08: Been Here Before

Sometimes remembering means reliving painful past events.

Trail Weight is produced and written by Andrew Steven. Our Story Producer is Monte Montepare. Executive produced by Jeff Umbro and The Podglomerate.

Transcript

Note: Transcripts have been generated with automated software and may contain errors.

Andrew: Having hiked over 100 miles, Rocky and I continued on the trail up a long, dry climb with little shade. The new food and supplies we had just picked up weighed heavy in our packs as we walked through manzanita, bushes, and thickets.

We continued on through pines and eventually over Seldon Pass. With the significant passes behind us, this felt so much easier. It was gradual and only had a small patch of snow still. 

We passed lakes and crossed rivers. We walked until our feet grew sore, and our appetites couldn’t wait any longer. I calculated that I was probably burning 6000 calories a day. It was tough to get that much, even when dinner was a package of ramen noodles AND a packet of instant mashed potatoes, plus whatever chicken, tuna, SPAM we had to mix in. Our bodies were changing (whether we wanted them to or not).

[Theme Music]

Andrew: I’m Andrew Steven, and this is “Trail Weight,” a podcast about hiking outdoors and the lessons learned along the way.

Andrew: I'm sitting on a log eating SPAM slices-- two slices of spam wrapped in a tortilla. And all I can think about is how close we are to Reds Meadow and real food. Hamburgers. French fries. Milkshakes. What are you most looking forward to? 

Rocky: Oh, hamburger.

Andrew: Yeah.

Rocky: And fries.

Andrew: And a milkshake.

Rocky: Yea.

Andrew: Very creative.

Rocky: And a shower. [Fades out]

Andrew: We walked on, entering a stretch of trail lined with granite slabs and flowing water. Forests and meadows freckled the landscape alongside white and yellow flowers. 

For the first time on this trip, I started to think about its ending. So much of the last year had been preparing for this hike, getting ready for this moment. And then I was here, actually doing it. Now, getting closer to the ending than the start, my mind began to drift from being present to thinking of what’s next. What would returning home look like? Would I be changed? Would I be ready for what was to come?

Andrew: Today, we got a pocket of cell phone reception. And we were flooded with texts and emails and phone calls and messages. And it was nice because we were able to check in with some family, but ultimately it was just a reminder that we're days away from finishing and the real world is back waiting for us. And this adventure, and I guess, lack of responsibility, or a different type of responsibility, is coming to an end. 

Andrew: Knowing the simplicity of each day on the trail was a welcome change to the randomness back home. Even with a well scheduled week, the unknowns in the city seem harder to manage than the unknowns in nature. Maybe it was just that it was a change of pace or maybe I was naive, but I was really enjoying the new life hiking was bringing me.

I felt a nagging feeling as I got back on trail. The red circles on my phone with various numbers inside begged for my attention. It’s impossible to close that box once it’s been open. Once the notification is there, you can’t unsee it. And even as I craved certain aspects of city life: showers, home-cooked food… there were other parts I wanted to live without. This is normal and we all do our own version of this, but living in nature the divide and the pull seemed greater.

We took the trail back up again, climbing towards Silver Pass. Tracing the switchbacks, we made camp near Silver Pass Lake. Rocky and I set up camp in solitude, having not seen a single hiker for the past several hours—or the next several after that. The creek near our campsite provided a soothing soundtrack as we rested from another day’s hard work.

Rocky dreamt about Taco Bell and I kept tripping out of the moment to think about life after the trail. Soon we’d be entering Reds Meadow and Devils Postpile. Two places I’d been before and two places that not only had roads and out-of-towners, but also pockets of cell reception and more reminders that this hike—and the feelings it kept over me—wouldn’t last forever.

[BREAK]

Andrew: The podcast project kept creeping into my head too. I knew I would be making this show, and I kept thinking about the story I wanted to tell. It was my story, but it also wasn’t. 

Chris Kelly: Put on my headphones? 

Andrew: You don't have to if you don't want to.

Chris Kelly: Do-- is that what people do? 

Andrew: Half. 50/50.

Chris Kelly: Okay. [Fades ou]

Andrew: I kept thinking of a conversation I had a few years earlier with Chris Kelly. 

Chris Kelly: Hi, I'm Chris Kelly. 

Andrew: Chris was the head writer on “Saturday Night Live”

Chris Kelly: Yeah. 

Andrew: Or co-head writer. 

Chris Kelly: Co-head writer. Yeah yeah.

Andrew: The term is co-head writer. [Fades out]

Andrew: ...and co-created the show, “The Other Two” with Sarah Schneider, and before that, he was a writer with “The Onion.”

Chris Kelly: Um, well-- and not to be dramatic, but around the time I was leaving “The Onion” was when my mother passed away. So I went home and I was living with her towards the end of the time of my time at “The Onion—” “The Onion” was really great about it. And for a while, they were letting me leave and they were like, “go be with your mom.” A lot of them, like, chipped in to buy me flights back and forth. 

Andrew: Oh, that’s so nice.

Chris Kelly: And we're just like, “Go. And when you need to come back or want to come back, or if you want to come back, you have a place.” So-- so I was like dealing with that at the same time. But then once I, um, my mother had passed away and I was, I'd been with my family for a while and I just took some more time off. And I-- I traveled-- I did that, like, gorgeous, like my mother's passed away and I'm traveling through Europe and I looked out train windows and just was so dramatic and self-obsessed with it in my own sadness for so long. So I did like a six-week European vacation of sadness and growth and pretending I was in a movie.

Andrew: You can see why this was on my mind. There were similarities in our stories, and instead of a podcast, some of Chris’ life events eventually made it into a movie, ”Other People.”

Andrew: [Fades in] It echoes, obviously a lot it's-- it's somewhat autobiographical from what your-- what your story is. Was writing it something you felt like you had to do to sort of process this and deal with it. Is it just what you knew so it's what you wrote.

Chris Kelly:  yeah.

Andrew: Is it, I mean, I'm-- I'm curious now--

Chris Kelly: Like was this closure for you or something? And I don't necessarily feel like that's the case or there, maybe it isn't, I'm not aware or something. But it was more like I had finished my first season at “SNL” and I had also,like, written my first season-- I worked for “Broad City,” um, and obviously “The Onion” and “Funny or Die.” And I'd only done comedy before and I'd only done really like short-form sketch comedy for the most part. And so I really wanted to, that first summer after “SNL,” I was like, I don't know if I'll be going back. I don't know what's next for me, but I should, like, try to create something that's like mine. That's like, not under the umbrella of another company or that's not writing for the voice of “The Onio:n or blah, blah, blah. So I was like, I want to write a feature. I don't know how to do that. I've never written-- All my, everything I've written has been like three minutes long. 

So I wanted to write a feature and I wanted to write something that was like more tonally in line with what I thought I would write if like, I didn't have constraints like, or like-- and write something that was more totally similar to the things I like, which are like comedy-drama hybrids. Where, like, the comedy is like a little sadder, more somber. Um-- basically a comedy where people cry all the time. Uh-- and I didn't know how to do that, but-- and I kept trying to think about what to write. And I kept coming back to this like time in my life. And I don't know, I kept saying like, oh, you shouldn't write about this cus it's too, like, personal, or it's, like, too autobiographical, or like it's quote-unquote, like a “cancer movie.”

And like, I'm not sure if you're aware, but there’ve been cancer movies before. 

Andrew: Wait what? [Fades out]

Andrew: And Cancer podcasts...

Chris Kelly: [Fades in] There were so many things where I was like, here are the like 20 reasons why you shouldn't do it. But then I was like, I just-- this is what I keep wanting to write about. And this is like what I know. And they say like, “write what you know,” especially when you're writing something for the first time. And I don't know, I just thought that there was stuff I like, clearly like, this sound so dramatic, like, wanted to say about that time. And so I just, I kind of shut it all out and just wrote. And also, cause I wasn't writing because someone was like, “Will you write a movie? We want to make it like.” I didn't think it was going to get made. I was just like, let me write what I know. Let me write what I care about. Let me write about what interests me. And then as long as I'm happy with it, I could, if nothing happens, who cares, I can use it as a sample or something. 

Andrew: Or, just learn, again--

Chris Kelly: --Learn to learn to do it. Yeah, exactly.

Andrew: “Writing what you know” is something you hear a lot in creative circles, and for good reason. Like Chris said, especially when you’re writing something for the first time, it’s an experience that only you can tell because you’re the only one who knows the particulars. But it requires you to remember and relive those experiences. For difficult or traumatic events, this can be especially challenging. I want to avoid those moments and feelings.

On the hike, I was also reliving an experience. A few years before this adventure, Rocky and I visited Reds Meadow and Devils Postpile. We camped here for a quick vacation and walked through the mesmerizing basalt columns formed by cooling magma 100,000 years ago. From the top, these columns looked like hexagon-shaped tiles, and from below they stretched upwards towards the sky in awe inspiring rows.

When we first were here it was under much different circumstances. My mom wasn’t sick. I wasn’t as introspective. To be honest, visiting Devils Postpile was as much about checking a destination off a list as it was about marveling in the geological wonder. And when we saw the thru-hikers resting and resupplying at Reds Meadow, I never knew I would be one of them one day. But as I trained for this trip I remembered that scene and played it over and over again in my head. Looking forward to buying Gatorade and eating a fresh-cooked meal from a restaurant after 18 or so days in the backcountry. This was a scene I wanted to relive. This was a movie I wanted to make.

Andrew: What was it like making a movie that's about you and your family?

Chris Kelly: It was weird. Um, it was weird. Cause like I said, I didn't like write it and then say great, now let's make this baby. I just wrote it. And then it was like, oh, I hope someone reads this and like, doesn't think it's terrible or that I suck. Um, so once it actually happened and it was like, oh I'm on set directing it. It was a little bizarre. But it was only good. I mean the cast was so good that I like just felt very, like, lucky.

Andrew: Well, even that like, was it weird casting, these characters based out of your real life?

Chris Kelly: Um, yes and no, because I did, I still-- I truly don't like think of it as like, like a full like mapping of my family. And it's not like-- the bones of the movie are true in that, like, my mom died. I'm gay. I do comedy. Blah, blah, blah. Like, but I-- but it's not like moment for moment. So I didn't-- I wasn't like casting--

Andrew: It’s not a biography.

Chris Kelly: Yeah. And it wasn't casting it being like, well, my dad is like this, so we gotta get this. And my sister looks like this. 

I just wanted-- I was okay if it came-- if it became its own thing, you know? 

Andrew: I learned something while making this podcast. At first, I kept putting off writing and listening to the audio I had recorded on trail, or the months leading up to our trip, or during the last few days of my mom’s life. It was too painful. I wanted to avoid certain feelings. I didn’t want to go through the pain again. But at some point, I sat down and started. And it was painful, but, for better or for worse, there was a tipping point, and suddenly the story became its own thing. Even though it was my personal story, at times it felt like I was writing about someone else. It didn’t sound like me on the recordings. I was separated from the story.

Andrew: It's interesting, there seems to be a through-line in, in-- in of, “don't be afraid to throw away your darlings.” 

Chris Kelly: Yeah.

Andrew: But then also, like, there's strong personal ties to stuff like that.

Chris Kelly: Yeah.

Andrew: Is there like a wrestling match that goes on, especially in something that-- of course it's not 100% biography. 

Chris Kelly: Yeah

Andrew: But it's-- it's, you know, emotional stories and feelings that are real to your life. But then also like, I don't know, creating and having to have that confidence, but then also like, well what makes the story better?

Chris Kelly: Yeah. Do you mean, in terms of like, cutting out a scene or something in post that that’s not working? 

Andrew: Yeah. Especially in something like this. 

Chris Kelly: --But it's like, my mom said that or something. 

Andrew: Yeah. 

Chris Kelly: Yeah, yeah. That is interesting because at the end of the day it's like a story. And so it needs to work as a movie. It needs to work as a story. Which I think is the trickiest thing about like-- I was very aware of that the whole time, because I know there's a trap that it's like, if you write a script based on your real life, there's a trap that it's, you're— you're just writing a journal entry, you know? And if you then direct a movie that you wrote based on your own life, you don't want to fall into the trap. Like when you're directing of being like, well actually my mother was wearing a red shirt when she said this, why is she wearing a blue?

Like, cause like, you're like-- Oh, you still have to change things. So that's why when people ask how much of my movie is true, I'm like, I don't even know? 50%? 40%? Like the big things are true. But then with some scenes--

Andrew: The feelings are true.

Chris Kelly: Yeah. Like I would remember verbatim some things my mother said, for example, but then some scenes around the things she said are completely fictionalized. But they were fictionalized-- It was necessary to write these scenes to help support the things she said or, you know what I mean? Like so--

Andrew: Well-- and things can be made up and still be true. 

Chris Kelly: Exactly, exactly, exactly. And so I, I don't-- I don't know. I didn't like really feel precious like in the edit of being like, I can't lose this or I don't know. 

Um, and also like writing a movie where you're like-- [laughs] where you're like-- you're writing yourself as like the lead, but you don't, you're like-- so like, theoretically I guess you're the characters, the protagonist, but then you're not like-- I didn't want to, like, I'm not like the hero of the movie. Like I'm not like this perfect “whatever.”

So it was a weird exercise also-- also like this happened seven years ago. So it's like when I'm writing and directing this, I'm writing a version of myself from seven years ago. So it's a constant, like, mental gymnastics. It's like a real fuck-- Like it's a such a mind fuck of like trying to write a character that's you from seven years ago, to be like, what was I like them? Like what were my insecurities? Or like, what was my strengths and what were my weaknesses? Or like, how did I suck? Or like you, I don't know. So yeah, it's weird to like step out and like look outside yourself and then like judge yourself. I don’t know?

Andrew: And probably beneficial to like, uh, in like some parts too,

Chris Kelly: At the end of the day I learned, I had no faults, you know? [Laughs]

Andrew: [Laughs]

Chris Kelly: It was weird. [Fades out].

Andrew: So I have no idea what-- what day of the week it is, let alone the actual date of the month.

Rocky: Do you want me to tell you?

Andrew: I just-- it’s just weird how, when you're out here, you just completely lose track of a calendar. 

Rocky: I have one straight in my brain. [Laughs] It's all in there. 

Andrew: Like, I don't know-- I don't know what day--

Rocky: I have on of those, uh, pull-- pull off-- pull a day off calendar.

Andrew: Ok, how many days have we been hiking for? [Beat] Yeah, it takes a while to remember. 

Rocky: No, I was just pulling another day off my calendar. It's a Simpsons-- 

Andrew: No-- it is-- I think it is--

Rocky: It’s a Simpsons quote calendar. Each day's a new Simpson's quote, 

Andrew: But what day of the week is it?

Rocky: Wednesday. 

Andrew: Because you just looked.

Rocky: No. It’s ‘cus I have it in my brain. 

Andrew: The only reason I knew today was Wednesday is cause I got a notification on my phone to water the houseplants. 

Rocky: Oh yeah. Oh, our house plants are probably dead. They’re dead. We’re murderers. [Fades out]

Andrew: It’s interesting hearing myself on these recordings from the hike. That was two years ago at the time I’m recording this episode. And then again to hear me even earlier talk with Chris Kelly. At times it feels like I’m not even listening to myself, but a different person. Time has an interesting way of creating that type of objectivity.

My friend Monte Montepare, who’s been helping me tell this story, shared something he learned telling stories for The Moth.

Monte Montepare: It's generally accepted that you have to give some time between big life events and telling a narrative story about them. In Moth world, I think they say five years for a loss, but up to 10 years for something complicated or traumatic. You have to be at a place where you can spend enough time with those moments to really get all the details and the angles and, uh, bring people back to them. And you have to be at a certain process with those events to get there and then processing them for story is a whole other level of it. So it does take a long time. And by the time you've got there, you have some distance from yourself and from those events, which makes it more objective, but can also sometimes make it feel complicated or far away from your present self.

Andrew: I feel like that’s not so much a rule as it is an observation. Like there’s something that happens with time—what our minds choose to remember and what we forget. Perhaps it’s our way of Spring cleaning our memories, deciding what’s important and what’s not.

Maybe that’s why so much of storytelling is metaphor. It’s a way to describe what happened without actually saying what happened. I know this story of mine is true, I have the recordings. But it’s also a story. It's written and edited. I knew I was going to make this show as I was recording myself, which has an effect. And with each day I get further and further away from the actual events of the story.

I remember once hearing that the word “metaphor” actually translates to meaning something that is “more than true.” That when you say you feel like you have the weight of the world on your shoulders, it's obviously not literally true, but somehow it’s more accurate.

Maybe that’s why nature stories and adventure stories are so filled with metaphors—maybe that’s what makes something art—because it's too hard to actually describe what you’ve been through. So instead, you tell stories.

Leaving Reds Meadow and hiking through Devils Postpile with a stomach full of burgers, we were now five days away from finishing our hike and I felt the weight of the real world starting to crash in around me (not literally, again that’s a metaphor, but you get the idea). 

I called my dad and coordinated when and where he would pick us up. 

It is amazing how quickly this hiking life became the new normal. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go back to “real life,” let alone if I’d be able to. I was scared about what would happen next. I liked this new version of living and I didn’t know if I wanted to go back.

[Teaser]

[Credits]