Life After Life
When I wake up later this morning, I will do something I haven’t done in seven years. I will stuff my gear into my pack and drive into the mountains, North Cascades to be exact. When I get there, I will leave the car and start walking. Some days later I hope to return to the car triumphantly. This will be the first time under my pack and in my tent in the backcountry in six years, since I stepped off a small cliff (in the frontcountry) in the middle of a very dark night.
An active backcountry hiker and former Outward Bound instructor, I had resigned myself to the fact that I just wouldn’t do this stuff anymore. So it feels good to have the gear and the pre-trip butterflies back in play. Am going out in the same t-shirt I wore to the hospital six years ago, picking up where I left off. I sure hope all the parts are working well enough to get up and down the moutains and stay out of the way of the grizzlies and cougars (grin). I’ve dusted off this poem to honor my return to the trail.
(after the fall)
I want to stand on the rock of the mountain top
embraced by the vastness of midnight.
I want to be patient enough to stand there forever
and restless enough to step off into
mid-air.
I want the strength to cling and wings to fly,
but can I just sit for now?
And wherever I am and whenever it comes,
I want to greet the next light with a grin
and nothing to regret.
But why am I so wanting? Am I not this already?
Even as I’m clinging in mid-air
and flying into rock?