Aug 24, 2006
Everybody tells you, but I guess like most things, you dont trully understand, much less appreciate them until you live them yourself. This could be said of the two things that are happening to me right this moment. hiking the rockies, and fathering a kid.
I can imagine, both are quite similar. You look up and see a steep incline. De Pinga! you say, and it looks like a long way ahead that will never end - and well, I can't really talk about kids, but as far as mountains is concerned, you look down, at your feet - lest you step on a rotten branch or a loose stone, and take it one step at a time. I look at my canteen. I've got 24 oz of water. I can still last two days and refill at the creek 10 miles up.
The trip just started. We took the trail head today and crossed some of the most hostile lands Ive ever seen in my life. the path, riddled with old cut off logs, pine, I think, turned grey due to the rain and the sun. The trail, dusty and every twenty paces or so you see a burrow in the ground, and I know not what animal lives in it, and I do not care to find out.
Hiking is a strange experience. Its not about the scenery as most people would beleive. As it turns out,the majority of times, your eyes will be no more than five paces ahead of your feet. But it is a deeply introverted experience...
yes, every once in a while you look up and you see a breathtaking scenery, a secret view, a wooden bridge, a clear creek, a foggy forest. But the majority of time you spend looking down at the road, with ample time to yourself and your thoughts... and during these times, which is most of them, I could hear your steps behind me.
It is quite likey due to being irredemably in love with you, "tu fantasma" tracks behind and follows me everywhere. Reminding me at every moment of silence that she's two steps away. And I thought of you and of the things that you and I lived through. And specially how different my life turned out just because on a whim I decided to stop by a friends house a beach day six years ago. How my life was inevitably changed by that desicion. I think of New Orleans and I notice how sometimes that comes to my mind my head cocks to the left quickly and I click my tongue, and yet other times I think of sun, an iron fence a bronze plaque and a vintage bike and I smile... so many lost cities...
I think of you and the two lives you've started. Two little new breaths of air in this world, two little fresh smiles to this world, something I know nothing about, and I think how I'm about to do the same. I think of him or her. What will his/her life be like? What can I do to keep him/her from making a fool of his/herself as I've made? How can I be there, or more importantly, how can I prepare someone so I dont need to be there at all times. One day, I'll be in my 50's and he or she will be in his early 20's, and he too will decide to drop unnanounced by a friends house and and be blown away by someone who's taking a lesson, or dropping a book, or passing by ... and on that day, will that little person that now barely takes shape... who's brain hasnt even fired yet as I cross the mountains of Colorado ... will he or she have the quickness of thought and the clear vision to act intelligently where his/her father acted so blindly?
I hope so.
however turns out, I know his name will be Richard M.
however turns out, I know her name will be Rowan E.
"the mountains are calling, and I must go" -John Muir
R
p.s. when you come visit me, leave me a little breath of air. kind of walking into a room and smelling the scent of someone who's been there but now is gone... a single letter, "M" will carry me a long way.... I leave it up to you
