A Mountain Too High - A Love Story

It all started with an innocent conversation in early May, and the events that unfolded thereafter are but a foggy dream now, shrouded in the mysteries of my mind. Where did all the memories go, I ask. I cannot answer, of course, because the mind's mysteries are not for me to know. Somehow synaptical responses, neuronal connections, quit like an overheated car, leaving me stalled and alone on the side of the road.

But for five months and some days, I experienced a love so pure, so utterly real that I feel impelled to write this, though there is no reason, except perhaps to try to remember. Remembering is sometimes difficult, especially when one's mind is so efficient at discarding things not vital.

But is it vital? Perhaps the answer is yes; maybe this is why I am writing. Perhaps it is my dirge; maybe it is my paean. Probably it is both.

So comes the story of Tara F.

I've never climbed Mount Everest, nor any mountain higher than 14,633'. That was Mt. Elbert, in Colorado, and ironically it plays a part in this tale, although how could I have known at the time that it was a turning point, or at least close enough to that point that the distinction is tough to discern?

The hike was wondrous, sublime almost, my heart pounding thunder in my chest as I moved from 9,300' to summit. I felt strong at the top, but a little frightened at how frantic my pulse ran, like a horse with a bad leg still at full gallop. It was a quiet day on the mountain, the threat of rain and the ever-present lightning kept the attendance at the top to two - two foolish but lucky souls.

I looked out over hundreds of miles and hundreds of peaks and thought to myself that I was indeed at the top of the world, although I was only half the elevation of mighty Everest.

I think back to those moments at the top and know they are a parable to what I write, what I desperately try to recall...and sometimes wish to forget.

Mount Everest sits at 29,000'. Those who try to ascend its lofty peaks know that life is at the hands of the mountain. Climbers do not choose to crest Everest, it chooses them. A storm can turn the heartiest of souls back...unless they ignore all warnings and throw caution, and prudence, to the bone-chilling wind. The frozen bodies laying along the trail, eyes staring into the cold, barren sky, are a testament to the mountain's caprice. Exalted are the few that defy the wrath of Mother Nature and their own thoughts of mortality to be at the top of the world, to be at the summit of Everest. They are rare indeed.

At Everest's peak, the oxygen percentage stands at an unremarkable 23% - the same as at sea level - most of the rest of the atmosphere a nitrogen cocktail (again, just like sea level). However, one must take into account that there is only 33% of normal atmospheric pressure. In effect, there is simply less air to breathe. Try as one might, there is no way to pull enough oxygen from the thin air. It is unsustainable. Thinking coherently and clearly becomes an impossibility due to the lack of oxygen, and people make incredibly bad decisions. Those bodies lining the trail to the top are not merely due to a storm that came faster than a bolt of lightning; they are more often the consequence of people thinking that they knew what to do when, in actuality, their minds were so compromised that thoughts were merely delusions.

It happened to me; I should know well the power of the mind to fool its heart. I often think of myself as one of those bodies that litter the trail, betrayed by my mind because it was no longer thinking correctly.

Mount Everest can be very cold.

Tara F walked into my life as April's blush changed over to May's glow. I saw her on the stair climber, at the YMCA, and asked her, quite innocently, if she was up for going for a hike or a cup of coffee some time. She said yes, but her eyes told me a different story, so I moved on, not thinking of her and my proposition. That is until I saw her at the Y again.

As typical with Tara, she was on her favorite machine, the elliptical. I talked to her and I think I somehow persuaded her that I was someone with whom she could have a nice conversation and maybe even a friendship. That was all; I thought.

When I picked up the receiver at my house and heard the words, "This is Tara...," in an accent straight out of New York , I was no less shocked, but that initial feeling gave way to a warmth in my heart reserved for the rarest of people. And we did talk. I'm not sure of everything of which we spoke, but I remember the great satisfaction I felt in speaking with someone of so much substance and, for me, wonder. A story about a spider holding her hostage to her room, me giggling like a child, has made it through untouched...I remember that to the tiniest detail. I got off the phone feeling like I could run a few laps around Prescott. And I suppose I did in my mind.

I got a phone call the next day, too. And the laps continued.

Hiking Thumb Butte at night is a favorite of mine and reserved for special occasions. I hadn't done it in probably four years, but the time was right, the company perfect. Bathed in blue moonlight, the forest was quiet and eerily beautiful, sacred really. The air redolent of vanilla, emanating from the Ponderosa Pines, was clean, fresh and a bit chilly. Our conversation ranged from Bugs Bunny to the President, but the things that weren't said spoke volumes. On the way down, I placed Tara's hand in mine and thought to myself, "I love this woman; I freaking love this woman." That's how it began.

Here Comes The Sun..It's All Right...
~George Harrison

It's late May, I walk to the south side of the Square to see Tara, but this time I don't see just Tara: I see her and her rag-tag entourage. Dave Dumoch is there, but mostly for theater. So too is a woman of impossibly impeccable posture - and lots of kids, one who comes at me with all of the intent of a battering ram and surely less grace. Donned in a do-rag and carrying around a bit of an accent that I say is "Nebraska," but is as much Nebraska as beaches and palm trees, I am somehow cast into the role of a pirate (by the assembled kids who are frantically chasing me as I joust and parry, often exclaiming arrrrrr, in truest pirate form, for which I am more than happy to play).

The sun is bright, the day warm and again I am with the woman who makes me smile every night when I go to bed, even though I do it alone. Tara is so unconventional, I think to myself. She wears a t-shirt that scream 1980s, but somehow seems perfect and perfectly timed on her. Her hair is vintage 1960s, but the the lotus flower and the butterfly adorning her shoulder and back positively scream post-y2k. The t cannot hide her incredible physique. When at first she waves, I wonder to myself if her arms are possibly bigger than mine. There is an internal struggle, but I decide that I still have her - by a hair. Everything else is a neatly arranged 108-pound package of dynamite.

And on that day that was nearly perfect, I meet B. That she is the daughter of Tara strikes me as almost wondrous. B is a veritable tower for her 7 years. Standing side by side, mom is nowhere close to a head taller than daughter. And the kid is smart. I would learn that later on, but most stunningly when, on a different day on the same south side of the Square, mom asks child to randomly select a paragraph from the Stephen King book I am reading and recite it. She misses one word - and it's a big one, too. I am stunned, but also happy that the paragraph contained no profanity, although at the time I thought it would have been funny to hear B phonetically pronounce the F-bomb.

I ask Tara if I could visit her that night - after B was asleep, of course.

Slipping into the little apartment, one of my first thoughts is how creaky the floor is. There is no sneaking in a house whose floors betray any who walk. Tara's nine pound cat, Cracker, I would soon learn, makes the floor creak as she moves restlessly about the house; hence a person of my weight causes a veritable cacophony.

But it is Tara's smile that makes me discard these thoughts and return to what has been on my mind for a week. I look at that smile and at those eyes, so full of playfulness, and I feel things that never in my life I have felt. The smile is returned and it is full of a love that is budding faster than the flowers on the ornamental purple plum trees when suddenly winter turns to spring in Ohio.

And our romance blossoms like a fragrant flower so arresting as to steal one's breath.

June is a whirlwind that has me at 29,000' for the full month. Every day I see Tara and fall further in love. I cannot put into words the feelings I embrace during those June days, but "love" seems weak and impotent in describing my affection and fealty. I am mesmerized by this woman as a man having visions of the creator. I am so in love it hurts. I am drawn to her like a man in the desert long without a quaff, suddenly seeing an oasis. And she was an oasis.

But even a beautiful desert oasis dries up in time.

And it came that by the end of June there was a seismic shift in our relationship. It read 2.5 on the Richter Scale, but it was enough to feel, if only in my heart. I was still at the height of Everest, but the ground was beginning to shift beneath me, and slowly, inexorably, I was beginning to lose purchase. Perhaps the seismic shift was a tremor that would pass, nothing more, I thought, I prayed. I prayed every night.

My prayers were to no avail as I felt Tara slipping from my grasp as though I was holding onto the edge of the mountain with waning strength and nothing below but snow and the path I had taken to get so high. I looked down at that path and thought that it was the last place I wanted to be. I wanted only to be where I was; it felt perfect.

As the warm winds of June transformed into sultry July air, I felt the descent accelerate. I don’t remember taking a step down, I was resolute in my conviction that I could last in the thin air. I believed that the impossible was indeed very possible, no matter what others told me. They were fools - they had never felt a love so pure as mine. I would overcome the obstacles. I would find a way to sustain despite the lack of oxygen, my compromised mind told me. I would try even harder.

Suddenly, it is July, and time for a long-awaited vacation.

I jump into my Honda Civic, say a sweet goodbye to Tara and make my way to the Rocky Mountains. Leaving late in the day, I arrive at the Cameron Station at 9:00 and sit down in the sultry air on a wood bench worn smooth by the thousands of people who had preceded me. With pen and paper, I begin to write. After a half hour, I drop the completed letter into the postal slot and push on into the night. The reservation is eerily quiet, the night lonely and beautiful. I think of all the wrongs foisted on the American Indians who call this barren patch of earth their home and nearly come to tears. I think how beautiful this world might be if instead of warring we came to agreement, instead of killing we compromised. I think how lucky I am to be born white, male, healthy and into a family more full of love than a Hallmark gift shop - I am of the privileged class: the white male. I mourn the plight of the people on this sacred land as well the many Africans and other peoples who on this same night will go to bed with nothing in their stomachs but emptiness. I think myself lucky as I do every night of my life.

The spires in Monument Valley rise in the moonlight like wraiths, great stone monoliths rising from the desert floor like lonely ships traveling across the ocean. I am overwhelmed by the barren magnificence of the place and decide to make it my bed. So as the miles slip away, I see a pulloff and take a quick right, turn the car off, and walk into the night with only a sleeping bag and a head-mounted light. Crawling over the barbed wire fence, I walk toward a stone tower as though it is calling me, stopping suddenly when the ground opens up to become a smooth light brown clay bed big enough to accommodate my body. Then I lie down and smile as I take in the view. It is a good day. I close my eyes and sleep with the ants, beetles, scorpions and snakes that call this lonely place home. We make a truce that night and both parties live up to it.

The sun cresting over the horizon, wakens me and, although still very tired, I stuff my blue makeshift bed into its tiny holder and slip back to my car. Today is a good day to drive - warm and clear again - and I want to be in the mountains by nightfall, at latest.

The Utah desert blurs by with electrical rapidity, my mind occupied by the colors, the scents and my waking thoughts, so many devoted to Tara.

Moab comes at me out of nowhere, like it was moving and I remaining motionless. Here I make my first stop of the day. My food is taken in ravenously, crudely, devoured as quick as I can swallow, no desire to follow the rules of manners. Then another letter is hand written, dropped in the mail slot, and the car is moving again, Moab just as suddenly in the rear view mirror.

The Rocky Mountains await. And already I have a chosen destination. Situated at 10,152', Leadville claims the prize as the "highest town in Colorado (and the whole United States)", affectionately known as the "Two Mile High City," although it is clearly more town than city, notwithstanding the fact that a century ago it was Colorado's second most populous municipality.

And as the sun threatens to wink behind the mighty mountains, I find a spot to rest for the night. I pull out my brilliantly pink tent, set it up and walk around looking at the foreign landscape as though I am a traveler from another world. It is so green, so lush, so perfectly different than Prescott, AZ. I breath in the view for several hours, write another letter, put it in a stamped envelope, and take my bed inside the little pink shelter. Light rain and a roaring stream keep the sacred place from being a din of silence. My eyes close, and I say goodbye to the world for another night.

The morning comes too early, mostly because I am focused on climbing Mt. Elbert soon after I awake. I am feeling a little haggard, but it does not dim my enthusiasm at climbing one of the taller peaks in the lower 48. This new adventure has my adrenaline on overdrive and as I drive into Leadville I look to the south hoping to see Elbert, but there are so many peaks, all very close in height - this is the very epicenter of Colorado's mountain country - that it is impossible to guess which is which.

I content myself with a huge breakfast at a hotel that can't be a day under 150 years old. With stomach full, I prepare further my mind for a difficult day.

Somewhere out of town and towards the giants, I stop at a small sports shop and buy a couple of one-dollar rain jackets as well as a stocking cap. The lady at the counter, used to foolish hikers, warns me that it is far too late in the day to do what I plan to do. The thunderheads have already built up and Thor's roar already breaks the silence of my thoughts. I listen to her, but I don't really listen: I am set on hiking the mountain no matter the weather. I have always had that risk-taking side of me that most people would call sheer foolishness.

The following day it would be on full display when I find myself on a sandstone ledge that is no wider than a forgotten trail and far more dangerous. I have to get to the other side, so I take the chance, moving across the 50 feet slower than the sun moving across the sky. I look down from my eroding perch and calculate my odds of a serious injury or death at about 30%. The angle of the drop is about 65 degrees, and I wonder, if I fall, will I be able to stay with my legs forward, merely tearing a lot of skin off my body or, more likely, going into a free tumble where chances for life-threatening injury increase exponentially. These thoughts go through my mind as I move inch by inch across the crumbling sandstone. Folly? I'm an expert at it.

Elbert is a monster that looms above me, foreboding skies begging me to rethink my choice. I forgo common sense and start my hike. However, not twenty minutes into my hike, I find someone as reckless as me, and we work toward the summit together. All the while a light rain is coming down, thunder is booming, and hikers are heading down as we move up. Many warns are given, none are heeded.

And two and one-half hours later, we are at the top.

On that July day I look with wonder, turning about 360 degrees, breathing in the views, basking in the moment. The lightning like cold blue death, is striking to the immediate west, but like any mountaineer, I seek not to return. I have waited all my life to reach this height, have worked all my life with this singular goal in mind, and the thought of descending is last on my mind, no matter the hypoxia slowly, inexorably creeping up on me, making my thoughts less clear to me.

I am on my Mt. Everest in more ways then one. I have everything I have hoped in a woman, and I have just reached the highest summit I have ever attempted. The symmetry is perfect and it is not lost on me. But I also realize that Tara is slipping from me just as I know that the height I am at is for but a fleeting moment. I wonder if both fates are already ordained. I climb down with these thoughts settling in the back of my mind.

Two days later, I greet Tara at the Denver International Airport, her smile beaming like sunshine. We have five days together - days in which we can do anything we please - before we both need to return to Prescott.

And it turns out that, like Mt. Elbert, this is the very height of our relationship. Tara is removed from Prescott and all the concerns that keep her mind continuously busy when there. She is enchanting like an elixir. And I am completely under her spell.

Five days. Five of the best days of my life. I think back even now as I write and smile at how perfectly wonderful those days, those moments, were. My heart, my head, my soul, were full of love. I never wanted it to end.

All Things Must Pass
~George Harrison

The slippage that had started before I left for Colorado, returned when we returned. However, this time the seismograph was sending out readings in the fours and fives. I don't know what happened to my footing, but no matter how I tried I could not find a place that was not so slick that soon I was again sliding further downward. The movement downward was inexorable, like the passing of time; there was nothing I could do.

But I tried.

I begged the mountain that I might be able to stay at its heights, but the mountain was loath to listen to my entreatments. The mountain had its own plans for me: I would be like all other hikers before and after - I would return from whence I came. There would be no mercy in this. Mother Nature is so much like love - they are both whimsical.

The rapidity of the fall was staggering. By August I was so far down that the top could no longer be seen. I squinted to catch that gorgeous view, those unbelievable heights, but all was hidden from me...except the path to the place I had come from way back in May. I looked at that path and the well-worn grass at the bottom and I wished, pleaded, begged that I might find the inner strength to begin another ascent. I needed the cooperation of the mountain, though, and fierce storms were brewing at the top, placing a fresh layer of snow and frost on the place I had once been. Everest has a small time window, measured in days, when the storms take a brief respite, for hikers to breach the summit. My time was over.

And as the first frosts of the year came, I found myself walking a path nearly flat. Behind me the mountain spread out and up, thousands of feet of unimaginable love. I turned around and continued my walk to the bottom. Often I was given a push, but it was little matter at that point. I saw the worn grass, and I headed toward it.

In the middle of October, Tara and I broke up.

Isn't It A Pity
~George Harrison

Tara and I tried to climb Everest three more times, each time coming up shorter and shorter of our destination. I felt her will break as so often happens when hikers have reached the summit and try a second time - they can never muster the strength that once oozed out of them like sweet honey from the hive.

And on our fourth breakup, I broke too. I looked back at the mighty mountain with great reverence, but as a part of my history. I had to be satisfied with the amazing things I had done and felt with Tara, for that was all that was left...memories. I realized finally that all else was futility.

I turned from the mountain and felt the soft grass beneath my feet and thought it not so bad. As days turned to weeks the worn, green surface felt more and more familiar, and more wonderful. I embraced the grass, the life that I have been given. I think every day how lucky I am that I am Randee, a nice guy who happened to lose in love. I did not lose anything so vital as my health, though - and that is what's really important.

A funny thing happened on the way to finishing this (now something like six months in the making). I met a wonderful woman. Her name is Yvonne.

And I am climbing again!


It is good. It is enough.
~Black Elk of the Lakota Sioux

The Gravity Effect

Remember, back in the seventies, when geeks of every stripe would rent out a huge warehouse and build their domino fun machines? Start at domino #1 with the Channel 5 news cameras rolling, push it forward, and for the next few minutes millions of dominoes would tumble in succession in a chain that snaked in labyrinthine patterns. The dominoes would climb stairs in elaborate runs, fall upwards on Hot Wheels tracking, ring bells and do everything but feed the baby. And for that minute or five, those pocket protector heroes saw their avocation become spectacle. Andy Warhol was somewhere smiling his Andy Warhol smile. The domino lovers united in a moment of sheer ecstasy.

But for all the work, thousands of hours of laborious placing of one tile in front of the next, there was always the threat of the whole thing coming down with the puff of a careless breath. As a matter of fact, in a notorious moment in the history of domino record setting, the Channel 5 guy actually dropped his notes from the second floor, setting off a chain reaction that ruined a run destined for the Guinness Book of World Records. It was painful to watch on the six o' clock news even if one wasn't vested in the project.  For the dominophiles, the moment must have occurred in slow, painful motion.  When those papers made contact with the innocent dominoes below, the resulting chain reaction must have felt worse than passing a kidney stone.

It seems an incredibly painstaking process for five minutes of fame, but some among us like to build with the singular purpose of undoing the creations thence wrought.  Perhaps it is a part of the DNA coding of humanity: build to destroy - our insatiable appetite for wars and horrific stories on the evening news support a build-to-destroy hypothesis.

We live in a precarious world, each day as uncertain as the last, wondering what tomorrow and all the tomorrows beyond will place on our table.


In 1977, housing prices started to rise.  If one were to look at a median price chart, this is the point, or very near to the moment, when the growth curve began to amplify.  Suddenly, those ubiquitous ranch homes in ubiquitous subdevelopments were increasing in price faster than hard-to-find Beatles collectibles.  The slope of the curve continued to rise throughout the remainder of the century, creating a lazy exponential growth model.  Then, in the year 2000, the housing market began a six-year meteoric rise, resembling the Apollo 11's takeoff from Cape Canaveral.  By 2006, the price of the typical 3-bedroom, 2-bath had doubled.  What was behind this?

Think of the domino hobbyist, but one with greed that exceeds capacity to think.  He plies his trade for say eight months, then he sees that he is nearly completed just as his whole creation begins to teeter.  He should be placing dams and blocks here and there to make sure the whole thing doesn't come crashing down like a house of cards, but there is more interesting work to do - keep building.  So, he goes about nervously working on the last few constructs, the coup de grace as it were.  He becomes a Vegas gambler with a fix; the craps tables.  If he is lucky, he will not have to start over in ten different places.  However, luck is something one is better off not relying on.

Throughout the new millennium, people were in a home-buying and selling frenzy.  Ed, the guy next door, suddenly owned three homes while also owning a credit score south of 500.  Janice down the street just sold her home for thrice her buying price while only living in it ten years.  It was a speculator's greatest dream come to life.   The mortgage industry had seen to this by selling sub-primes to people who also didn't have a downpayment, and sometimes even a job. 

But then there was no reason to worry about trifling matters such as FICO scores and whether a potential buyer could hold a job.  Things were good in the land of milk and honey; things were so good in fact that the US regulatory arms turned a collective blind eye to the banks, to Wall Street, to any money-making entity that had means to turn a profit from a cheaply disguised Ponzi Scheme.  Bernie Madoff, he of the half billion dollar thievery, was by no means anything but a symptom of something far bigger, far more nefarious.

The home foreclosure crisis followed closely, unmooring the little remaining confidence the consumer had as the Administration's spokespeople spoke and said nothing at the same time. Seemingly overnight, the home that was worth 120k was now equivalent to the value of a double-wide with fancy aluminum siding. It became apparent that the foundations upon which the G W Bush and Friends' economy had been poured were fragile and laying on a major fault line. The storm was in full cycle, a funnel cloud siphoning down, and below lay the proverbial trailer court.

That trailer court was laid waste by the winds and the energy cycling inside.

All the while, the George W Bush administration saw fit to start wars on two fronts: one in Afghanistan (ostensibly to bring down al-Queda and Osama bin-Laden) and another in Iraq.  The Iraq war's purpose changed with the wind.  One moment it was weapons of mass destruction, the next it was the fear of Saddam Hussein and the yoke of tyranny he held over his people, the next that darn yellow cake uranium that the Iraq regime was stockpiling in order to create a nuclear weapon with "USA" stamped on its side.  The reasons changed like the mood of a teenager going through puberty, but the desire to go to war for at best dubious reasons never wavered.  War with Iraq was as inevitable as the sun setting in the west.  And the American people: they went along for the ride like a dog with his head out the window of a Chevy Tahoe, slobbering uncontrollably, a huge doggy grin welcoming passers by.  A full 85% of Americans polled supported the ouster of Saddam and his regime regardless of the cost of American lives and dollars.  It seems that we can never turn down a good war; our credulity is a fountain without end.

Then the big banks - names like AIG, Bear-Sterns and Morgan-Stanley - began to teeter, their profits disappearing in a puff of smoke. Red ink was pouring out of an open, festering wound faster than infusions of life-giving cash could arrive to stanch the flow. Financial institutions, which were making money faster than the Treasury Department could weave the cotton and stamp it only sixteen months ago, were suddenly on life support, dying the slow death of a smoker now in the oncology ward, rasping for air in the brilliantly rich environs of an oxygen tent.

A second domino had fallen.

Dominoes were falling forward, backward, up and down, but none of this spectacle had been planned - so unlike the domino hobbyists and their meticulous methods. It was as if 500 separate people initiated the tumbling sequence from 500 different places with no idea what the person behind or in front was doing. Our economy had become chaos and the world held its breath. What would come next? Was a second Great Depression on the horizon? It looked at that singular moment like a pretty good bet.

Luck would have it that the presidential election was just around the corner and the Democrats were fielding a breath of fresh air.  Then again, Gary, Indiana felt like a breath of fresh air as America staggered like some tomato can fighting against Muhammed Ali.  We were suffering from collective punch drunkenness; the financial debauchery had been occurring for years.  So we did what Americans do best when the poop hits the fan.  We voted for the other party.  It didn't hurt that the Republicans foisted up John McCain, a man who never met a war he didn't like, actually love (think, "bomb, bomb, bomb…bomb, bomb Iran" John).  His running mate was charismatic when scripted, but seemed to have little more than a reptilian brain when the teleprompter was turned off.  Her interview with Katie Couric was a train wreck in slow motion.

And so the election was gift wrapped with adorable bows, by the Republican party, when November rolled around.  And Barack Obama was one hell of an orator, no matter your politics.

The fall and winter of late 2008 was as dreary as Seattle in the same period.  But instead of a slow, steady drizzle, it was a torrent of dominos falling in a deluge.

The stock market followed the rest of the economy and did its best impression of the tumbling domino, shedding 7,000 points and trillions of dollars of worth in that winter of our discontent.  Along the way, there were drops of nearly 1,000 points, followed by gains half again as much.  Two steps backward and one forward was a recipe for even more financial stress.

The hits kept coming through the Spring of 2009.

Then we hit rock bottom.  All the thousands, perhaps millions, of dominos had crashed aside from a few that were misplaced.  We looked around and saw that our perilous work was for naught.  Our fragile domino empire was indeed constructed of dominos, and dominos are not the stuff of empires.  Foolish that we should have thought different.

Our capacity to delude ourselves is sometimes only exceeded by the evil twins or our nature: avarice and hubris.


It is the late fall of 2014, and I look back from time to time at the house we built, just like one of the three pigs, though replete with dominos instead of straw.  There is much to remember and learn, but I'm afraid we are doing little of either.  Instead, we have begun the reconstruction of our dream house - and again it's on a fault line on an oft-flooded coastal area, protected from neither.  We are builders; we are destroyers.  Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds: J Robert Oppenheimer was speaking of himself, but could have been generalizing all the human race.

Beware the Black Widow

So beautiful, wondrous and full of care
she invites you into her waiting lair.

You follow, never to hesitate
for what happens to those who wait?

They know not what could have been
had they been so brave as to come in.

And we seek to know, not be late
but the Black Widow, salacious, wants only to mate.

And when it is done, to masticate.
For you are its dinner, how it will sate
from the moment you enter it is your fate
with darkness and death you have a date.

When all is complete, you thrown from the lair
whispers will haunt you from everywhere.
How it was your fault, how you were the fool
to think you might survive against one so cool.

You are the loser, there is no doubt
it is what being the male is all about...
When you meet the Black Widow.



The spider, so fine in its cloak of black
has claimed one more victim; it does not lack.
It now awaits, soon to attack...another male.

Be ever aware, you must heed the signs
the Black Widow may want you, it always pines...

To mate, to kill, then make you rumor
In death and pain it finds its humor.

Letter to Nicole Hale on the Death of Brian G

Early January, 2005:

Dear Nicole,

On Wednesday, the heavens opened up and began to cry. My tears, the tears of so many, mirror the skies.  We all cry for what is no more; we cry for a man who was so incredibly beautiful.  We also cry for those who knew Brian as you did.  These are the tears of people who know what a powerful and wonderful soul he was, and what he must have meant to his close friends. They are also the tears of those who but wish that they could have known Brian so well as you.  For you are the lucky one here; you were a part of Brian’s heart.  This is your gift Nicole.

I have thought often of you since that day when a storm passed over Prescott and over our hearts. Nicole, I cannot guess your hurt, nor can I pretend to fully understand your suffering.  But I feel with all my heart that the storm within will pass by in its time and you will find again the things that make you like no person I have ever met.  Because you are everything that a man, a woman, can be.  You have found the secret to inner beauty, and it flowers all about you. 

You are a shining smile.   You are a friendly word when one is needed.  You are a hug for a weary traveler.  You are light; you are goodness.

Nicole, I was your teacher for two years, but I find more and more that I am actually the student and you the teacher.  Today, I paid for the rest of a lady’s groceries when she found that she didn’t have the money.  And I felt as though I were paying homage to you and Brian.  I bought flowers for friends.  It felt like the best way to honor your friendship.  Many little things I did today to bring me closer to your beauty. I hope that I can attain but a shadow of it. You shine like the sun on a crisp autumn morning. Your light brings tears to my eyes.

Dear Nicole, your gift is your link to Brian.  You both knew inner beauty and spread it like desert flowers blossoming on March mornings.  I will pray for you tonight that you may overcome your great loss. I will also pray for me tonight, that I might become more perfect, more like you.

Namaste,

Randee Dermer

The Boot Race

Memories from July 6, 2004

It's a hot day, but nothing like last year when the winds felt like dragon's breath. Five minutes before the race begins, my mouth is as dry as the summer air. I ask the person behind me if I might have a drink of his water, promising not to mouth the rim. He obligingly hands me the bottle, and I swallow heartily. My heart has begun to pound a torrid rhythm as I watch the heats flash across the hard, black, unforgiving pavement. I think inwardly that there is no way that I can hope to keep up with these people - they're way too fast. I ask for another drink, promising that this will be the last. Seeds of doubt creep into my mind like plants emerging from the ground after the first monsoons have soaked the hard desert scrabble. My heart jolts a little faster. Knots of worry ball in my thighs like charlie horses and my legs ache like I've already ran a mile. The announcer asks the next group to move to the starting tape.

Here we go, I think to myself as I move to the line. My breath is coming in short, hungry gulps as I gauge the 100 yards in front of me. I look to my left, to my right, to assess the competition. It does not look like as strong a field as last year when I came in third. There are a lot of people I know that I can beat having never raced them before. I do have some advantages after all, not the least of which is my prodigious work ethic; I train hard for this event. And I'm not exactly slow either; part of the genetic material given by my parents includes a coding for being able to really get the legs flying. I've always been fast, I've just never tested that statement in a mono y mono competition - until last year, that is.

I visualize last year's event as a prelude to what is about to happen. Last year I had put in so much time and effort that my confidence was bordering on hubris. I knew that I was prepared as I pulled the thick leather boots over my feet, making sure that they slipped in just right, then strapping the leather tight to my legs with every do-it-yourselfer's panacea - duct tape. I tore across the 100 meters of pavement in wicked speed, running neck-and-neck with someone to my right all the way to the finish. I had come in third, but second was so close that the judges didn’t know who to crown. It finally came down to asking the assembled masses. In a surreal two minutes, I watched as the crowd argued over who it was that had crossed the line second. I ended up with the third place trophy, but it was one of the most exhilarating experiences of my adult life. That day I smiled from the moment the race ended until I went to bed. I was probably still smiling then. First place? That went to a man who comes up from Tucson every year; he's in a league of his own, eating up the pavement with giant strides that make mine look like a baby's first, hesitant steps. He blew away the field by some 7 yards.

Thirty seconds until race time, the judge announces. My mind is a flurry of activity, my mouth like parchment. I drop into a 100 meter racer's stance, low to the ground with the left and right feet separated by a full yard. All of the other runners take a more conventional upright stance.

ON YOUR MARK - my hands are on the tape line, legs at the ready. GET SET - my body tightens like a bow string, ready to be plucked. BANG - the gun fires and we all break from the blocks. I fire out like a steam catapult, but slip just enough on the smooth surface to lose my advantage. At twenty yards I have gained back what was lost and am cruising along at full clip. The race, I already see, is a two-man event between me and the man from Tucson. But again, he is mowing through the course with unlikely grace for a man so tall. At forty yards I know that, barring a muscle pull, this is a race for second.


With thirty yards left, I begin to tire. A year ago I gained speed throughout the race, all the way to the finish line. This year, with both teaching and taking a class, my condition is not nearly so honed. There is a hitch in my giddy-up that is barely perceptible to anyone but me. It is a testament to the remarkable condition I was in last year. Then I make a fatal error, looking back to assess my chances. Fortunately, no one is even close. With twenty yards left I know that second place is assured. Ahead of me is the man from Tucson whose stride seemingly chews up the pavement in big swatches.

I cross the finish line, much more tired than last year, and not nearly as pleased. What could I have done had I been in the condition that I was last year I think as I slow down. Second place is not so bad though, especially considering the circumstances.

It's a full year until I'll run again. The race is always a springboard for the following year, a shot of mind adrenaline that will hold and push me. One year. What is one year? I'll be a year older? There will be new competition next year, especially considering the fact that I showed obvious weakness. But they have no idea the person I am.

I will not be weak next year. I will work harder than ever before. I will try to beat the man from Tucson through sheer will and determination. It's possible; Frazier beat Ali in his prime. I can do it.

This is my promise.

Let It Be

When I find myself in times of trouble, mother Mary comes to me, speaking words of wisdom, let it be.

Just over three years ago, a magical moment occurred in my life. Sometimes, even now, I think that the moment wasn't so much magic as miracle.

After playing the part of a single man, sometimes rather poorly, and oftentimes begrudgingly, an apparition appeared and all that ever was disappeared in an hour-long hike of Thumb Butte. The angst and palpable fear - fear borne on the wings of the conclusion that I would never experience true love - was lifted in that sixty minutes.

True love is so raw and powerful that to experience it is to never question its existence or its overwhelming potential to transform a person into someone, something, he or she had never been acquainted with nor aware was hidden deep in the recesses of his or her feelings. It is an electrical storm, alive with the wonder of lightning and the sound of thunder, that turns the barren desert into a carpet of gold. It is an experience that turns everything a brighter shade of beautiful.

It is a dream that happens to too few of us.

But it happened to me.

And in my hour of darkness she is standing right in front of me, speaking words of wisdom, let it be.

My hour of darkness lasted twelve long years, from the moment I was divorced until that warm May evening when we hiked Thumb Butte. Yet, through all of that time, she was standing right in front of me. All those years at the YMCA when I sought to gain strength, strength of mind and body, she was standing right in front of me.

I just didn't know it.

We became one.

Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be. Whisper words of wisdom, let it be.

I let it be everything that I could open my heart to. I let it be secret trysts at a little apartment whose floor creaked like it came straight out of Hollywood's haunted house department. I let it be wonderful conversations that spanned the gamut, from the politics of the election to the politics of love. I let it be a sublime vacation to Colorado, where our love rose higher than the surrounding snow-capped peaks. I let it be thinking of her with the warmest smile when sleep was overtaking me. I let it be a part of my being.

I let it be.

And when the broken-hearted people living in the world agree, there will be an answer, let it be. 

To the wind I begged that I might not be blown forever, but rather be like a seed, to land in the fecund earth, be buried and to grow again.  And the wind and the rain answered my entreaties, and I was set free from the past and put on a new course - to rise from the mundane and blossom.  My body and soul became one and flowered joyously.

I had found an answer.

For though they may be parted, there is still a chance that they will see, there will be an answer, let it be.

Just as night becomes day and mountains return to dust, everything is ephemeral, it is but a dream whose awaking comes at a time unknown.   And by the time the crisp of early October was settling into the earth the shock of seeing something so beautiful disappear was not so great, but rather somehow expected.  We all deal with are demons in different ways, and this was hers.
t, but rather somehow expected.  We all deal with are demons in different ways, and this was hers.

I cannot say that I was overwhelmed with grief, for this was the first time in my life that I had given all that I could give, and I think that sated a heart hungry for completeness.  I was prepared to move on and smile at what had been.

The human animal is eminently adaptable.

Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be.  There will be an answer, let it be.  Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be.  Whisper words of wisdom, let it be.  Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be.  Whisper words of wisdom, let it be.

I moved on with my life.  It was the best wisdom I could muster.

And I had a lot of fun times along the way.

And when the night is cloudy there is still a light that shines on me.  Shine until tomorrow, let it be.

The Beatles are an amazing story, more spell-binding and unimaginable than fiction.  That four young men should come together and create a perfect musical synergy, out of all of the possible permutations and combination of people that compose the infinite string of humanity is equal to the chance of a planet forming at the perfect distance from a its mother star, form an atmosphere, contain an abundance of water, and slowly evolve into lush wildernesses, stark deserts, vast oceans and a sea of humanity.   

My mind's eye goes back to our home at 2029 Ave I, in Scottsbluff, Nebraska.  As a child, I shared a room, and a bunk (the top) with all three of my brothers at one time or another.  The room was adorned with many posters, but the one(s) that lasted the many changes in wall decor throughout my youth were the four minis - Paul, John, George and Ringo - the famous shots from the White Album.  They were haunting and beautiful.  George with eyes of obsidian, Ringo and the lacy collar.  Paul with stubbly beard.  And John, so white as to appear unhealthy - or angelic.  I often looked into those faces and pondered what they were thinking. 

They took me through my childhood, arriving on the scene at the same time that my parents added yet another Dermer to the growing tribe and ushering me into the 1970s.  By the time the Beatles broke up, I was working on my eighth year of being a general pest to my older brothers and sisters (and, more importantly, my parents).  

So when I was faced with being single again, I turned not so much to my friends in Prescott, but rather inward, to those four faces and the music that was their contribution to the world.  How many times have I listened to A Day In the Life?  I would like to say more times than I have awoken to a new morning, but that surely can't be true.  Yet the music is as fresh now as twenty years ago and forty-five years ago.  

 I wake up to the sound of music, Mother Mary comes to me. 

Above the din of the many Dermer's talking, yelling, and running across the upstairs floor, I   woke up to the sound of music - a piece of Americana now.  Spinning at thirty-three revolutions per minute and topped with a platter of black, warped plastic, the record player brought music to life.  I used to watch those platters wobble on their axes as music poured forth from two tinny, fake-wood speakers.  The sound was crude with a premium on scratches, something unfathomable in the age of the MP3.  Yet somehow that made it even more precious, beautiful and real.

Simon and Garfunkel,  Arlo Guthrie, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Country Joe and the Fish, The Rolling Stones and all things hippie poured forth from those crappy little speakers, and it sounded to my young ears like manna from heaven.  My older siblings had indoctrinated me into the world of music. 

I would slowly drop the needle onto the record's surface, right before the song I wanted to hear.  You could tell where songs were separated by the fact that that single groove that wound inextricably inward would have small regions where there was no music etched onto the vinyl, making it look different, cleaner.  The grooves looked like concentric circles, but of course a record is composed of only two grooves: one on each side

With my kid dexterity, oftentimes the landing was like a car in a movie chase scene, after the speeding vehicle topped a rise.  The needle would bounce up and down creating a cacophony of sound, its internal "shocks" bottoming out.  But it got me to where I wanted to go, even if the record and its player were the worse for it.

Just like those movie chase scenes, I wanted to escape, but my escape was into a wall of sound that took me to my inner thoughts and my innate happiness. 

My favorite all those years ago: Let It Be.

It had special meaning on those evenings two-plus years ago, when the days were growing shorter, the nights longer.  It lent me strength.

Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.  Let it be, let it be, let it be, yeah, let it be.  There will be an answer, let it be.  Let it be, let it be, let it be, yeah, let it be. 

We got together again, but magic only strikes once, and that if you are lucky.  Try as we might, there was no way to get back to our secret garden.  We were cast out just as Adam and Eve were from their Eden. 

Try as I might, I could never find the key to the lock to the dream to the garden to the miracle.  

Whisper words of wisdom, let it be.

All things must pass, as George Harrison so famously wrote about his time with The Beatles.

And so it was.

I awoke one day from the dream that was so much like fantasy that to grip it was to try to hold sand with a sieve.   I awoke one day from a dogmatic slumber that had arrested me for nearly three years.  The seedling that had grown into a mighty oak tree was, at its heart, still an infinitesimally small part of the earth from whence it came.  Just as the smallest of creatures must pass, so too must the mightiest. And the seed returned to the earth.  Or did it ever leave?  That I will never know.

And on a cold evening in January I said goodbye to a dream.  I turned my back on a seed that I had cultivated with the greatest of care.  I said goodbye forever.

I landed back to the place that I hoped to never see again, but saw coming as surely as death comes to all who live.  I drove home that night, my car cutting through the crisp air, and never looked back, aside then to reminisce and draw an inward smile.

For though I had lost at love I think that Alfred, Lord Tennyson was right when he famously penned, "Tis better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all."

Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be.  There will be an answer, let it be.

The haunting piano starts off the score with a somber yet soaring tonic chord intro.  I am moved to dichotomous emotions: melancholia and great hope.  Like a siren, Paul layers his vocals on top of the piano score.   Together they form a sound that is instantly memorable.  Paul's words seem to be a prayer - the rest of the band harmonizing in the background add to the feeling that this is a spiritual dirge -  that all that has passed will be forgiven and that in that forgiveness there will be redemption and, ultimately, growth of the spirit.   Then Ringo begins a soft percussive echo.  And as the Let It Be transforms from an almost gospel-inspired lament to a passion-driven rock' n' roll song, Ringo and George place more urgency in their respective spheres.  Yet, there is still the haunting gospel note as John emerges with a mournful organ score that adds yet another layer of grace.   

The drums come in more heavy, though never bombastic, and George's elegant guitar licks beg me to fall into the music, which I readily do.  The song builds and builds in 4:04 of perfect musical craftsmanship.  But it is not until George rips into a soaring solo, squeezing out every ounce of emotion from his six-string that we hear the Beatles at their complete greatness.  The guitar cries and rejoices with each searing note.  Paul's voice echoes this as, like George's Gibson SG, it becomes increasingly impassioned and emotion-filled.  Following the crescendo, Paul, George, Ringo and John sustain the intensity at a level that is never reached again in their careers.  They were masters and this is their opus and each note begs to be listened to, to be absorbed. 
Let It Be would be the final single the Beatles would release while still together.