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
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