My Life As a Mountain Climber

Not an expert mountain climber but a really, really lousy one. You know the type; You hear about them on the evening news.

"Climber falls trying to scale the vertical face of the Mountain of Life... more at 11:00pm."

Then you either think while shaking your head or you say out loud, what an idiot the person was. Admit it.

That's who I am. I haven't managed to plummet to my death yet but I have fallen hundreds of feet, over and over again, scraping up my face and all the other body parts that I didn't think to cover up when I started climbing.

It was nice day. So what if I had shorts and sandals on. So what if I used my carabiner key chain thinking it was good enough. How hard could it be? Nobody told me that the higher you get the hand holds become labeled with all of the events of your life. You hang there wondering which one is safe enough to grasp and trust that it is solid enough to hold your weight. Heart stopping when you feel it crumble beneath your fingers. Over your shoulder you see it fall in pieces and land among the ruble below. The skin you leave behind on the rock as you slide down back to where you were before you reached out in faith of its solidity.

I dreamed this very dream last night. A mountain face full of labeled hand holds. Motherhood, God, friendship, lover, student, artist... every decision or action I have ever made that has affected anyone else, written in stone, waiting for me. I stood, bloodied, trying to find a safe way up to the top. I never did. I drifted up out of slumber watching myself getting smaller and smaller standing at the bottom of the vertical climb.

In Dreams

I had a dream last night. I was in a lush valley of calf high grass, it was vast and deserted. I was barefoot, walking through the grass. The grass felt like silk against my legs and the ground was warm and the pebbles and sticks didn't hurt my feet. The sun was just rising and waking up the wind that began slowly blowing across the grass in waves.

In the distance, a huge bear was watching me. She was brown and blond and I wasn't afraid of her. She rose up on her feet, her huge paws beckoned me and I walked to her. She folded me into her. She was so big I disappeared. It was like being surrounded in warm furs and she pressed me close, so close I could hear her heartbeat.

She pointed to a mountain and returned to her four legged stance. I knew she wanted me to follow her. Happily so, I did. The grass still silk against my legs; her lumbering gait delighted me and her heavy breath made me smile as she made her way across the valley. She took me to her cave. Huge but warm and we sat quietly looking out at the vast lonely, beautiful valley. We ate all sorts of berries and water that ran as a stream through the back of the cave.

We watched late into the night, the fire light bounced off the walls as the stars turned in the sky. I knew I was home. She laid down by the front of the cave close to the night air and close enough to see the stars, yet close enough to watch the embers of the fire winking and blinking until they vanished into smokes trails.I curled up into her and our heartbeats began to sync in just a few beats. I felt heaviness of sleep that comes from complete contentment. I knew this was forever.

The morning came and she waited for me to wake drifty and slowly. And she smiled at me. We ate again the food that filled me happily. She left me at the fire; she scanned the vast beautiful emptiness and then turned back to me and motioned to me. I thought she wanted to show me something. I walked to her and placed my hand on her back to feel again the safety and the love that emanated from her. But she motioned to me to go. I was shocked. Did she really want me to go out there again? Before I found her, I was completely alone.

I turned to her with tears of rejection. She looked compassionately at me, but with firm resolve. I wanted to beg her, I didn't want to wander alone no matter how beautiful the valley was. I didn't know where I was going. But she encouraged me. I knew I had to go. I knew it wasn't that I wasn't welcome there, after all she extended such hospitality to me but I knew I had to go. .
So I descended the rocks smooth and delightful to my feet and began my walk into the vast emptiness. I looked back but I couldn't see her. I knew she was there but I had gone too far to see her anymore. I began to walk with no direction. With no expectation to see anyone. I just walked on like I been before I found her.