS, which would have been useful if Christian hadn’t left it on overnight, draining the batteries. I was elected leader of six frantic teenagers.

I don’t know how we did it, but we made it back. We relied on improvisation, outdated maps, a good amount of TLC, and definitely some luck. The satisfaction of seeing our group sprint ahead into the arms of the instructors was unforgettable. All except for Claire, who walked with me all the way.

I find myself coming back to the experience and appreciating all it taught me: to put people first, to listen before you lead, to mediate multiple points of view. It taught me true gratitude and that nothing is guaranteed.

A real adventure.

End.

His story came with a few challenges. The camper’s death, in addition to being tragic, was a completely random phenomenon. (Is there anything more random than a lightning strike?) To ascribe any meaning, therefore, is tenuous. But it’s also true that everyone confronts similar events over the course of life and they do change us. He isn’t wrong to reevaluate his thinking. The conclusions he comes to, although predictable, are worthy.

Are you more careful since? I ask

I think about things more. He replies. Wait until you have kids of your own, I think.

Another task was to organize, and compress, the numerous plot points of the expedition. In order for the reader to understand the fallout, they would have to have a sense of the journey as a whole. After numerous edits, the important business of the emotional reaction would have to wait nearly 300 words, quite late in a 650 word personal statement.

How Darius dealt with the aftermath— being selected as his group’s leader and directing the final 15-mile solo section— shows us traits that colleges look for in a person. His having sensed Claire’s vulnerable state early on, all the way to the trip’s conclusion, cements our admiration.

There is some good storytelling at work here. His mention of the second group disappearing through the rear window foreshadows the coming tragedy. The fact that training included how to survive a storm in the wilderness adds some sad irony. Including Harry and his boastful nature is a nice touch as it gives us additional evidence of the dramatic changes we’ll soon see. Another effective device is Darius’ reference to a photograph which captured the surviving teenagers’ pain. We don’t have to see it to picture it ourselves. And the last mention of Claire and him arriving behind the others is nothing less than cinematic.

In the end, his writing captured his essence. Formal, resourceful, and humane.