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My Work of Art

There was not a hint of clouds in the morning sky. The leaves on the flowers at my feet jerked free and flipped up as the night frost that held them down melted to the rising sun. The wind blew the stream sounds back and forth like waves. The mountains surrounded me.

Last night I couldn’t sleep so I came outside to stare at the stars. The Big Dipper relaxed on the ridge and the Milky Way unfolded across the sky. I searched for a shooting star until cold feet sent me back in the tent. In a sleepy voice Zack said “Daddy I need a pillow” I handed him a fleece; he mumbled “thank you” and went to back to sleep. A simple solution that made me feel like a great father. I fell asleep smiling. It had been a great day.

We had stood on the top of Mt Harvard, third highest mountain in Colorado, 14,421 feet high. The trees had melted away with the oxygen. There we stood, above and beyond the trees, past the bush line, past the grass line to where only tiny plants grow tucked between rocks. Mountains spread out 360 degrees; we sucked deep, breathing in not just the oxygen deprived air but also the exact place we stood. Walking against gravity had been hard, walk five minutes, rest for a minute, walk five minutes, rest five minutes, walk one minute, rest five minutes. But there we were.

It took an entire previous day to get to our base camp. The night before we started out Zack was not at his best. Dehydration combined with our arrival at high altitude was not a good mix. Fortunately a good night’s sleep helped a lot and in the morning Zack announced he would get to the top. It was a calm and determined statement. Quite a relief for me since I spend most of the night awake wondering if we would go on or was this a repeat of our trip to Utah. Fortunately it was not and we made it to base camp. The Collegiate Range spread out in front of us. We sent the tent up among of a garden of boulders and spent the afternoon resting up for the big day. A lot of time was spent pouring over the fantasy football magazines we bought at the food store.  At last minute purchase sparked that much conversation and debate about who was better than who.

The morning of the big climb we got up and out early. It was going to take some time. This was due to the altitude and the terrain but is was also due to the distractions of snowball fights in June, boulders to climb, and streams to play in. We saw the summit but it did not seem to be getting any closer. True to his word Zack led us up and by the end was almost running. Scott was having more trouble but did not whine. Marmots were his inspiration. He loved the way they ran with their tails twirling like propellers. At one point we looked back down the trail and watched a marmot running across the fell field. It stopped to sniff at the exact spot Scott had taken a pee. That laughter kept his spirits up while we climbed.

 We reached the summit a few minutes after our turnaround time so we only had a little while at the top. Tucked down behind some boulders, safe from the wind we had a quick snack. In every directions there were mountains. I was amazed to be there given all the things that could have gone wrong from the first moment this idea entered my head. My worry about getting down safely was counterbalanced by the intensity of where we were standing.

Just before heading down I announced “this is the best day ever!” The boys started laughing and Scott turned to Zack “you win.” They had a bet when I would say something corny. Zack thought at the top, Scott thought at dinner. We hiked down safely and enjoyed the best meal of ramen noodles ever. The next day was spent just hanging around and in the morning we hiked out for a day of whitewater fun on the Arkansas River.

Climbing Mt. Harvard, kayaking on the Arkansas River and rock climbing near Salinda, those are challenges we chose and then there are challenges that smack us in the face.

 A few days after we returned my dad called. My mom was in the hospital and her leukemia treatments were not working. I drove to Syracuse the next day. She reassured me all would be fine. I wanted to believe her so I did. That afternoon as we sat in her hospital room I started to show her the pictures from our trip. Halfway through she lost focus and told me to let her sleep a little while. We never finished. The next day my mom slipped away. I had the best day and the worst day with little space in between. In a haze we did what we had to do.

On the way back to Long Island I stopped at Labrador Pond, just south of Syracuse. The pond sits in the shadows between two glacial drumlins that rise a 1,000 feet high. Being in the shadows keeps the temperature down so there is a north woods feel to the place.  My parents liked to go there because it felt like they were in the Adirondacks and there is a boardwalk through the wetlands. It was an easy place to walk and there are many benches along the way. Walking was one of the activities my mother liked best. It frustrated her greatly that she had become less and less mobile. I tried to remind her that she still was walking more than 90% of the population. I knew those were weak words that would not have made me feel any better either. Who cares what other people can do? She wanted to walk the way she used to even if that meant as she did at 80.

I needed to be hugged by the forest; reassured by the stream and be in a place where birds and wind were the only voices. We had begun to plan the memorial for my mother and I was thinking about what to say. I realized how much her influence led me to my desire to be in wild places. Up until that moment my thinking was still stuck in the teenage mindset that my mom held me back. But she was the one that brought us to the edge of canyons and tops of mountains. My mom was the one with the stories of being caught in a flash flood and hiking in the redwoods. It was her mule ride to the bottom of the Grand Canyon that amazed me. She helped to inspire the direction of my life with these stories. She was a big part of the reason I stood on Mt Harvard. Thinking like a parent I suddenly realized her worries were not a lack of faith in my abilities but an expression of her love. The same will be true for me as Zack and Scott go on their own.

Parenting and living are not simple. My mother’s death is a reminder of that but gave no answers. She had her own struggles with living in a place she had not yet come to love. Chicago was her home but she followed my father‘s teaching career to Syracuse. She missed the big city and it took many years before Syracuse was home. Her job as a college professor became more and more unsatisfying so she let go of tenure and became a lawyer at age 50. As my teaching became unsatisfying I also let go of tenure and took a chance to start my own environmental education consulting business. In her conflict over place I see myself.

 In many ways climbing Mt Harvard was not a challenge. How can something be a challenge if you enjoy every minute of the experience? In many ways my mother’s death is not a challenge. What else is there to do but go on? The real challenge is making your life work, as a noun and as a verb. It is the day to day decisions of how to live with the people in your life and at the same time remain true to oneself all the while living with grace on the earth. The challenge is making things happen the way you want and by accepting with love and grace what can’t and all the while choosing joy.

The work of art that is marriage and parenthood is to balance the teeter totter of life. It is easy when your truth coincides with everyone in the family, but sometimes truths conflict and that is where the love and challenge comes in. It took many years in Syracuse but my mother handled the challenge. I hope I am doing the same by finding my truth in a place I did not expect to live.