Celebrating a cancerversary on the mountain trails of Slovenia
I’m on a small electric-powered wooden ferry boat, skimming quietly along Slovenia’s Lake Bohnij, the misty Julian Alps reflecting in the mirror-calm water. This is why I travel, I think, the landscape before me an answer to a question I didn’t realize I had.
Inside the boat, it’s cozy and warm; the young woman at the helm is sharing local folklore with our group while steering the boat. I’m half listening while leaning out the window, the lake mist and cold morning air on my face as I drink in this place, a feeling halfway between heartbreak and wild joy welling in my chest.
The Club No One Wants to Join
Cancer is not a club anyone wants to join. But four years to the day since I earned my membership, I’m halfway through a Backroads Slovenia Hiking Trip, thousands of miles away from that doctor’s office exam room. And in this moment, I know it’s the road I’ve traveled that’s paving my path forward, filling each step with a gratitude so big that it almost levitates me.
In its intention, cancer treatment is intensely humanizing, preserving life and packed with amazing caregivers who have chosen this difficult but meaningful calling. And also. Treatment is so rough on both body and mind. To get through treatments and surgeries, to weather the side effects and to sit in such close proximity to mortality, I built a sort of protective barrier between my body and mind. It was a wall that took years to knock down.
Changing the Narrative
If you’re someone with a cancerversary of your own, you know that marking the day of your diagnosis can be pretty fraught. I’d spent the first three reliving the shock and panic of that moment my life changed. But after four years, I wanted to change the script on this season, so I booked this hiking trip, recruited my aunt to go with me, and headed to Venice, where I met up with what I quickly discovered was an inspiring group of 40- to 70-year-olds along with three fantastic Trip Leaders.
Finding New Joys
Using my body to move and find wonder turned out to be the perfect way to honor my past and set the tone for the future while feeling deeply present. I hiked switchback trails to waterfalls, followed paths into the hills where shepherd huts dotted the high-alpine landscape, and paused to watch sheep graze against a backdrop of wooded mountains. Yes, sometimes I had to pause to catch my breath, and at the end of the day my body ached more than it would have before my diagnosis. But this chance to move through the world using the power of my legs and lungs and heart felt like a gift every step of the way.
I suspect I wasn’t the only person on this trip having this experience. Illness and recovery—these are the journeys that come with what I still vehemently believe is the privilege of aging. Tackling mountain hikes and sharing stories with this group of people in their 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s, all of us united by a desire to hike through the backroads of Europe, it felt like a roadmap.
And though hiking was the reason I took the trip, I found my reset off the trails as well. I connected to history listening to a local telling the stories of centuries of merchants who walked these same trails carrying loads of spices. In toasts and over tables, I found new friendships. And in the authentic care of the guides, I found the particular joy that comes from handing over the reins of trip planning and discovering it’s so much better than I could have ever imagined.
If these past four years have taught me anything, it’s to celebrate everything. And for me, it turns out there’s no better way to celebrate a healthy body than on the trails of a faraway land, seeing mountains and other million-year-old wonders with my one limited-time human body.
